tajjuk

Their front 3 looks dangerous but the rest of that team, not so much, their best centre back is playing left wing back.

We wont sell 14 players. I suspect Ralph will want to have a look at Carrillo and Boufal, I personally feel Boufal might be able to become an asset for us under Ralph, I am not sure Carrillo is mobile enough though for Ralph's systems, I think his 'big guy' up front is usually pretty quick as well. Also can't see Long going anywhere, I think Ralph likes him and would want him there are that option to bring on in games. Unless Long wants to leave for more football and asks to leave, he'll stay. Plus I believe he is well liked in the dressing room. I think definite one going out are - Cedric, Ralph has seen him, seems he wasn't committed, I am sure a Spanish or Italian club will pay a decent enough fee for him. Hoedt, completely burnt his bridges, his ego seems way above his ability to ever allow him to improve, I think he has the ingredients to be a good centre-back but needs a big mentality change. Issue might be finding someone to take him though, he's hardly been good for Celta. Austin, think he wants first team football and knows hes already down the pecking order, and probably will drop further if we get another striker. Should be a decent amount of Championship clubs willing to buy him I reckon, though we might have to subsidise some wages. Still reckon we could probably get as much as like £10 million for him though. Clasie, year on his deal, says he doesn't want to play for us again, hasn't played for us for two years, think we'll let him go cheap to dutch club, might squeeze £5 million out of someone, but more likely we let him go for free to get him off the wage bill. Beyond those 4 I don't think you can say for certain, Forster is tough to shift cos of wages, no one is going to pay £50-60k a week for a back up so he has to find a first team slot somewhere, not a huge amount of those about. People talking in the other thread that McCarthy might be a more sellable asset, No.2 to some of the big boys and provides a homegrown player for European competitions. If we can raise like £20-30 million in sales, shift £250k a week of the wages, that should give plenty of room to go out and get 3-4 quality players, could see us spending like maybe another £50-60 million if we manage that.

Agree, think a lot less of him now, how anyone still agrees with such an obvious wrong decision and the mess its caused is beyond me. Especially aligning yourself with that complete joker Farage who is just doing this whole thing to earn more cash and because his miserable face had fallen out of the limelight.

Can't see it, not even sure he'd improve us. Seems more like a West Ham type signing.

Burnley that last year finished 7th with pretty much the same squad? Burnley only really struggled because the Europa league games screwed them over at the start. They have shown very clearly that despite them being a horrible football side they are clearly an effective one and will end up well clear of relegation. I mean they have just 1 point less than Bournemouth now and only 3 less than a West Ham team that had over £100 million spent on it. Who'd have also thought that having a key player out for half a season might impact a team. As Trousers said, the squad have proven in performances, point earned and the teams they have beaten that they are good enough for top 10 in the league this year, if we had Ralph all year we would be top 10 right now, I am certain of that, Hughes was and is just a terrible manager who completely mismanaged this team. SO to claim we need serious investment to achieve levels we are already performing at is just flat out wrong. Doesn't then mean that we shouldn't try to improve the squad, add depth and try to push as high as we can.

The first game against Cardiff is irrelevant, he'd barely been there and the 2nd one they parked the bus for 90 minutes showing zero ambition and fluked a set piece, that pretty much happens to every club, Pulis literally made a career of parking the bus and fluking wins from set pieces, but his horrible clubs got relegated as will Cardiff. I mean City got beaten 3-2 at home by Palace, who are not very good, they are still probably one of the greatest teams in league history. Simple fact is under Ralph we have performed as a top 10 side, and that is with one of our best midfielders injured for most of the time, our best left back injured for a good chunk as well and at times no fit strikers. It's hardly a fluke, we have performed like that for half a season pretty much, we have had some ups and downs, so I can't really see how over a whole season we wouldn't perform similarly or not even better if key players like Bertrand and Lemina are fit.

Its the same with Man Utd fans who used to complain about Chelsea, its like they forget their teams have spent hundreds of millions to be successful and no one else is allowed to do it. Whoever wins the title, they will have bought it, Liverpool's spend over the last 3-4 seasons is like over £500 million ffs.

Again not its not, the squad has proven under Ralph that they are easily as good as other 7-10th place teams. I mean we just beat Wolves and comfortably outplayed Watford at their own ground and should have won, those are pretty much the two best teams outside the top 6, so to claim we are not a good team is just false.

Not really. though not that we can necessarily buy £30 - 40 million players, but it means players he can mould, he doesn't want bad habits that he can't iron out he wants young players who he can improve and tailor to his system and style. No real difference to what Bournemouth try to do, Howe pretty much looks for the same, talent he can mould and improve with lots of work on the training pitch. I doubt we will buy any player over the age of about 24 in the summer.

There are only 3 players in the whole league who have at least 10 goals and 10 assists, 2 play for city, and the other is Hazard. Zaha is one of the best players outside the top 6 and he only has 9 goals and 3 assists and he pretty much plays up front for Palace most of the time. Jota has 8 goals 4 assists, again one of the most effective attackers outside the top 6. Redmond only has 5 goals 3 assists in the league and hes pretty much the first name on our team sheet. 3 goals 3 assists in 23 games for a relegation threatened team is pretty good, over a full season that would be about 5 and 5, which would put him as our most effective attacker. So he'd barely have to do much more than that to have as many goal contributions as the best players outside the top 6 who have at best about 12-15 goals/assists. Hopefully he can come back, impress Ralph and he might become a real asset for us. As someone above said he reminds me a lot of Delofeu, who is finally contributing more consistently rather than just showing glimpses of his talent.

Performances and points under Ralph would suggest otherwise. -------------------- Personally I think we probably concede a little too much possession, there is a lack of concentration, our best two centre-backs, one is young and still learning, the other is still getting used to the league. The back up two are probably just not good enough. We also lack quality reinforcements in the full back, midfield and forward lines. We currently have one first team right back who is an inconsistent young player, we have one first team DM, who IMO is not mobile/physical enough for games against the likes of Watford, Burnley, Cardiff etc. Two other centre mids who have played almost every game and almost always 90 minutes, with the only real quality back up being Lemina who has been out for months. Plus yesterday, we had Long on from the start who is usually the legs/pace we bring on late game, our other strikers are not suited to this role aside Obafemi who is injured. Lots of little things really but to be honest we probably have 13-14 players at best who are good enough for mid table PL, some of those are still young/learning, a lot of the team are either under 24 or are new to the league. So there is not much game management experience. Once we dip into 2nd choices they are not good enough really. We need 3-4 quality players and it will then result in us being able to bring the likes of Long, Yoshida, Romeu etc. off the bench or be able to rotate these players in, making the squad fresher and fitter.

Somewhat highlighted by the fact that Mustafi has higher interceptions, tackles and blocks I think this season than Van Dijk. But its also a lot down to how the team plays in front of them, Dunk and Duffy have to a hell of a lot more work than Van Dijk does most of the time, even if Brighton are negative they still have a lot less of the ball on average than pool and their midfielders will lose it a lot more in dangerous areas than Liverpool's will, so they are under much more constant pressure. I think both have shown they are good defenders, if albeit fairly limited ones, but I'd also argue they are probably better than the sum of their parts and are good because they have a good partnership and understanding. Also I seem to remember John Terry used to block and get in the way of a lot of stuff, and he was world class. Van Dijk is an amazing defender no doubt, but he is prone to lapses in concentration still and he also has the pace to recover, which often covers for his lapses, so whilst other defenders might need to do a last ditch tackle or block, Van Dijks pace probably bailed him out earlier. I don't think 1 Dunk has enough ability on the ball for our team and 2. He's probably IMO worse than Vestergaard, who I think has got better and better with experience in the league.

I also think long term Obafemi is basically just a younger, and probably better Long. IIRC before he got injured he was getting in the team before Long was. Next season I reckon it'll be Ings + new player, with Long and Obafemi as back ups, Austin and Gallagher probably getting sold.

I don't think he is as bad as people make out but I think if we want to become a top 8 challenging team again, someone like Stephens is not good enough IMO, not even as back up. Plus I get the impression he wants more first team football. I think let him leave, see if he can get in as first choice for a Championship side or newly promoted PL team. What we want next year is probably Bednerak + a new upgrade CB, and then Yoshida and Vestergaard as back up/challenging options.

Ings was crucial in the win against Wolves, he linked the play so well, hes just a much better all round player than Long, he is a better finisher, has better touch, better vision, passing etc. He also has the ability to run at people and beat them, creating space around tight defences. Long is just quicker and probably physically more reliable. But despite his goal last night, his lack of ability IMO cost us the much needed 2nd goal, the cross from JWP I reckon Ings would have scored as he would have anticipated it better and got round the ball more, plus there were several occasions I watched where we were on the attack and Longs pass just wasn't good enough. Ings IMO also seems to link much better with Redmond, they seem to be on each other's wave length. He's a good player to have around the club, especially as a sub and for those tough away games. But I think we'll struggle if he's regularly starting, hes just having a purple patch right now, people seem to forget hes been pretty awful before that for a while.

I like Romeu, he is a solid player, but I just think against the modern more physical premier league midfield you face, he's just not quick or strong enough, that is why I think he picks up so many yellows because he has to stretch to get the ball as he's getting there late more often than not. If you look at some of the best defensive mids in the league they are a lot more mobile than Romeu. But we also just need competition/cover for him anyway as none of our other centre-mids are suited for that holding role, but I'd prefer to upgrade him and find more of a Wanyama like player.

You never really know what Bournemouth will turn up, but they are leaky, I doubt they will come and just sit back, so we have a good chance of scoring but you'd also fancy them to score as well. But they have pretty much been in relegation form since the start of the year.

We are still entirely capable of picking up 3 wins, I don't think Ralph will let them slack off, especially after letting that lead slip and that poor first half against Newcastle. 2 inconsistent sides with nothing to play for and one very bad one already relegated.

Good point, disappointing to lose yet another lead, especially as we should have been 2-3 up and killed the game off. I think we just need more quality in the squad, which will push some of our players currently starting to back up/sub options and our back up/sub options currently basically don't end up playing. Certainly we need another better centre-back, Bedenerak has been immense and seems to keep improving, Vestergaard has been ok, Stephens is not good enough and Yoshida is a decent enough back option but we shouldn't be relying on him. I think we also need a more mobile/physical upgrade on Romeu, he was lucky not to get sent off last night, and I think in games against midfields like that he just can't keep up with them. If we'd had that we'd have beaten them comfortably last night, I think we are like maybe 3-4 upgrades from grabbing that top 7 spot. And of course we need someone to finish, yes Long took his goal nicely and basically created it himself, but then he fluffed some other chances and some passes in key positions.

How is that a yellow ffs, he got all of the ball.

We need to hold onto the ball better and they are not letting us play out from the back, but we are letting them do it pretty easily. Although we do look threatening at times.

It's weird some people seem to against even giving him a chance. Let him come back, train pre-season, Ralph will make the decision on him, if he can get him to perform and contribute to the team its only to our benefit. If he can't then we have to flog him to someone, which we would need to do anyway. Also people are hilariously negative, the bemoan 'boring' football and players playing safe sideways passes or cutting inside, whilst you have a player in Boufal who takes people on, creates space etc. which of course doesn't always work out and people moan at him for losing the ball. You couldn't make it up. Football is 90 minutes long, attackers and wide players who try to take people on will lose the ball but then it only takes one moment to create some space or an overload that leads to goals and pulling defenders out of positions. Hazards and Messis that do it with ease time after time and have amazing end products don't play for us. Plus he's doing it in a relegation threatened team, that is hardly going to be blessed with attacking players or is going to commit men forward to support attacks. Considering that he seems to have done ok, I mean he's had Hoedt defending at the back behind all year!

In terms of which team has done more with their resources, its clearly us, if we win our game in hand over them then they'll be just 7 points better off than us. That is despite poor signings like Carillo and Boufal. And most of that is down to the largely inept management of Hughes, a full season of Ralph and we'd probably be above them right now, so whilst our recruitment has hardly been great I don't think getting the guy who has overseen £350 million of spending to get 7 points above a team that has spent far far less and has been horribly managed, is a good idea.

Debatable, they spent like £70 million alone on Tosun, Walcott and Klassen, the year before they spend nearly £30 million on Bolasie. Probably their best signing is Richarlison and that one is clearly because of the manager, a few this year like Digne, Bernard and Silva on loan have also been good but considering their spend over the last 3 seasons has been £350 million, and they are currently 9th, that is a poor return IMO and that is the period this guy has overseen. Also apparently Sandro Ramirez, amongst a few others are on massive wages that they can't shift and have gone out on loan, sound familiar?

Hmmmn, Everton's recruitment has hardly been stellar over the last few years.