tajjuk

Yeh, though we have to remember he was in a league where he was playing next to Anton Ferdinand........

Yeh well the players that need culling is almost as many as the players to keep. Keep (if they want to stay) - McCarthy Gunn Cedric Bertrand Vestergaard Yoshida Lemina Romeu Hojberg Armstrong Ings Redmond Valery Obafemi Bednarek (and the other U21s) Maybes to go - Austin JWP Gallagher Reed Long Moe Stephens McQueen Targett Almost certainly going if takers - Gabbi Forster Davis Boufal Clasie Carrillo And out of that last group, Gabbi, Boufal, Carrilo and Clasie are around £60 million spent that I think we will be lucky to get £30 million back from. And in the middle group I doubt you are going to make massive sales there either. We could end up selling like 10 - 12 players and barely making enough money to fund one top player at today's prices.

From what I could see they are sad to see him go, said he made a few mistakes early on through inexperience, wrestling people, being a bit rash etc. but seemed to improve and learn from it.

They finished 4th the season before last when Vestergaard was playing, so I find that doubtful, they were playing Champions league last season IIRC which they obviously struggled to cope with and ended up finishing 10th. They also have Thorgan Hazard who is absolutely on fire at the moment with 9 goals and 6 assists in just 17 games. Vestergaard is starting to show his form I think, he's just taken time to adjust to the pace of the league and what he can and cannot do. ------------------ But yeh its probably wages/squad depth that we need to deal with. We essentially have Hoedt, Gabbiadini, maybe Long, Forster, maybe Austin, currently that might be surplus to requirements or not in the managers plans. Plus end of season Boufal, Carrilo, Clasie, likely Reed and maybe Elyounoussi as well if he doesn't show any improvement. At an average of say £40-50k a week for those senior players, that is probably around £400k in wages to get off the wage bill, if not more, because the likes of Forster, Long, Austin etc. might be on more like £60-70k a week.

I'd find it odd if we let Austin go without having replacements. Odd also that all these proposed deals are loans, which to me doesn't seem to help with raising funds to buy, unless its more wages that is the issue not the cash for transfers.

Depends if the player makes a fuss, there seems to be a shift in these young players, seeing the Sancho thing, they are not happy to be sitting on the bench and he wanted to go in the summer. If we make out interest known and that Ralf specifically wants him he may end up telling Everton he wants to go and then they have an unhappy player on their hands who they are not playing, so who knows? But still rate it is as unlikely, more possibility of this happening in the summer I reckon IF we are still in the league.

Well Lookman is not playing and played for Ralf at Leipzig so it might just be the paper putting two and two together to get five, but if Ralf made an impression on him then he might be swayed.

He is hardly the only example, Harry Maguire went on loan to Wigan and only played 16 times and was then a regular becoming a key player the following year for Hull. Jesse Lingaard has had various 'meh' spells on loan, he was in the Championship as a semi-regular Derby and then made 40 appearances in all competitions for Man Utd the following year. Pickford played 24 games for PNE on a season long loan in the Championship the year before he was Sunderland's regular keeper. Kyle Walker was on loan in the Championship, next year he played pretty much every game for Spurs. Not saying the same will happen to Sims, but an indifferent loan spell doesn't mean a young player won't come good.

He has pace though and does work hard, so I suspect Ralf may want to look at him and see if there is anything to work with there, especially considering our lack of pace going forward. Who knows with young players and loan spells, I mean look at Harry Kane, he wasn't getting into the Leicester first eleven in the Championship, returned to Spurs and started to get first team appearances the following season and then goes on to get 21 league goals the following year. Often its all about confidence with young players, and the players around them. You get the impression that Sims, like Gallagher was a bit messed around and those clubs were not very stable changing managers.

Done his hamstring again, scheduled to be back by the 19th I believe, but they might not want to rush him so probably won't see him until the the end of the month.

Unless he is injured, the manager does not seem to rate him so I would tend to just back the manager and make sure we have a squad he wants all pulling in the same direction.

Interesting one, hes not playing much but you'd suspect a few decent clubs in Germany might be interested and doubt he'd want to come here.

Clyne is a good loan signing, but if that is the fee for Solanke seems a waste, don't see it. Games I have seen him in he looks decidedly average at best.

I doubt we'll know very early about any signings, its never been the clubs way, generally if something is going to happen then we see leaks about it a few days before.

Debatable considering the markets, most Italian clubs are not very rich, it's similar to the issue with selling to Holland we had with Clasie and Tadic, they are not suddenly going to dump £15-20 million on player like most PL clubs. Whereas I'd reckon quite a few Championship clubs and maybe the odd lower PL club would probably stump up £12 - 15 million for Austin, he is a proven goalscorer, he could easily score the goals to get someone up to the PL for example or keep say Newcastle or Huddersfield or Burnley or Palace in the league.

Pacey attacking players who can actually play though are not easy to find, most end up being Adama Troare or Lennon type players, lots of pace, not a lot of product, or Shane Long for example. I mean look at the likes of Sterling, Salah, Sane, Mane, Hazard etc. these players would end up going for £150 million if sold. Same with quick strong ball carrying centre mids, Keita, who was key under Ralph at RB went for what £65 million. We have to try to find these players earlier obviously like we did with Mane, RB did with Keita, but everyone is looking for the same.

I'd have Wanyama back, if he stays fit he's an upgrade on Romeu, he has that power we lack in the middle. Would help us deal with teams like Watford.

To be honest we must have also said to Gunn when he signed him that he would get chances, I doubt a highly rated young keeper like that who had just had a great Championship season would have moved to be just a back up No.2 I reckon he was promised game time and that he'd be more challenging McCarthy for a place rather than just a standard back up.

We need to remember as well this has been a busy period of games, loads of teams have slipped up and there have been some odd results going around just because teams struggle to keep up the intensity and fitness through this period. Plus whilst the table doesn't look great, we have come out of this period only two points behind 3 teams who arguably have had an easier run of late than us. So if we can play with the same intensity and there will be more gaps between games now for us to prepare, plus hopefully we might see 1-2 new players in then I think I can see us picking up points to start climbing the table. Realistically we could have been rock bottom after this period, considering the fixtures. Burnley, Newcastle and Cardiff are all playing 6 pointers in the next two weeks after the FA cup so someone is going to drop points and we need to take advantage of that and start putting some teams below us.

Boufal's work rate was always good, no idea why people labelled him as lazy, he was just inconsistent. But doubt we can recall him. What we need is Shane Long, but with the ability to shoot, control a ball, pass etc. Basically Timo Werner, but obviously not him but someone similar.

People still say nonsense like this these days? Shes played at a higher level than you ever had or will so by default that puts her way ahead of most men who watch football.

Let's be honest we were never likely to win that anyway and also there have been some odd results all round over this period, players get knackered, there are too many games and with the way he is trying to play, plus with the little time he has had to implement the style and get fitness up we were never going to be 100% throughout all the games. I think the manager has shown enough, that with his preferred team there, a little more luck from refereeing (pens turned down at crucial times today and against West Ham) and maybe 2 players in Jan, plus Bertrand back we will win more games than we will lose.

Centre-backs had nothing to do with those two goals, the Huddersfield one is just poor goalkeeping, its a 30 yard shot straight down the middle. The 2nd is well hit and maybe someone should have got out quicker to him but it was obvious what he was going to do, the only angle for the shot is near post, too many bodies to bend it in far so IMO he should have done better. End of the day if players are not top form then give someone else a go, we got into the situation last time because we didn't drop Forster and keep him on his toes when he started making a few errors.

Thought Vestergaard was our best player, headers, blocks, interceptions and was generally good moving the ball forward. Gave the ball away too much and again like Huddersfield we wasted good counter attack opportunities with poor final balls. West Ham were neat and good on the ball, but we contained them for most of the game, few half chances to their striker but in the end what really costs us was bad refereeing. More evidence of the need for VAR, that was Columbia vs Kane there, two hands all around him wrestling him to the ground, no eyes for the ball at all, blatant cheating and they get away with it and go and score the other end. Plus Carroll should have been sent off, he smashes his arm into the face of Romeu within minutes of coming on, then tries to kick him in half a few minutes late, which could have even been a red card in itself and the he pulls one of our players back in a counter attack. Not one yellow for any of it.

We weren't great, but thought we defended well for most of the game and battled away whilst looking tired, but in the end its crap refereeing that has cost us the game. It was a blatant pen, its those exact sort of cheating antics by defenders that VAR is for and we probably go 2-1 up there and considering West Ham actually created very little despite having a lot of play we can see the game out.