tajjuk

Switching from Serie A to the PL has always been tough, quite different leagues, different tempo, different playing culture etc. Also away attendances in the Serie A are crap and very few teams sell out their grounds. Crystal Palace finished 14th last year with around 26k average attendance, that would be enough for the 7th best watched team in Serie A and Palace were restricted by their ground size. Aside Spurs using Wembley, every other PL club last year had at least 90% attendance by capacity, whereas the Serie A is just 62% with around half the Serie A teams only filling about half their grounds. So playing here would be a new experience for him all round often in front of packed stadiums, not to mention moving to a new country where you don't speak the language. Give the lad a chance to adjust, I reckon he'll be better this year with more experience in the league, being more settled, speaking more English etc. and obviously with a different manager.

Thanks for this, home shirt was sold out but got the away kit with personalisation and it still came in at about £30 with the discount.

You missed Wilson who is probably their most talented youngster at the moment aside Alexander-Arnold.

I don't think he ever fit our profile of player. Look at someone like Vestergaard, how he speaks about earning team mate respect, his profile on and off the pitch etc. can you imagine Shaqiri doing the same? Questions on his fitness levels and work rate, was criticising his team mates in public and during games, doing controversial political stuff whilst on international duty, just too much baggage there. Clearly very talented but a risky move, I mean Klopp is going to beast him, is he going to adapt and work hard? or is he going to be like a poisonous snake in that dressing room?

He might just have meant that as Dane, who has lived in Germany for a long time, and is now in a new country he might not be here all the time.

Speaks very good English based on his joining video and is already mates with Hojberg so should settle quite quickly into the team. He made some interesting comments about Hojberg telling him that Saints treat players like humans not machines and that was one of the reasons he agree to join. Shows we probably still have a bit of a 'family club' type atmosphere and maybe we do stuff a bit differently, focusing on players personalities not just their playing abilities. When you see the behind the scenes vids you do get the sense there is decent togetherness in the dressing room and most of them seem to get on well with each other.

Bit funny really, we give money to BMG, they give it to Nice, Nice give it back to us.

Considering our back two at times last year was Hoedt + Stephens and we were hardly that bad defensively (our attacking play more let us down) having that if two others get injured is hardly a crisis. Midfielders wise we have Lemina, Armstrong, Romeu, Hojberg and JWP, plus Reed at the moment if he is kept as well. 5 players for 2 spots, maybe 3 spots is enough IMO. Hojberg will be wanting to build on his end to the season and be battling for a starting spot, another centre-mid just makes us look over stocked IMO. If we are working on two more than the outs needs to get higher as the squad is very bloated. Not much room for any academy player to breakthrough either, only the back up right back is spare at the moment, we have about 2-3 options for every single spot in the team at the moment.

Gunn - potentially an upgrade, I have a feeling by the end of the year this guy could be our No. 1 Vestergaard - looks like an upgrade to me, certainly replaces the height and physicality of VVD we lost. I can't see the likes of Giroud or Deeney for example causing us too many problems if Vestergaard is in the team. He will also offer more goal threat in the box from set pieces. Moe - Probably an upgrade, a faster, younger Tadic with more goal threat, who has already caused problems against good teams in his career. Have to remember as well aside the last 8 games last year Tadic has been average at best and consistently missed chances. Armstrong - The sort of player we don't have, a goal scoring mid, at least offers a different option if not necessarily a direct upgrade (we are hardly weak in midfield). On paper one of the best windows in along while for me. Like I said another pacey up front/wide option would make it near perfect, especially if we can shift some deadwood - Long, Boufal, Davis, Forster hopefully freeing up funds/wages in case we need something extra in January. I also feel people are forgetting that we have a manager who is hopefully going to be more positive, seems to have more backing from the players so we should get more out of our existing squad. I also expect Hoedt and Lemina with a year's experience under their belt in the league to be better and more consistent this year.

Welcome Jannik, hope you can settle quickly and start dominating some PL strikers.

Would still like to see us add another pacey wide player, Redmond just doesn't cut it for me. Don't think we need another striker, I reckon with more positive intent and better creativity Austin and Gabbi will score plenty. I feel the whole aura of the team looks more confident and positive. Just think we need some pace.

Yeh it's not like he could have played 30 league games last season if our inept manager hadn't left him on the bench............. But sure let's blame injuries

------------------ McCarthy/Gunn ---------------- ( ------- Yoshida - Vestergaard - Hoedt ---------- Cedric ----------------------------------- Bertrand ------------ Romeu -------- Lemina -------------- Elyounoussi ------------------------------ Another -------------------- Austin -------------------------

That picture does raise the question why dangerous play wasn't looked at, that is a boot at head height.

Like who? Mitrivovic and Bas Doost have names I have seen and I'd rate both on par with Austin if not worse and they'd cost us at least £20 million. The only other striker link we have is Alcacer, who I am not convinced will cut it in PL, he looks too similar in stature and style to guy Everton signed last year and barely played.

He also seems pretty adept at holding up the ball to me. Jeez people talk some utter nonsense.

Yeh that was odd, but Southgate is learning and inexperienced like the rest of them, he should get better as well. Not taking more centre-mids and only having Delph/Dier as options was a poor decision as well IMO.

If Austin is a 'terrible finisher' I'd like to know who rates as a good one.

Should get his pay off though and he'll get plenty of job offers. They were trying to force him out without paying off his contract, hoping he'd jump ship, so fair play to him sticking it out and forcing their hand.

B*llocks. He had a full pre-season and was perfectly fine to start all those games, we just had a muppet in charge. It's not a 'moot point' you just got proved wrong, his lack of games was not down to injury or fitness last year, it was down to our inept manager not playing our clear best goalscorer.

He was probably injured at that point, commentary said he'd been struggling with a groin injury all tournamnet and looked like it got steadily worse throughout that game, he was not moving great in the second half, neither wing-back was which was part of our problems. Ashley Young looked the like the old player he is. If you are going to play wing-backs I think you need to rotate them more in a tournament, they have so much work to do. You also have to say though an actual centre-back instead of Walker would have attacked that cross regardless of who was behind him, it was clearly not natural for him, a few other situations from other games highlighted it, like the penalty against Tunisia.

It's about their brand, for one of the biggest clubs in Europe their marketing and global brand (much like Serie A as a whole) is way behind other European super clubs.

He didn't bring him on for 20-30 minutes, he barely brought him on at all. His first start was against Everton at home 26/11/17, before that we played 12 league games. Charlie Austin was available IIRC for all 12 of those games (transfermarkt lists no injuries for that period), yet only played 138 minutes of football and only appeared in 9 of those games so didn't play in 3 at all. Last season int he 10 games he started, he scored 5 goals. Stretching that to starting all those 12 games he sat on the bench, often coming on for 5 minutes, he would have had 11 goals in 22 starts, with another 2 from sub appearances that is 13 goals for the season. So even missing 3 months of the season he would have comfortably been one of the top goalscorers out of the non-top 6 clubs. Of course I am only speculating that he would have maintained his 1 in 2 ratio but considering in those 12 games we played Swansea, Huddersfield, Crystal Palace, Stoke, West Brom, Newcastle, Brighton and Burnley I'd reckon he would have scored 6 goals in those games given starts. Also important to note in those 8 games against teams that were (Burnley aside) bottom half teams, we managed just 6 goals and 10 points, you'd think having a guy with a 1 in 2 record in the PL sat on the bench was not the best idea. Especially when he scored two in his first start. Shows how our manager f*cked up. If Austin plays like 2/3rds of the season he'll get 12-15 goals.

Agree, at least give the lad a season to see what he can do. Harry Kane had some pretty uninspiring loan spells, but Spurs gave him a chance and he flourished (just to note I am not for one second saying Gallagher will do a Kane, just using it as example of why loan spells aren't always a good judge of a player) Long must be on a good £50k a week as well, ship him out to some Championship club, I am sure one of them would stump up £10 million for him.

Disagree don't think Croatia had a look in the first half, they were awful. Trouble is when you are on top so much and then don't score that second goal it gives the opposition heart. If they had gone in 2-0 down then I don't think they would have got back into the game. Maybe if you add extra time, but even then England wasted some good opportunities throughout the match, many a time we got in behind them but the final ball was lacking. We lacked some nous and experience, we really needed a better centre mid in there to control the game more. I reckon had Winks been available or we'd taken Wilshere then we'd have won that game. I think get Winks into that team could be crucial, looking at his assured performance for Spurs at the Bernabeau he's the sort of player England needed last night to bring some balance to that midfield and control the game. If he continues to progress and not fall apart from injuries he could be our main centre-mid for the next ten years. If you add the likes of Sessegnon, Foden, Sancho in as well as you say exciting times for the England team. ---------------------------------------------------- On a side note Lovren is a plonka, Sterling tore him apart in the first half and imagine Mbappe and Greizman will as well.