Smirking_Saint

Well… yes and no I suppose… the strategy is they present less risk, for instance Edozie/Larios/Baz’ values probably don’t depreciate as much as those we spent on Onuachu, Aribo etc Im not sure how much I hang my hat on ‘sign experience’ although it is significantly easier in the Champ.. because historically our ‘ready to go’ signings have been absolutely terrible But after all that is said, I do think we need to bring in one or two heads with leadership abilities to help galvanise us

Sort of, the main difference is Piroe will probably play in Italy next year

Thanks for the info though Turks…can’t believe it though

Towards the end of last season he was certainly pushing to leave, of the French quartet I believe it was him and Diallo that were the most vocal Perraud is generally well liked around the place though so outside of the group dynamic it felt a bit off Ive not heard much for a little while so hopefully he is one of the lads whose thoughts had changed towards a more relaxed approach… although… our persuit of Manning sort of felt as if 2+2=4

I didn’t get to see the AZ game so I can’t really comment, I thought (maybe wrongly looking at your comment) that the FBs seemed higher in the highlights ? What I noticed in the other friendlies though is that in transition the No.6 drops into the back 2 to create a 3 and the FBs tuck in infront of that… occasionally pushing wide for an overload.. the two ‘no.8s’ push forward into No.10 positions A bit like this

Yeah I agree, although we seemed like we were pushing the FBs forward yesterday and not utilising them as inverted WB/CMs so.. dunno Either way I think 40m or so for Tino is silly money for a guy with an ACLr

Perraud, Onuachu and maybe Mara, I think Sule or Tella will stay.. don’t think we’ll lose both Im still on the fence about JWP… WHU seem the only choice atm and they know it

Ive not seen it yet but the 5 second clip I saw from AZ’s feed looked like KWP was beaten too easily and the goalscorer ghosted past the LB/CB… so looked pretty poor Ill need to see it properly though

Ahh fair… didn’t read the article.. I wouldn’t be completely against that if we can extract sufficient value out of Newcastle tbh

We literally have 4 RBs already

#anyonebutthescousers

You’re literally just arguing on pedantics now Lavia got injured on Tuesday night, Romeu transfer was done on the Thursday… - It generally takes 3-5 days to get a scan post injury depending on the injury - Romeu wasn’t in the squad in the Tues so likely we’d ratified most of the deal and certainly had the chat to allow him to leave So no.. I really don’t think its a reasonable assumption to think we could of ditched the plans that late in the day, had Lavia got injured earlier than maybe we would of pulled it ? Who knows As I said, hindsight says it was a poor choice, but at the time it wasn’t so bad

Lavia got injured in the match on the 30th August and Romeu’s transfer was verified on the 1st September… I think people are being a bit disingenuous here

Southampton Boro Leeds Norwich Leicester (Playoff W) Sunderland Thats my prediction

It was exactly this.. we replaced Romeu with Lavia, and IMO that was exactly the correct thing to do, Lavia’s more dynamic than Romeu and there were signs season before last that he was slowing down, he also wanted to leave and I think it was fair to a player who was a great servant Our issue was we, as Lighthouse said, believed AMN and Diallo were enough cover and.. tbh.. should Lavia have not got injured we’d of been fine but hindsight is a wonderful thing Im sure if we held on to Oriol and he sat on the bench there would be a portion of the fans that would bemoan the fact we didn’t respect his wishes

Some people just want to criticise for the sake of it I do think we need competition for a place, and McCarthy isn’t it.. I DO think Bazunu has potential but his confidence is shot But we can’t really blame him for last night

My personal opinion around Piroe is he is clearly a very good striker at this level, but the reported 20m fee is putting people off He isn’t as polished as Gyokeres was, and he went for €20m to Sporting I expect to see Piroe move, but it’ll be further towards the end of the season I think… he only has a year left on his contract and clearly Swansea are being stubborn or else we’d of seen movement on him already I do wonder too.. Leeds have Bamford, Leicester have Vardy… both are seemingly being reasonably prudent in the window, do they see value in Piroe at 20m ? Surely if any in the Champ were to look at him it’ll be us, we have the funds, the need and the relationship… and if so I am glad we’re looking at value elsewhere unless Swanseas asking price comes down TBF … I think there is still a lot of movement still to happen in the window all over the place and I think a lot of moves are waiting for other transfers to happen… for instance I don’t expect Scott, Hamer etc to still be where they are in a week

Yeah I don’t disagree, just saying historically, since Gao and into the SR years our ‘experienced ready to go’ signings have been largely terrible

Well not really because he never showed any real leadership, similar to JWP he is ever present and leads by example but he isn’t a rally the troops type like Fonte was And lamping Murphy would have only had put him out for the rest of the season, so no, not sure it’ll have helped

Our ‘experienced’ guys have always been terrible buys, and generally our youth buys have always been decent Compare ABK to DCC, AMN to Lavia, fucking anybody to Aribo/Onuachu Its not experience we need, we need stronger mentalities across the board.. wherever they come from.. we’ve missed that since Fonte and to a lesser extent VVD

The best of our CBs yes… not a particularly high amount of praise though overall

Its always been a bit baffling for me but I think it always highlights how fans will side towards a player they consider homegrown or one that shows a bit of steel (Lyanco) despite clearly being limited On metrics alone, and I appreciate they do not show the full picture but Bednareks stats are better than Stephens, and for me its backed up by what I see on the pitch, both players are limited, but Stephens, for me, is the more limited Interestingly too, until the fallout between JB and RH he survived successive team changes and was often picked ahead of others by management. We’ve actually had JS up for sale for 2 years now, with only Bournemouth showing interest (and ending it after his loan spell was unsuccessful). Bednarek was also the name recalled by Jones in January (and subsequently was one of our best performers (in a shit team)) I think overall though the JS vs JB debate shows just how much of a rot had set in within our defensive ranks over the years

I actually think he is the best of those here in terms of ball playing, aswell as actual defending so would be a shame if he left