Jimbo

surprised this is a debate. He is scoring goals and in form, which is more than anyone else at the club is.

Very good! I disagree, obviously, but sure hope you're right!

Spot on

I think we're doomed. Second half of last season's woeful form; New signings, whilst promising, are mostly unproven at this level - banking a lot on them providing the sustained impact needed (even Broja tailed off after half a season) Leaky defense Lack of creativity in midfield Team devoid of goalscorers Manager still unsure of his approach/best team & formation after 3yrs Not a great combination.

Pros When things have gone well, we look really good (and 2020 record was fantastic) Improved a number of our players initially and willing to play the youth Done better than the last few managers Cons No plan B within games / Needs to adapt Plan A from the outset, as it has gone stale and been figured out. Struggles to impact the poor runs through raising morale/confidence. Some baffling transfer decisions - e.g. no full back cover Think I would stick with the status quo: another season, churn a few players out and bring a few replacements in. Would like to see him with a few more signings under his belt, and some squad depth

Carlton Palmer, Ali Dia & Razor Ruddock. Ruddock would be laid down across the goal and we'd be unbeatable.

Might be in a minority here... Thought he performance was great and the result obviously superb, but... **** me our defence doesn’t half **** around with it at the back. A lot of sloppy passes that invite trouble

Brilliant. Ps. has there ever been a post that MLG doesn't take 100% literally even when its an obvious wind-up?

You could argue that playing Cedric causes us defensive issues at crucial times (e.g. lofted balls to the back post)

Nonsense. The issue is that you are assuming the first half points/game will be the same as the second, when anyone who follows football knows the bottom clubs pick up in the second half of the season. As an example, i have set out the points gained by week 19 and final points tally for each of the bottom three clubs at week 19 in the last three seasons. Out of 9 teams, only 1 (Sunderland 16/17) did not more than double its week 19 points. In most cases, they significantly exceeded double the week 19 points position. I could look back further, but i think the point is proven. 2017/18: week 19 bottom three: Newcastle United, 15 pts (finished with 44 pts) West Bromwich Albion, 14 pts (finished with 31 pts) Swansea City, 12 pts (finished with 33 pts) 2016/17: week 19 bottom three: Sunderland, 14 (finished with 24) Hull, 13 (finished with 34) Swansea, 12 (finished with 31) 2015/16: week 19 bottom three Newcastle, 17, 37 Sunderland 12, 39 Villa, 8, 17 This took 5 minutes to work out.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/11469196/Premier-League-relegation-battle-how-many-points-do-you-need-to-stay-up.html Bit dated, given its from 2015, but an interesting read

unbelievably daft

I agree

I presume their point is that we sold him a year ago for c.£12m

may have missed it, but can we have a sweepstake on the annual summer "taking too long to sign anyone / meltdown" thread...feels a tad early yet, but i can see the clamour is already starting, albeit this time with the manager

Boufal = No party!

Ralph is embarrassing. Don't know what he does in the background and hence cannot comment on whether he is useful to have around or not. But one thing is for certain, he should be banned from doing media interviews.

Don't think £275m as a headline figure is right, it's too simplistic. Should look at net proceeds from those players. It doesn't take account of purchase costs, or that players were signed as direct replacements for others who left - so if we'd kept lallana for example, would we have ever signed mane? Eg Lovren/Toby/vdd - You only include the £95m sale proceeds from Lovren and van dijk, but ignore the £12m spent on him (and Toby loan fee etc). Same for lallana/mane Etc

I'm probably in a minority of 1 here, but i don't get why everyone thinks the answer to our scoring drought is to play another defender. I get we have loads of decent CBs, but that shouldn't mean that we have to force them into the team. Our full-backs are attacking enough playing in a back-four anyway, the problem is no creativity in the final third / firepower up front.

I think now is an appropriate time to reflect on our despair of a few years ago (example above). And then think about Spurs paying us money for this joker... He was about our 5th choice. He was behind Stuart Taylor FFS, who is about 50 years old. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. He’s so crap.

Mane arrived after Lallana left.

I disagree - i think it would nigh on impossible to prove a loss: 1. As far as we are aware, we've not had any concrete offers, and cannot therefore argue that we have had to accept a lower offer from the Bin Dippers than from elsewhere. 2. He's not missed any competitive matches yet - training alone is i'm sure disruptive, but hardly grounds for suing someone. How has this cost us? Equally, should we have sued Man Utd when Schneiderlin had a wobble? Or Spurs with Wanyama or Liverpool with Lovren? In the real world, chucking lawsuits around every time one the players was tapped up would be a complete waste of time and money.

We really aren't.

Not defending Liverpool in any way, but this thread is a bit silly. Noone's going to sue anyone over a player transfer - christ, we didn't do it over Alderweireld where we thought we had a clear case. On a serious point, whilst VVD's conduct doesn't look good, I would be interested in hearing what possible clauses you think he could have broken in his contract - specific points, not some vague "doesn't want to play for us anymore" points?

Struggle to see where we will get four more wins from at this rate....