Saint86

We had 12 fit first team players in January, in November we topped the league briefly, and in 2020 we had a top 4 points return. Of those things, you'd judge (and sack him) for the form with the injury ravaged squad? To each their own...

He always has been...

That ignores how Salzburg's brand profile has increased over the intervening years, its well known to be an absolute top class talent factory these days, whereas mane was perhaps the first top player (and maybe the best). Also daka had 3 years left on his contact, mane didn't and was able to force a move...

Don't replace ings and we're in trouble - Looks like a lot of fans think we won't be replacing him which is just mental to me. Replace ings and the squad is stronger than last year and back to full fitness with JWP. Key man for how well we'll start is JWP, and if we do get off to a terrible start we'll be playing catch up - no matter how much you dress it up as "play every team twice".

Given our recent transfer activity, he's unlikely to be a dud 😎

2 of them should be starting by default. Would be interesting to see Livramento fitted into the side as a starter as well.

Is there actually a stream link for the game?

I agree that finishing isn't everything. But purely on a post that effectively deals with goals (albeit non penalty) scored per 90, expected goal conversion rate would be more useful (imo) across leagues and with different tactics. Ultimatley a penalty has a high expected goals weighting 🙂 But like I said apreciate the effort, love a good stats breakdown! Will look forward to the update.

I apreciate the effort in this, but it's a flawed analysis and doesn't take account of the standard of opposition or tactics used. A more meaningful analysis would be each player's expected goals per 90 per season vs goals scored per 90 per season. That would highlight how good a finisher they really are. If you've got the time to do that as well it would be brilliant 😅😆

I've assume he is/was an obsessed skate at this point, someone who invented a persona to try and troll saints fans but then somehow got lost inside it.

I don't think he'll go this year to be clear. It would be funny if we now have a pretend JWP sale to Leicester to mask a vestergard exit 😅

I don't think there is anyway we can sell JWP and expect to stay up at this point.

Quite. No words for the ones trying to dress up a £40m panic bid for tammy Abraham as "Leadership" and anyone who disagrees with them as lacking it and wrong 😄 Amazing how some fans think we have that kind of money, and that football is so black and white 🤷‍♂️

Such a weird one, the owners don't want to sell so they're trying to turn the fans against them. Toxic from the word go. And lets be honest, they've done a good job at West Ham. What happened to the De Grosa view being that serious bidders keep things quiet as well?

Coached him to the best season of his career and got him in the England squad 😆

I think this is little more than the club knew he wouldn't sign and villa offered us and amount we'd be crazy to turn down. The fact that it came utterly out of the blue for both clubs is a sign of desperation / craziness on the part of Villa. But ultimatley, if they cna keep him fit then it's a good deal for all parties.

Due to that JWP comment, you're credibility has gone straight in the dog house whilst your reputational promiance has sky rocketed... For shear crazy talk! Going to take a while to recover from that 😅... Well maybe not given what normally gets said on here... But I doubt I am the only one who read that post and wtf'd out loud. 😜

It doesn't add up that we wanted him out whilst also offering him the most lucrative contract in the club's history though.

Gets the point across fairly succinctly. I said at the time that the Reed leadership was one of the worst things to happen to the club. We've tied an absolute millstone around our necks - and even once they've all left, we'll still have the debt. Yet i see fans constantly blaming Gao for the club's finances. The blame for the club's current finances does not lie with him, and if anyting, under his ownership we've got rid of the idiots like Reed and Krueger (who would have totally ruined us), introduced Crocker and Semmens, started to really fix our recruitment, and brought in Ralph who I am convinced is a good manager for us and fairly loyal to the project.

Bravo 👌🏼. Saved me (and doubtless some others) the hassle / scratched the itch to correct 😄

Now that really would be a dissapointment if he's out main option - which seems to be the case.

We've got a double down folks 😆

We've looked good in preseason so far, the championship clubs are a week ahead of us in terms of preseason and we've breezed past them both. Fairly comfortable tonight vs levante as well, albeit dry.

Yeah deano is the co commentator. Great goal by KWP there. But fairly dry stuff so far, but to be fair levante look a reasonably solid defensive side. We're missing JWP and Armstrong, serious lack of movement and creativity when its romeu and diallo in the middle. Lots of threat down the wings which is good. Bibao had the best defence outside the top 5 in la liga, so will prove and interesting test for us.

Yeah exactly this. We don't have Reed running the show anymore, even if some of his mistakes are still kicking about. People crying about this, honestly - it was very likely he was going to be sold this summer. We've clearly had a good offer in and can use it on replacements. Are folks going to shit the bed when vestergard goes as well? 🙄