Ultimatt

https://www.liebherr.com/en/aus/about-liebherr/liebherr-worldwide/china/liebherr-in-china.html#!/content=lww-locations-china It can be a win-win for both Kat and Gao off the field by driving up their other business ventures.

Kat's #1 business is Construction. We've already heard rumours of redeveloping all the land around the stadium. Someone posted a link a long time ago about how the Chinese use these investments to build contacts to grow other businesses (Access to celebrities & other businessman). Put 2+2 together and i'd say Mr Gao's investment is probably more about what happens off the field than on it. I'm sure he'd love the club to be successful but it won't be the be all end all so long as we're not relegated.

I don't understand your reply as it addresses almost nothing in my post. My "moaning" is precisely about Les and the others deciding transfers. Curious for your source re: Kat debt? Was it just refinanced to Mr Gao? Kat had from memory around £45m loan to the club with £6m annual interest. I haven't seen 2016/17 accounts but the 2015/16 account forecast a 24% rise in wages 2016/17. Do you think our squad last year was worth the extra 24% on 2015/16? IMO it was our weakest squad since promotion. "Depth" is practical for big clubs competing in Europe each year. That's not us. The club was too ambitious thinking we'd be best-of-the-rest year on year Europa league participants and it led to some awful squad bloat/poor financial management. Our academy pathway is blocked. We have growing player unrest with a bunch of players thinking they deserve regular starts and not getting them. 6 CB's?

Supposedly they struggled to round up the cash to buy the club. If that's true then there's no money to invest. We still have some of Kat's loan to pay off. The clubs quite broke without big player sales. Wasting so much wage money on "depth" when we play once a week and in doing so we've completely blocked our academy so no money coming from there. Just a shambles of management the last 3 years trying to be too ambitious and now it's shooting us in the foot.

Gabbi's most league goals in a season is 8. Let's not pretend he's more than he is. IMO there's little to separate the bottom 14 teams with most games between them being a coin flip. We just need 3 of them to have worse luck than us.

One of our worst buys since promotion. Not because he's a bad player, but because we had capable CB's already. At least we won't need to buy another when we sell VVD for a discounted £35m.

Exactly. Flip a coin in any game not involving the top 6. Burnley are miraculously top 6 having scored less than us! There's no way their luck lasts a full season. Leicester look most likely to be best of the rest. They have a bang average ageing defence but invested heavily in attack. Our squads are balanced man-for-man but their's is stronger at the pointy end. I'd take theirs over ours without doubt. Win half lose half and you'll end up with 57 points. Draw every game and you only get 38. The fact is that even when we utterly dominate we struggle to score and lose points. Despite how much we struggled in attack last season, the club didn't buy a single attacking player. Instead we bought a DM, 2 CB's, a GK and signed a defensive manager. Just utterly bizarre. The blame is 100% on Reed and the people deciding transfers.

Aguero Sane Silva KDB Sterling Jesus Lukaku Martial Mkhitaryan Mata Pogba Morata Hazard Willian Pedro Fabregas Kane Son Eriksen Alli Sissoko Firmino Mane Coutinho Salah Wijnaldum Lacazette Sanchez Ozil Welbeck Ramsay Austin Redmond Tadic Boufal Davis Thinking we can get anywhere close the top 6 with what we have If you don't score goals, you don't win. If you don't win, you don't finish a season with more than 44 points.

Fixed.

The team got worse when we had nothing to play for post-EFL cup final. The same way every mid-table team ends a season. The seasons before we were fighting to the last for Europe. As for Gabbi, he's never been consistent at any point in his career. 26 years old and only 50 career league goals. Austin 2 years older with 201 league goals.

Is it revisionist to say we spent the whole 2nd half of the season without our 2 leaders in defence (VVD/Fonte) and without our best striker in Austin? We'd be right in a relegation scrap without VVD/Austin this year.

Attackers win matches though. We've completely bossed some matches this season and last and walked away with a draw or worse. Leicester have been bossed in some matches and snatched a win. As a result they sit well above us on the table. That's the difference between a team with great defence vs a good attack. We've taken 201 shots this season, 22.4% on target, 13.4 shots per goal. They've taken 159 shots, 32.7% on target, 6.9 shots per goal. It's night and day how wasteful we've been up front since Pelle/Mane were sold.

First club to build dugouts. Founders of the football league. First club to install undersoil heating. Worst performing English club in Europa/CL history etc.

He's a 15-20 goal a season striker. Has been everywhere he's played. Started 13 games last season and scored 9 goals. Started 3 times this season and scored 4. We were such a different side 2nd half of last season without Austin and VVD available.

Did the Random Selection draw as I prefer to plan a route/cities rather than follow a specific team. Got France v Australia Poland v Senegal Portugal v Morocco Argentina v Nigeria Pretty happy. The African teams love their end-to-end football.

I'm for the ban. Homophobia is up there with racism in that it's not someone's choice, it's how they're born. The sooner it's back out of society the better (plenty of cultures in history have accepted it as commonplace). A hundred other ways you can have a dig at someone.

Great touch and pass! So many players would've pulled the trigger 1st time volley and it would've been blocked.

4 shots 3 goals. Clinical unlike us.

I say get rid if we get a proper offer and don't waste the money. If we get towards the end of the season in a relegation battle he'll hardly fight to keep us up. It'll probably benefit him for us to be relegated.

Not just us. It's most of the league. Says a lot when we're only a third of the way into the season and multiple teams fans are mentioning bringing Allardyce in. The majority of teams are afraid to lose.

He's essentially the opposite of Long. People like Long because he hassles defenders. He works hard. He's fast. Great qualities... for a ball winning mid/defensive forward. Austin's impact outside the box is irrelevant. He's our only striker that can play isolated and the only one that properly gets on the end of crosses (which we do more than any other PL team this season). I don't want to write off Gabbi but I think he needs more creative players in and around him which Redmond/Davis/Tadic don't offer.

It's probably hard to be motivated when you fall from France/Man Utd to this years Everton. 12th most expensive squad ever assembled (cost the same as the current Bayern squad)

"Slow". "Immobile". Who cares. He scores goals. We've been dying out for a #9 pivot and a target for our crosses because Long/Gabbi just aren't that kind of striker. Admittedly it was Everton, but he deserves a run against other teams because imo the balance of the team is so much better. A proper CF enables the midfielders around him, which again is something Long/Gabbi don't really do.

I wouldn't big up Burnley. A lot of plucky 1-0 wins. They've sat back every game and taken their rare chances in attack. Watford look best of the rest from the top 6 while the other 13 are all dire. Top 6+Watford are averaging 2.04 goals a game while the other 13 average 0.88 goals a game... Dire. And when virtually every team is sitting back flooding the box, only teams with pace to get forward or target men to win headers will break them down. We sold both those things summer 2016. Slow and short.

Next deal will be bigger if Amazon bid as expected.