abdulaziz1

Selling Bailey and buying Doku (while keeping Bidace) would be shrewd business. Although it will be interesting to see Diaby and Bailey together again.

I think he has to stay, atleast until January. As much as I rate Bailey but with our system he’s limited, with Diaby arriving, we’d do very well if we can recoup the money we’ve spent on him, while getting Doku aswell. With keeping Bidace it would be very balanced.

What happened with Pino?

The other thing is we'd hope for once to keep our spine of the team once we're moving in the right direction and had the huge step. Last time Grealish left we had to build again. Just see what can we do now, then next season we can see who to transfer and who to keep.

Kamara improved after Leicester last season. It's good for him to try and have these mistakes in a preseason. Glad we gifted them goals and not won the game. I slept so wasn't able to watch, but I was worried for us to lose in bad way, or to win it at anycase. I wanted more mistakes from us mixed with good things to add on. Which all happened. Hopefully he'll be ready once the season start. It's also good that Newcastle might think he's a weak link as well.

Last game against Brighton was another one.

We never win there anyway. So we need to do what Emery likes by changing some given stats.

I don’t think he can. Definitely not better than Archer in that aspect. Regarding Man City, their squad is good yet they give proper chances. I’d pretty much go with Archer as a second striker than getting the likes of Rodrigo. Our striker should be one that would overtake Watkins and that could/shouldn’t be done this summer. Torres is the most sensible signing as he could be relied at as a striker while his main position is different. I want Doku, but he’s not the wisest signijg, but a gamble which if we don’t take we might never get him. Would I be happy with Doku and Archer as a second striker? Yes, but would require keeping Duran as well. Getting Doku and Torres on loan? Perfect.

I remember watching Foden at the League Cup final and didn’t know anything about him. Weeks or months later he was England regular. It’s about the chance, sometimes players get good luck showing what they can. Davis for example has a chance to play the other year in the League Cup, and some minutes, he got injured before Wesley, otherwise he could’ve started some games. He didn’t have a proper run. Wesley himself could’ve had an ok career if not injured. So Archer and Duran need to have game time. So Torres look the most perfect signing just because of this, but I would like Doku as he’s a good player to have.

Diaby was wanted by his team, Pulisic isn’t wanted as a starter by his team and they need overhaul.

We can’t get to that conclusion, maybe some gone but he wasn’t realistic about his demands, or he’s using some offers to negotiate others.

When I’m reading that we’re looking at Doku, I start thinking how would we manage the team and wether Emery prefers wingers, but then when you look at Villareal, you can see how many wingers they had, and how many talented players as well. I can’t say I follow them but through the links you could see a lot of rated attacking players. How did he use to rotate or plan new things I’m not sure, nor how they were adapted, but it makes sense that he’s still looking to add some quality.

Definitely not, but people take Newcastle improvement for granted, so whatever they do is justified (wether they like it or not), while us they think we just fluked, no one is noticing nor willing to notice our ambitions. That’s the main issue. I’m in a PL group (different Arab members) who supports different teams, we’re two which support Aston Villa, I remember one asked me if I’d be happy with Harrison from Leeds. Then I said I definitely won’t even think of him let alone be happy getting him. Another guy appeared (can’t be sure what did he support, but definitely not Man City, possibly one of the teams around us), as if he got offended and said Harrison would improve your team and we have no one as good as him. I told him as much as I argue what you’re saying but, even if that’s right, the upgrade should be higher. People basically think we shall look at PL castoffs and just be happy. We have no right to even think of CL. To be honest, I like it this way, if the players liked the ambition that’s enough for me, doing it is much better than saying it.

Without Ramsey I think he should play there, his best performances were there.

Usually this comes with the signings, they then forget. Better to go under radar. We’ll have tough games to start with so we have to get something from them, if we did they’ll very much notice us by then.

The less we spend, with more quality the better. Would make us better financially to next level. So now 3, we could get another 20-30m and a loan with spending similar amount to our second season.

If we can land Diaby soon, I think things would get really interesting after that, we won’t be in rush for the next couple of transfers. Someone like Felix can be looked at towards the end of the window. I don’t care what’s happening right now, the relationship seem bad as the club want to offload. Also media trying to take some words from him. But if we got Diaby, then we’ve potentially got stronger in all areas of our team, arguably only regressed on RB. I doubt we’d get both Diaby and Doku, but if we did then why not. Possibly Diaby and Gnonto? As Gnonto won’t be an automatic starter.

When people know you don’t want a player (and you’re stuck with his wages), you’d find it hard to sell. Look at Felix for example, no one can afford him. Everyone knows he isn’t wanted. Sometimes you have to sell when you know that a player isn’t really in your plans despite him being a starter. We’ve done that with Ings. I think the next one which can be that is Cash. We should have done with El Ghazi, when he had 10 goals, yet we kept him when we got two new players. Dendonker right now is valuable for the squad but if the right offer came we shall sell, him being on bench will only reduce his price. If for example Archer become our main striker, overtaking Watkins, Watkins would still participate during the season. Then if we’re planning to upgrade on him and Archer, we should sell Watkins by then. (Ofcourse for Archer to overtake is a big ask, but just as an example). Same goes with Bailey/Buendia, if we got the players we expect, one of them can be transferred in the winter (when desperate teams as West Ham last season did). We don’t have to do now, as all could compete right now, we can decide on winter. Deadline days had a lot of opportunities to offload some players, but also could be gambles. Shall we gamble with the squad? Or gamble on not reducing wages and get stuck?

Gnonto and Diaby would be perfect especially with the fact that Ramsey will be injured for a while. If we could do that soon, we could wait for Felix on loan (or a similar target), then we see if their is a chance to upgrade on second goalkeeper. I think a right back would be looked at aswell unless if Konsa started playing as a right back on the preseason.

Really good but isn’t he more of a left winger?

I think it only means Nottingham (which Robin Hood is related to), the first part is totally Robin Hood then the other is player number 20. Anyway this guy seems a proper ITK, so let’s see whats happen. Will we play both of Johnson and Diaby at the same time? Can Johnson play as a striker?

It’s not this or that, the right balance is right. So if we’re playing a team like Norwich has been, while playing Fiorentina or Lille, we shall definitely go stronger in the Conference. Depending on our form and City, we could afford to lose the away game at the expense of Europe. But it will depend, if City wasn’t as good, or if we had a miracle with a title race. Anyway, that’s why I was one of the few that kept willing to go to Europe wether we’re ready or not, and wanted either CL or a conference instead of Europa. We can afford to go to most games with Emi, Watkins, Luiz or Kamara rested. The squad is fine in terms of quality (assuming we get Diaby and whoever). Everyone thought Brighton would lose points yet they became stronger every game they played. I want us to compete in all 4 competitions, which would make players happy and allow us to rotate. We can start Archer in some league games, we can rest whoever. We had most of our 10 games run without our arguably best player Kamara. Our best performances came with a player that most want out, which is Dendonker. We just have to take all competitions seriously. LC is only 3 games to take you to the semi finals. Then another 3. Yes the timing is critical, but this is our chance as we have a big and good squad. If Tim, Archer and Ramsey didn’t get loaned, we’ll have to give them a lot of gametime.

To be honest nothing to compare with, I had my doubts the summer Grealish went, as DS didn’t have a clue without him, even when we were in the Championship. Then getting Ings meant we’d play him and Watkins which won’t work. Then we go to last summer, we had it right with Kamara and Carlos, but Coutinho was always a big doubt for me (atleast for the fact that he earns a lot and can’t offload him). Then again Gerrard. This time we have a good team, no standout player, our best players missed games yet we were consistent. Added to the fact that we have a manager who knows whats he’s doing. If you need something to make you calm, look at last winter, he didn’t panic once he didn’t get his target. He just used what he had as Europe itself was a gamble. He kept the business for the summer. Again so far he upgraded in areas which we’re good at, which is keeping some movements in areas which we’re weak at. Get Diaby and Joao, then I think we have the right to fully go for top 6 and even top 4.

Not only that, he might consider being a starter there compared to a squad player here.

So we finally got Defoe after all these years?