Trickster

Reminder that the excellent midfield form at the moment from Luiz, McGinn and Kamara won't continue all season, chances are, and there'll be a need to take someone out for a while. Tielemans quality to put in instead is something I never remember having from the bench in midfield. We've had years of barely any players of Tielemans level starting games and years of that midfield 'conundrum'. Always tough in a tie thats a dead rubber in a team thats half 'reserve' at a pace that was just getting to the final whistle for the last 30 min or so. Will be plenty of time for him, and imo he's probably the best 'quarterback' type player for Watkins out of all the midfielders with the passes that he tries.

He mentioned Lenglet deal nearly done in a seperate quote after the game so I don't think the 'possibility to add to the squad' is him. Imo it's another potential incoming, but obviously none close yet to being done.

He has to be aware of what he represents though, he certainly does when he bangs the badge when he was putting in shots from outside the box. This is social media, people see it, he's a moron if he thinks it's just some private communication.

Saw him play live a few years ago when Genk played here in Cork. He was the best player on the pitch by a mile, knew he was too good for Genk then too, used to get frustrated at his team mates a lot. Would love to see this happen for sure.

I think he suffers from the attacking players around him for different reasons. With Jack, he holds onto the ball, rightfully so a lot of the time, and it doesn't always help Ollie's dynamism when he doesn't get things fast. From Anwar its similar but a bit different in that he takes time to deliver crosses and Ollie is usually surrounded by then. I think Barkley isn't quite the lengthy ball carrier Jack is and lays it off quicker which imo is better for Ollie.

Ramsey has way more energy off the ball and can guarantee he'd leave less space than Conor, quicker feet to pass the ball too. He doesn't have to be brilliant but if he makes the passes 10% quicker and moves across the grass quicker than Conor it's already a lot imo. Can have all the set pieces in the world but if you're a slow runner and slow releaser of the ball, the set pieces will be just used to try and claw back the goals that would be conceded from this.

Even his fabled by some set pieces were very poor today. Against modern, PL midfields he is too slow in feet and mind. He has contributed some good things of course, but they have carried him farther chance wise than should be happening now. Another decent, even slightly more agile midfielder in and he should be close to surplus imo.

That is true, they were really great free kicks. Both self inflicted though, it wasn't unlucky to concede ones, it was opened up in the middle and a DM left isolated and a full back completely out of position that pretty much stopped a goal scoring opportunity. It's more stupidly putting ourselves in the position where there is a chance of punishment was the problem.

Definitely weren't hard done by, the free kicks happened because they were about to get really good chances, Cash was lucky to stay on and Saints player was heading into the box when Dougie fouled. Just because they were free kicks doesnt mean they were lucky, they created those very dangerous chances to earn them. Ings goal was with ridiculous ease that they were able to break with 3-4 players after Barkley's lazy pass. We weren't playing terrible on the ball but off the ball the midfield was really struggling for an hour.

Has Traore even played a total of 90 min yet? Judging him already is nonsense, but he's been the target soon as we signed him. Trez did decent today, his effort is great but his decision making is woeful at times. If Traore is the same after a similar amount of games then the same will be said, not stupidly after 1-2 games total minutes.

Wouldn't take what Fourth Official says as much at all really. He said the other day that the Benrahma to West Ham thing wasn't true and that it was his agent putting it out, and then 2 days after he said Brentford and West Ham couldn't agree the deal. He also said that Aouar to Arsenal was done.

I'm not sure these Benrahma rumours are true personally. Sounds like a thing an agent would put out. It's not really being widely reported either, even with Sky 'reporting' it 2 days ago.

Apparently Rafinha, Leeds new signing, didn't want to leave Rennes at all and was in tears to have to leave. Maybe better we don't have someone who doesn't want to come. Saying that, I don't think we know exactly what happened or even close to it tbh. I wouldn't be trusting a media timeline of it.

Old pic isn't it?

I think there might be more chance of an incoming from the second deadline on October 16th. Still need to shift some out so if they aren't bought/loaned today, they might be released etc to make room. Vague from Preece here, showing he doesn't know at all.

I think it was to do with a kid that sadly passed away and it was tribute to him. I think he was Chelsea or Everton connected.

I'm not expecting Rashica, but Preece makes no mention of Smith saying we aren't signing him. He repeats the ' I'm not sure there will be any more coming in' quote throughout the article. Not what he said yesterday at all really, just mentions that Smith said we had Traore and El Ghazi for the right wing.

I didn't think he was great or shite in his, lets not forget, only a few minutes cameo. But I also think impressions are coloured the other way too, from previously expressed negative opinion of him. I just dont get purposely saying 'our worst player' when all he got was a few minutes, he'd hardly even be given a rating on match round ups such was his brief appearance.

Is that Choupo-Moting to Bayern on Romano's predictor? So from Stoke to PSG to Bayern. Forget Rashica, sign up his agent to move out some of our boys!

Barkley to link up with Jack might ease the necessity for Targetts positioning wide. Didn't get forward as much and I think that helped his game. Great showing.

He breaks up little things on the edge of the box which is invaluable over 90 minutes against a top team. Has those calm passes ahead to Jack and Barkley that gets things going.

Gonna be funny when Traore turns out to be the great signing and Rashica is the crap one

Smith after the game tonight. "No, there's nothing in that, I don't know where that one has come from" :P. But honestly, I hope at least the renewed effort to sign him is true. If he doesn't he doesn't, but I hope that at the very least the rumour about trying to get it done is true.

I always think that El Ghazi gets extra stick because he 'comes across' as thinking that he's better than he is or cocky. That invisible impression that some fans get and they relentlessly stick to it unfortunately. I think some of the criticism he gets is very fair because it analyses his severe inconsistency etc, a lot of the rest of it is pure muck and drivel. The types that should have a ban on owning keyboards.

Negativity? Nothing to do with negativity, it's not even in the same stratosphere as 'negativity'. If you can't see the difference then I really don't know. Wow. Abuse towards Southgate on Twitter in the same way is equally scummy.