Rds1983

Loaning him to a Championship team to help him develop and then using him next season has to be the best idea. 

It is would be nice to have a bit more height in our midfield and he is about 6'2" I believe.

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Did we decide if there were playoffs in this?

I might be able to scrape in there if there is.

The FAQ implies that play offs are coming in this season.

He got Delefou instead.

That is very close.

I kinda think that if teams are within X amount of each other then there should be a draw to make the league more realistic.

Fyi the top of our league let Cabaye go this week, brave call as they play Villa next.

He has joined Preston on loan again. Hopefully he gets games and goals in the Championship and can do a job for us next season.

3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

4-0 loss against a team 19th in the championship?

Sounds about right for Villa.

Very close games this week with teams losing by 0.5 points, still no draws yet though. Any in your league?

38 minutes ago, dakid007 said:

Half a season to go. Other teams are doing their best to play shit and give us a chance to catch them. If we can put a run together they will start panicking and our momentum will carry us but if our survival relies on us beating Arsenal on last day......

Let's hope Arsenal have the title wrapped up by then and that Wenger does Garde a favour.

Garde has previous with Remy so that might help, and he could get goals for us which would help with the Euro's. Just think how many chances we fluffed against West Ham that he could have put away.

How has Christmas treated your league? There has been a big shift in mine with the bottom team picking up their first two wins and are nearly off the foot of the table (hope for Villa yet?) and the top team picking up back to back losses (assuming Coutinho doesn't score 50+ points tonight).

1 hour ago, Grasshopper said:

I'm pretty sure that AVFC insisted on a "50% wage reduction if relegated" clause in the contract, the players agent would insist on a "£xxxx trigger" clause too.

In other words, once we've gone, the good ones will be gone too.

sad times

As most of our summer signings were from smaller teams in less respected leagues we should have had a decent amount of negotiating strength with the players/agents. They would have had decent pay rises in joining us and whilst release fees are probably in place they shouldnt be ridiculously low and we should hopefully recoup what we spent.

13 hours ago, mwj said:

Austin will not come to us, period. In 6 months time he will get a good contract at a top 10 side, Stoke, Everton etc

Remy would be an outside chance, but why? We need title winning form from here till April which is just not going to happen. Let it go mate

I'm not sure which top ten side would want him. I get the feeling he would want to be the main striker not a back up, which rules out the Arsenal, City, Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton. I don't think he would fit into the style of play that Hughes is developing at Stoke. Possibly go to Palace but Wickham is starting to do very well.

15 hours ago, sexbelowsound said:

Managing Ajax on this game is so frustrating. Every pre season I have spend most of it rejecting transfer offers, dealing with pissy players who think they should be allowed to leave and agents who want a new contract for their client every single time an offer is turned down.

It's tiresome.

I refuse to deal with agents whenever possible and then tell the player that you will accept a bid for them if it matches your valuation which the player is happy with. I then stick thier valuation at a crazy high amount and it usually scares the other team away, you do risk them bidding a low amount that the player will decide is high enough but it works for me more often than not.

Set your LOD as high as possible as well as it helps stop them whinging over trivial matters.

(Slightly old news) Apparently we watched Leeds play Wolves just before Christmas and were scouting Sam Byram and Benik Afobe. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the type of player we go for. Young players doing well in the Championship at clubs unlikely to get promoted this year who could take a step up. Hopefully hit the ground running and keep us up but who could also help us come back up.

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Horrendous dive early on aside, he's playing well today. I like him.

He's playing right wing though so hard to make a proper judgement.

He could become a very good attacking rightback but still solid defensively.

1 hour ago, KJT123 said:

Contract ends next summer as well. Could get him on the cheap maybe?

Doubt he will go for less than £5m as Leeds have high hopes for him.

15 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I'm not sure I agree entirely. The amount of goals conceded late on under Lambert was completely unacceptable. 

Sherwood did nowhere near enough to correct this, because he's a charlatan, but the problem began under Lambert's reign. Coincidentally, that's when Gabby's form really started to drop off the face of B6. 

We had this issue under MON. 

John Terry was commenting on it when they spanked us.

Just now, Rds1983 said:

I doubt that even Villa would put a relegation release clause in a contract for less then we paid for them.

8 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Wow, this is far too logical to be in this thread mate, well done. 

What I don't quite understand is this notion that we are 'improving' and that this will bode well for 'next season'. Firstly, to be improving in what is almost certainly a relegation season is very much scant consolation in my opinion. Secondly, there's a very, very high chance that any half way decent performer will be off if/when we do go down. I'd wager quite a lot of money that the likes of Ayew, Veretout, Gil, Traore, Richards, Amavi (OK depends on how long the guy will be out) and even Gana will stick around. Most of these players probably have relegation release clauses in place, so we won't even recoup what we spent on them. 

Point being, we will not be in good shape if/when we go down, it will be a total disaster and whatever 'improvements' made under Garde this season, will not carry over for next season, because a lot of this team will not be here anyway and we will be back to square one.

I doing by that even Villa would put a relegation release clause in a contract for less then we paid for them.

Klopp was scouting Benteke when he was at Liverpool and he is getting game time, not 90 mins every game but a decent amount compared to the other Liverpool forwards. I would love for him to come back but it is not going to happen. Liverpool would not release him and I doubt he would come back so soon even if they did, it would admit leaving was a mistake.

I'm hoping we go for Loris Karius of Mainz, we were linked med to him a few months ago. Very highly rated young keeper and seen as the second best gk in Germany after Neuer.

1 hour ago, KHV said:

50% wage cuts for players and staff that have joined since the summer, wow! No wonder they want to get shot of Gabby.

I wonder how many will want to stay on with a 50% pay cut?? I'd imagine not many at all

You would think they would also be trying a bit harder not to get relegated in the first place.

I think Garde is doing th best he can with the players currently available and we would all agree that this could be better. Once January has gone and we have hopefully improved in a few positions it will be a lot fairer to judge him on match day selections. He has also had a horrible opening run of fixtures and I doubt any manager would have picked up a huge amount of points. January will be key.

1 minute ago, sexbelowsound said:

Haven't tried it yet.

Its TOGGA point scoring but you pick a new team each week and only one formation, 4-4-2.

It probably sits in the middle of the involvement table. Less time consuming that the full TOGGA game but more time consuming than the Premier League version.

I could be tempted to give it a go, I'm getting a tad bored by the PL one. Let me know if you set up a league.

2 hours ago, sexbelowsound said:

Anybody else tried play TOGGA's perfect XI game as well?

Looks like how I wish the Premier League one was in that each week you pick a brand new team.

Anyone interested in playing this alongside the current one? It's much quicker. Each week just pick your best 4-4-2. 

Scoring seems the same as well.

How does it compare to the Premier League version?