wict01

Absolutely zero chance of this happening IMO, Unai saying we need to be smart with our signings and then bringing in a big-name centre back from Barcelona seem completely at odds with each other

1 minute ago, CVByrne said:

Yes my thinking too. 2 year deal and club option for 3rd, plus 60k a week salary. Improvement over Dendonker, Iroegbunam or Chambers in CM

This is the crucial bit to me, improving the squad depth but not in a Lambert/O'Neill way of bringing in players the manager cant trust who will sit on the bench all season. Barkley would influence games for us as an occasional starter or sub IMO. 

1. Scoreline doesn't matter

2. Still perfectly fair to be a bit pissed at the half-arsed performances of some of the fringe players 

3. Hopefully a fair few who started today won't be here next season

4. Bring on the transfer window! AND CHAMPIONS LEAGUE BABY!

5. oh and Southgateball at the euros I guess....

Have we actually got anyone left to play on Monday? Bailey a doubt now is the last thing we **** need

4 minutes ago, zab6359 said:

Ok chat Tuesday morning mate, despite injuries I just don’t think it’s such a for gone conclusion we can’t beat Liverpool at home.

On top of our game I think we're a match for anyone mate and this is no shade at the players at all - I just think they're spent through factors beyond our control. I hope we've got one last push in us but the realist in me looks at the last 4 performances and sees a team on its arse. 

23 minutes ago, zab6359 said:

Like I said defeatist attitudes within the fan base.

I don't think it's defeatist, personally - we've seen from the last few performances the players are dead on their feet. It's an acceptable excuse at this stage of the season with the circumstances. It doesn't marry up with reality to then think this same group of players can go out and beat a refreshed Liverpool. If they're capable of doing it, then I can't see how tiredness and fatigue can wash as an excuse for the last few poor performances? It can't work both ways to my mind.

How anyone can have watched the performances we’ve put in over the last fortnight and anticipate anything other than a sound beating is a mystery to me. I don’t think it’s “defeatist”, I think it’s realism after a long hard season. We all appreciate the players efforts to get to this point and 4th is still on the cards with spurs to play Man City.

However from our point of view, the race is run. The players have absolutely nothing left ala Ian Beale so I don’t think it’s necessarily defeatist to expect a Liverpool team who will have had 8 days since their last game to win against us.

Very very deflated after that. A real poor showing in the second half and now our entire season hinges ultimately on the spurs v city game on Tuesday. I can’t see anything other than sound beatings for us in our final two games. Full of admiration for what the players have done this season and I’m not slagging them off at all, but they’re done. It’s over. 

It’s absolutely fine to call a shit performance shit. There are reasons and mitigating factors as to why it was a shit performance. A shit performance, however, it remains. Beyond that, we are not bottling anything, and the players haven’t suddenly stopped caring.

However, if we are gonna play CL football next year then we need some serious upgrades or we won’t last any longer than Newcastle did.

I think an early goal here and we can really open the floodgates against them. Lets go full tilt, Watkins, Bailey and Diaby to score and a 3-0 advantage for the away leg. 

Nothing much to add from yesterday's game save for how cringeworthy and sycophantic the commentary was. I usually like McCoist but he was grating me severely yesterday and Darren Fletcher...well the less said about him the better. An absolute nause with his tongue so far up City's arsehole he was tickling their tonsils. 

About time "the other 14" tried to do something about it because I'm sick of paying subscriptions to listen to what is little more than Fan TV. Same goes for Carragher commentating on Liverpool and Neville on United. More irritating than the result yesterday. 

Diaby's also been a whisker away from a couple of truly beautiful goals for us this season, thinking the volley at home to Everton that Pickford tips onto the post, and that superb touch and finish that was a toenail offside against Palace. He's struggling for confidence at the mo but he's certainly shown in large patches what he's about and I think it's down more to misfortune that his record for us isn't at least slightly better! 

Watkins is the perfect striker for us. Maybe he could be more clinical, maybe he could be slightly sharper in the box (I'm really stretching here) but in terms of what he's good at, he's like 7 or 8 out of 10 at absolutely everything. I cannot wait for him to break Agbonlahor's record and I really hope he hits the 20 goal mark in the league this season too - he's right on course as it stands. 

Was very impressed with him Saturday, felt like he stepped up a lot second half at 3-2 when we were a little rocky and helped us re-assert our control over the game with the ball. 

4 minutes ago, duke313 said:

We created plenty of chances last night to win two games. The back four last night weren’t responsible for all the sitters we missed.

It's all about the control aspect I suppose as Emery always says. Without Konsa and Torres, I feel like we lack that control. And when you're giving up chances in the box like that late McTominay one yesterday well, as well as how poor the first was, straight away we're needing to score 3 to win. 

I'm not saying we don't need to improve our finishing, obviously we do, but I'd feel more confident of the front players regaining their spark than this makeshift back four functioning to a high level. 

I can't see us picking up points against anybody half decent while this back four is the one being wheeled out. Fate has certainly conspired against us with these injuries! Whilst I don't think individually Lenglet, Carlos, Cash and Moreno are actively bad players by any stretch, it's just a combination that does not seem to work. 

Right back and another wide forward/striker please. Sacha Boey &.....I dunno. Definitely not Timo Werner as the papers seem to think.

I like Carlos a lot but he needs to cut out these lazy bullshit passes into midfield, and Id like to see more from him in an attacking sense at set pieces too. Torres has grabbed a header at Spurs but do any of our centre backs routinely threaten from set pieces? Even Mings doesn't really, and he's about 7ft tall.

Don't know if anybody else takes any notice of these but I quite like reading the "Jones Knows" betting and score predictions articles on Sky Sports every week. Link below if anyone is interested;

Premier League predictions: Brighton to rock Manchester United, Brentford to hit vulnerable Newcastle defence | Football News | Sky Sports

He says in our preview (and mentions it in the Wolves v Liverpool preview) that we're quite overrated? And follows it up with tipping Palace to win. Don't know if it's just me but I feel that's quite a harsh comment, I don't think we're especially overrated by anybody. I see plenty of articles about "non big six" combined teams and very few in any of our players ever seem to come up in those. I don't think we're in a different class to Brighton for example, and yet people will rave about them. I would think that looking to beat Palace at home would be a fairly standard point of view for any side just looking to finish top half, never mind in European contention.  

I think 6 points from the first 4 league games, along with cruising into the Conference group stage is about what we all expected when the fixtures were announced. I am a bit alarmed however by the nature of the defeats - 8 goals shipped and 1 scored away at sides who, in theory, we want to be competing with or at least in and around is pretty disappointing. We can't be getting slapped every time we go away from home to a decent side.

Lively and alert to pinch that throw from Keane. Ably assisted by Ashley Young  really pleased for Duran, hope he starts on Wednesday to try and add to his tally as he'll be full of confidence now

I feel a frustrating 1-1 draw ahead

1 minute ago, Mantis said:

Unfortunately not, but there's this guy called Pau Torres who can. Very highly rated, used to play under Emery. We should sign him.

I was operating under the assumption that Emery might want to try him at LB again as per pre season. Maybe we can try Carlos there, I think he was left sided at Sevilla. 

On topic, I'm not convinced by Zaniolo but maybe that means he's exactly the type of player Emery could get a tune out of him like his collection of prem rejects at Villarreal (Coquelin, Foyth, Danjuma, etc)

I wonder if we might now consider another centre back, but one with the physical attributes that Mings brings to the team. Recovery pace and aerial ability are the big two, leadership and communication obviously intangible and harder to judge. Somebody like Hancko maybe, would still allow us to persist with Pau at LB if that's to be the plan. 

Beyond that, a RB and wide midfielder/forward player still required. Maybe Zaniolo fills that wide role, I'm not convinced by him currently. I wonder if the links to the young Levante RB (Pubill?) were accurate?

Can he play LCB?