Leeroy

He needs to have a good game, it's been so long since he did. Seems we say that every week though.

Please deliver today Villa.

Toney isn’t elite either, neither is Wilson. Neither was Calvert Lewin but constantly got chances when he was fit. Watkins is a better all round striker than all those too. When you see dross like Phillips, Maguire, Dire and Pickford in the squad there really isn’t a high benchmark to get in that squad so being elite or not is irrelevant.

Hopefully he takes his anger not getting in the squad out on Bournemouth this weekend by bagging a hat trick.

Not really, he could have taken all three and left out any of: Phillips, Dire, Maguire or Gallagher, none of whom deserved a call up. Yes they play different positions but it’s never stopped the tool picking too many right backs before. I feel for Ollie because he deserved to be in that squad.

We don’t sell our best players to Spurs, doesn’t happen, honestly can’t remember the last time we sold a key player to them and I don’t think it’s ever happened in my lifetime. They couldn’t buy Benteke from us when we were battling relegation every season and couldn’t buy Grealish when we were in the Championship. Now we are very much a midtable team looking to get into Europe regularly so higher in the food chain, they have played CL this season but last season and the season before they were playing in the lesser European competitions. Since we started going shit in 2010 we have both reached three finals and lost them all so likelihood is Martinez would win nothing there anyway so if it’s trophies he’s after spurs should be a no go. Not saying they aren’t better than us, they are and have been since 2011, we should never have let a similar sized team get so far ahead of us, especially one like spurs run by levy who is a complete tight arse with investment albeit a very shrewd businessman, but blame Lerner for that. But I just don’t think martinez would go a team that doesn’t win things when he’s said that’s what he wants, either way the only way spurs have a chance of signing him is if they make top 4. Still think Liverpool will sneak that final place although they’re doing a good job of messing it up. I also don’t think levy would sanction a huge offer for a 30 year old goalkeeper because, let’s face it, we aren’t selling him for anything less than £60m and the likelihood is it’ll be even higher than that.

I thought Carlos preferred left side but if he can make it work with Mings and play on the right side we might go with that for next season, a young CB like Inacio we should certainly be keeping an eye on though given Mings and Carlos are both 30 now and Carlos has had a long lay off. Cash probably gets replaced in the starting 11 by a RB/CB hybrid but we probably do need another CB as Mings competition to be fair as Chambers and Hause aren’t good enough. Just depends how much business we can get done and our budget. I really don’t know about Dembele, he could be a good impact sub for a couple of years, but I’m not convinced he will do much here or replace Ollie longer term. On a free he might be worth a punt but I wouldn’t be giving him a 5 year contract on £100K+ as we’ll struggle to sell if he disappoints. I’d rather just wait until we can buy a clear Watkins upgrade which probably won’t be for a season or 2.

Yes his goals per minute are better than Ollie's but I think Ollie is a far better striker. Also it is a bit easy to carried away by stats. First, it is the French league and whilst I would definitely buy players from that league, the teams you play other than PSG are not that great. Dembele is currently not first choice at Lyon who are 10th in the league, he is being kept out of the team by Lacazette who was hardly a roaring success at Arsenal. And as a backup striker his stats have dried up and I don't think he's good enough to displace Ollie so he would only be getting 20-30 minutes for us at best. I'd take David here but that's because he is younger and is first choice at a better team, as well as seems to be on the way up rather than the way down: he has drastically improved this season and is joint top scorer in the league with Mbappe and so we'd be buying him off the back of his best season. Dembele would be coming off the back of one of his poorest seasons. Maybe I'm being harsh on Dembele but I'm just not that big a fan and I do watch European football. Given it is a free it's low risk and his goalscoring record is good, but I'm just not sold on him and he clearly thinks he's better than he is if he's asking for huge wages.

I'd be fairly happy with for example: Nico Williams, Guendouzi, Goncalves and a CB who can also play RB (Simakan is a good suggestion or Foyth who Emery coached at Villareal). I think four players to potentially go straight into the first 11 could cost up to £150m so I'm hoping for/expecting a really big push this summer. I'd love Jonathan David who I think is an upgrade on Watkins and four years younger but think he'd eat up too much of our budget and I think Ollie is good enough for a European push especially with better players behind him. If we move on Digne then Truffert or Maatsen are both decent young options who won't be on big wages, but Digne and Moreno is ok for next season at least. Inacio is excellent but with Carlos and Mings both preferring to play on the left side I'm not sure how feasible it will be unless we move one of them out.

Dembele even on modest wages isn't worth it, even on a free, Watkins is far better, and we need players to improve the 11 more than the squad. Duran and Archer are fine as squad players and both are likely to improve by quite a bit unlike Dembele who is 27 this summer. Lyon fans say he's terrible, he most certainly won't end up at Man U or even Newcastle and I'd be very disappointed if he ended up here.

I agree with that but point is I think if we had signed Palhinha we could have played all three (Kamara and Palhinha holding, Luiz a bit further forward). We also didn't know if Luiz was staying or going in summer, Arsenal bid three times on deadline day, then we signed Donk as a panic buy. Either way you look at it our summer window last year wasn't great. Hopefully under a proper manager like Emery we will do much better this time around, but yes I think other positions are higher priority now given the system we play.

Luiz isn't a holding midfielder.

Palhinha was a bargain, I thought so at the time, I was actually shocked he ended up at Fulham (Portuguese manager aside) as felt he would have had better options including us. He’s one of the main reasons they’ve done so well this season, huge loss for them if he goes in the summer but they’ll make a good profit.

Will surely be back in the next England squad with Kane and Toney, would be an outrageous decision by Southgate if he didn't select him given how good he has been week in week out since December. Took his goal brilliantly again today and should have had another, if he keeps this form going he will get get at least 15 this season and may even get close to 20 which is incredible given his slow start to the season.

It's actually a scandal that this guy hasn't got a recall for Brazil this month, Joao Gomes from Wolves in the squad over him is a farce. He's been one of our best players all season and is definitely one of the top performing midfielders in the league now. Literally at least a 7/10 every week from him, another very good display again today. The irony is he was getting called up regularly for Brazil a couple of years ago when he was really inconsistent and made rash decisions, now he can't seem to get a look in but is actually performing far, far better for us. How he didn't get a World Cup place over Fred I'll never know.

Watched some of their game against Liverpool yesterday, they have lots of pace down the sides which is their main strength and we need to be very careful of that playing a high line. Ouattara who they signed in January has got a few assists for them and looked their most dangerous player yesterday. Then again, I'm fed up having rubbish records against relegation fodder. Bournemouth did the double over us the last time they were in this league but ended up getting relegated and finishing below us, and the defeat on the opening day of this season when they had signed no players all summer was an absolute disgrace. We need to be winning this game, really can't be dropping points in two consecutive weeks to sides around the relegation zone. It would be nice to win by more than two goals for a change so that we can improve our GD but any win will do.

Ramsey and Bailey the poorest players in the team today and quite often are. Think I'd rather have Aaron Ramsey than Jacob at this moment in time. Overall a point isn't too bad and stops our losing streak against these, but it's yet another game we haven't beaten them. We've taken as many points off West Ham in the last three seasons as we have against City, a far better side, and that just doesn't make sense.

Trash performance but Ramsey was worse. Just doesn't get the hate because he's from the Academy. Both Ramsey and Bailey shouldn't be starting for us either way. Bailey looked a great signing at the time but he has been very disappointing.

In an ideal world our summer would look something like this based on players we've been linked with: In Guendouzi Nico Williams (the Bilbao one) Foyth Tierney Goncalves Pau Torres Out Coutinho Digne Young (move him to a coaching role) Traore Nakamba Sanson Chambers Davis I don't think those ins are out of our league except maybe Torres and possibly Williams, so if we can't get them an equivalent ball playing CB and a pacey winger. As for outs, will be difficult to shift all those unless we're prepared to take hits on what we paid or use them in part exchange for our ins. Bailey, Buendia, Ramsey and McGinn can all stay as vital squad players but will be in and out the team. We can probably afford to sell at least one of them though if we bring those other players in. It will be an expensive summer but we are well overdue one given we haven't spent much last two summer windows.

We're well overdue a win against these tw@ts. They've won the last five against us but very lucky in some of those wins, the one at VP this season they were lucky to win and the game in London last season and the season before we were the better side for large parts and were unlucky to lose. You can accept it to a degree when they are good but they really aren't good this season. They've got some good players but are in trouble down there, we really mustn't help them out by gifting them 3 points like we usually do, we will win this game and finally end our hoodoo against them if we get our tactics right. We've won 4 of our 5 away games under Emery, be disappointed if we don't make that 5 wins from 6.

I think that probably next season they will both be in the team although I'd be very surprised if we didn't sign at least one CB this summer which would mean Mings and Carlos battling for the other spot and if Carlos recovers his form he is better than Mings and also better at playing out from the back so I see Mings being on the bench more often next season. Watkins yes he will still be in the team I think and despite his technical limitations is thriving under Emery. I think he might be one that surprises the most in holding down his place, at least for a couple of years, as he seems to be putting in the effort to adapt to Emery's system.

Needs to be backed 100% this summer and then in subsequent summers, it's as simple as that. I just hope the end to the season isn't painful and we stay up comfortably.

Yeah I was arguing with this about you before Arsenal but I've finally come round to the realisation you are right so sorry about that. We will see if the owners are prepared to back the manager heavily in summer. If they do, I expect we will see decent progress next season and finally finish top half and possibly top 8 then maybe a European push the following summer if he is backed again. If they don't it will be the same yet again and Emery might even walk if he feels he hasn't got the support of the club, let's hope that doesn't happen.

Don't agree we need so few changes. Moreno is ok as a squad player but I haven't seen enough to suggest he's automatic first choice especially defensively and we need another younger player to come in at LB and make the position their own. Loads of people love Mings but the fact is he's not good enough for first choice, he will have to be on the bench next season and only a squad player. Don't know why you've excluded Martinez but if he wants to go then yes will need replacing. Buendia isn't good enough to be first choice either and should only be a squad player. Watkins I'm 50/50 about but he's certainly playing well right now and playing like he wants to be part of the first 11 next season, still think he might only be a rotation option though as he goes through long spells of not scoring. However, whether we can replace that many players in one window probably not, might take 2 summer windows at least. For me, to get to level competing with the top 6 regularly, it would be: Martinez New New Carlos New Luiz Kamara New New New New (maybe Watkins for another season) And that also depends on Diego Carlos coming back from his injury the same player he was at Sevilla, I'm also conscious he is 30 next month so not getting any younger. If he doesn't manage to recover and come back the same player then we will need 2 starting CBs and to sign 8 first team players over the next 2-3 summers, not easy. Look at Arsenal, all of those players yesterday were Arteta's (he's had 3 summer windows since he joined) except Xhaka who was already there, Saka and Nketiah who came through the Academy, and Saliba who was signed by Emery incidentally. Martinelli who came on was also signed by Emery. So 7 of that first 11 were signed by Arteta and it would have been 9 of 11 if Jesus and Partey had been fit. We need to be adding at least three first team players each summer for the next three seasons and spending quite a lot of money, at least £100m. We can't keep skimping expecting we will make progress by not spending any money. We haven't progressed in three seasons, will finish lower half again this season, and are going nowhere without investment. The owners need to back this manager if they truly trust him, because otherwise we will descend into nothingness once again and at best be a midtable team that are utterly irrelevant or at worst end up battling relegation every season aain and falling back into the Championship. Edit: I just realised you said start of next season so I apologise. Still think Mings might not be in the team though and I'd be very surprised if Buendia started on the opening day next season. I think Martinez, Carlos, Luiz, Kamara and Watkins will all start. That's six players who could potentially be replaced in the lineup, but yes it will likely only be 3 or 4 as I don't see us signing 6 new first team players in the summer unless we're prepared to spend £200m.

It's not just our defence is sh*t, half of that XGA has come in the last three games. Before that our XGA per game was good on the whole, except in the game against Liverpool. Whatever Emery has done in the last three games, he needs to change it pronto. 11 goals conceded in three games didn't even happen under Gerrard at any point and if it had there would have some people calling for his head. There's more patience with Emery because of the success he's had at other clubs but ultimately he should be judged on what he does here. The sooner we get to 40 points the better, just want the season to end now.