Rob182

I agree. In my opinion, they have a squad fairly capable of finishing 13-15th with a competent manager. Based on squad ability, I’d put them just a handful of positions lower than where we should be (again, based on squad ability). I think Bruce has made many think they’re worse than they are. Where have I seen that before…

Crudely looking at flashscores, it’s roughly 310 minutes playing together. (Of 594 mins Sancho’s played for Man Utd in total).

There can be more than one problem.

I’m no expert, but I watched a Tifo podcast earlier this season that explained how Sancho’s minutes/touches were similar at Man Utd to what they were at Dortmund (at the time), and how less effective he is at Man Utd, largely down to how Ronaldo’s lack of pressing means that the space in front of Sancho is reduced, compared to when he was at Dortmund and would run down the channels and create/assist/score from it. They touched on how Sancho playing with Cavani up top would actually, likely work better, because Cavani is a harder worker than Ronaldo, and this chasing and pulling of defenders results in gaps on the wing for Sancho to exploit. (As I say, I’m no expert, and I’m probably explaining it wrong, but I’ve read and watched a few pieces explaining similar CR7 problems).

Bruno was literally scoring tonnes of goals without him. Now they’ve brought CR in, changed the way they play to shoehorn him, whilst reducing Bruno’s effectiveness and having to bench Sancho as well. They signed him out of romance, like Ole (and partly to stop Man City getting him), and it’s likely set them back a season.

I already have Son, which is nice. So might use a free transfer to get Regulion as well. This Chelsea roulette is so annoying. Azpi dropped in price again for me this morning. I’m holding off getting rid as I still think he’ll come back in.

I feel like I’m playing catch-up already, and taking risks I probably don’t need to. I’m at 2.8m OR, which is pretty poor. This week is swerved the Salah captain in favour of Raphina. I hope he outscores Salah’s 5 points today!

Yeah, I was just talking those 6 mentioned (and being conservative with my estimates!)

I wonder what their combined weekly wages were… £160k maybe. It adds up over time! Not that Inept Cabbage Head would admit it. Signing Hogan, then having absolutely no idea how to get the best out of him, was one of his worst moves at Villa. He’s so clueless. At least with Wilson at NUFC he knew how to use him. But Hogan just went from hot property to one of Bruce’s slum properties.

Draw and lose a load of games, with a squad capable of finishing top…. Then beats Rotherham “That’ll shut them up”

Ah, the old “we’ve had to beg, steal and borrow” line that he likes to throw about! Which is never true. Just 2 examples, but at Newcastle he came in 4 days before £40m was spent on Joelinton, a few weeks before ASM was signed, and was able to spend £50m+ on Wilson, Lewis and Willock. At Villa he probably took us up to the highest wage bill in the league, as he tended to spend money on wages and loan fees (£4m on Terry’s wages, was it?) instead of larger transfer sums. Again, he used to always say he had no money, but he did manage to sign a shit load of players and give them all lovely bumper contracts (and… different topic.. often had no clue how to use said players!)

He needs to get out of the house. Wife’s orders I imagine. A fly on the wall in the Bruce household probably sees him doing the washing up, smashing plate after plate off the tap, to which his wife moans at him and he says “Oh yeah, who are you going to get that will wash the dishes better?!”, and then texting all of his mates about how well he rolls-up his sleeves but how “wor missus” is giving him a hard time. Meanwhile, the neighbours kids are asking why he’s driven his car into their sandpit again, to which Alex Bruce puts letters through their doors, addressed to their parents, claiming that their kids are abusing poor ol’, hard-done-by Steve.

The sleeves and socks of NUFC players are about to be a lot less pulled up!

He’s picking and packing for extra cash now?! These bloody footballers are so greedy!

I was more interested looking at the pitchside advertisements than the football for most of that game. Pokemon futsal?! Tell me more. As for the football.. That Simpsons clip of players slowly passing the ball to each other around the centre-circle comes to mind. Hungary.

DCL toe injury out of nowhere! I pressed the wildcard button earlier this week to make a bunch of changes (brought in Benrahma, Antonio, Lukaku and a few DEF changes to allow me to do it)…. And then the Ronaldo news happened and I changed my team round all over again to make space for him Oh man. What a mess. But, I’m kinda glad I did it. It feels ridiculously early, but I’m much happier with my team now.

Yeah, I agree with that, I just think there are players out there of similar quality who we *could* tempt to come to us. It would just take a big bid. The allure of Premier League football and Prem wages. (Don’t ask me who, I just think they’re definitely out there! We shopped in the £10-15m market before and got Nakamba and Luiz, and I’m certain there are gettable DMs in the £25-35m market that would come to us).

I thought Witsel was meant to have a bit of a bad attitude (although, admittedly, I’m going off information from about 8 years ago when we were last linked to him). If he does have a bad attitude then we should avoid, and I think Smith would too. If not then he could be a decent stop-gap. Although, saying that, why would we sign a stop-gap ageing player when we clearly have the money to buy a player of similar ability in his prime?

JWP at £50m was not the right player at the right price, if that was the suggestion @striker. A great player, a set piece specialist, but not what we need (and especially not what we need to pay over the odds for). Had we bought him, we’d play one game and many would still be asking for a new defensive midfielder.

I never said anything about Chuk being too young to stick around and play. I just said personally that’s what I would do. I’d loan him out as the next step in his development, as I think he’d get more games at a Championship club than he will here. ..and here’s an equally pointless counter list of successfully loaned-out youth players … Grealish, Bale, Kane, Tammy, Lampard, Terry, Beckham…. Etc etc.

I’d loan him out personally. How many games will he get here? 10-20, including cup games, at a guess. Ramsey made about 25 appearances last year for us, but the majority were bit part <30 minute appearances. Our youngsters should be proving themselves in the Championship, if possible, instead of playing a handful of full games, first team cameos, and then the rest of the season rolling out for the reserves.

It serves me right for being fancy and bolding a word.

Dammit

Cheers Blandy. So guys, what do we really think of Dean Smith?

I’m finding this season a bit tricky already. How to fit Bruno, Salah, Son, Trent & Lukaku (when he me moves to Chelsea) in the team will be the real test!