thunderball Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 3 hours ago, HalfTimePost said: FWIW, Spurs won't be signing both Pape Matar Sarr and McKennie. Whichever one they get (assuming all the BS is true) we can make a move for the other. Everton is more of a worry for me if Spurs get Sarr and then Everton get McKennie then we've lost out on a lot of big targets (allegedly) I don’t think Spurs have much cash. This is also why I don’t want them selling Kane because I reckon they would be a much stronger proposition without 28yo Kane and £160m to spend in the same market we are buying from. They are a rival at the moment, their tradjectory has been downwards since their CL final and ours is on the upswing. That may change with Nuno and £160m to spend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steero113 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 8 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: The 6 players who played in midfield last night: Tielemans Maddison Ndidi Rice Soucek Benrahma Not one of our midfielders would start ahead of those. Anyone saying that what we have gets us anywhere near a top 8 finish is off their tits. We need 2 new players in there. Or 1 and we settle for somewhere around 11th. Just depends how patient the board are for success. Benrahma isn't a midfielder, he plays on the left of a front 4 for them. He's as much a midfielder as Bailey is for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
est1874 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 8 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: Should does not mean will, or that we should "fully expect it". It is conditional on so many factors that I don't think it's reasonable to predict with any level of certainty either way. Regardless of whether we invest further in midfield. Basically, all of these teams have question marks hanging over their head. Including Leicester. So I am not buying into this certainty with which some folk are talking. I'm sticking with anywhere between 6th and 16th for the foreseeable future. 6th-16th, okay, well why stop there? We might finish 1st. We might also finish 20th. Personally I'd rather make a prediction based on what I see with my own eyes and what I can deduct via rational processes than see football as some sort of mysterious lottery where anything can and will happen. What is the point in having a debate with someone anyway if your philosophy is basically that nothing is knowable? Except to evangelize on behalf of a big cosmic shrug, that is. I'm confident we won't finish 6th. Or 7th. Or 8th. I'm reasonably confident we'll finish between 10th and 12th. There'll probably only be 1-3 points between us and the other 2 clubs occupying those positions, so essentially 1 result. If you think we'll do better, that's great, but I highly doubt it without recruiting further quality in the right areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danishlad Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 14 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: The 6 players who played in midfield last night: Tielemans Maddison Ndidi Rice Soucek Benrahma Not one of our midfielders would start ahead of those. Anyone saying that what we have gets us anywhere near a top 8 finish is off their tits. We need 2 new players in there. Or 1 and we settle for somewhere around 11th. Just depends how patient the board are for success. It's a good point. we need strengthening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderball Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 14 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: The 6 players who played in midfield last night: Tielemans Maddison Ndidi Rice Soucek Benrahma Not one of our midfielders would start ahead of those. Anyone saying that what we have gets us anywhere near a top 8 finish is off their tits. We need 2 new players in there. Or 1 and we settle for somewhere around 11th. Just depends how patient the board are for success. Completely with you on this. It’s the most important area of the team but our weakest. Not popular but I don’t think McGinn is worthy TBH, defo a v good squad player but for me he hasn’t shown enough consistently nor meaningful output for two years. If we signed eg. Bissouma and Sabitzer we are transformed I reckon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderball Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 (edited) 17 minutes ago, useless said: I'd have Bailey, Buendia, and Traore all in the team ahead of Benrahma who's very overrated on here. With a tiny bit more discipline, urgency, coaching and luck, Traore is a very decent player, glad we have him. Edited August 24, 2021 by thunderball 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post bobzy Posted August 24, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted August 24, 2021 20 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: The 6 players who played in midfield last night: Tielemans Maddison Ndidi Rice Soucek Benrahma Not one of our midfielders would start ahead of those. Anyone saying that what we have gets us anywhere near a top 8 finish is off their tits. We need 2 new players in there. Or 1 and we settle for somewhere around 11th. Just depends how patient the board are for success. You're picking particularly strong parts of both West Ham and Leicester and comparing it to our weakest area. That's such a silly comparison. It's like saying... Dawson Ogbonna Amartey Soyuncu Both of our central defenders would start ahead of any of those. We're obviously going to be in the top 6 this season! 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 1 minute ago, bobzy said: You're picking particularly strong parts of both West Ham and Leicester and comparing it to our weakest area. That's such a silly comparison. It's like saying... Dawson Ogbonna Amartey Soyuncu Both of our central defenders would start ahead of any of those. We're obviously going to be in the top 6 this season! Then there's our respective forward lines and full backs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cizzler Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 26 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: The 6 players who played in midfield last night: Tielemans Maddison Ndidi Rice Soucek Benrahma Not one of our midfielders would start ahead of those. Anyone saying that what we have gets us anywhere near a top 8 finish is off their tits. We need 2 new players in there. Or 1 and we settle for somewhere around 11th. Just depends how patient the board are for success. Benrahma played wide left. Fornals played through the middle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
est1874 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 2 minutes ago, bobzy said: You're picking particularly strong parts of both West Ham and Leicester and comparing it to our weakest area. That's such a silly comparison. It's like saying... Dawson Ogbonna Amartey Soyuncu Both of our central defenders would start ahead of any of those. We're obviously going to be in the top 6 this season! It's about whether a combined XI can function well as a whole. In the modern game, any team that has a gaping hole where a midfield should be is not going to win half of their games at the highest level of football, which is what it took to finish top 6 last season. Leicester actually won 20 games. We simply haven't a hope of doing that without improving on the current McGinn-Luiz-Nakamba-Ramsey vortex. (Leaving Sanson out as he's basically an unknown and who knows when he'll be back) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steero113 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 3 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said: Then there's our respective forward lines and full backs. And goalkeepers! (I rate Schmeichel btw but he's not Emi). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 If Bailey and Buendia prove to be among the top 5 or 6 players at the club within a few months then we'll be in a good place. If Ramsey and McGinn can keep up their good start to the season with consistency and If Luiz and Sanson can step up and fight for a place in midfield then we'll be in a good place. Those are the two key questions for us this season. I feel Watkins/Ings are proven quality as are the back 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 Pape Sarr to Spurs as good as done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejs1111 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 (edited) Welp. Cancel the season. Lets just give up Europe aspirations with 36 matches left. VT... aka Nostradamus has determined its a bridge too far. It seems every team above us is capable of signing players or improving existing players EXCEPT Aston Villa. Edited August 24, 2021 by ejs1111 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 1 hour ago, Zatman said: Benrahma is extremely overrated, i dont think he gets into our team Benrahma-Buendia-Bailey Would comfortably be better than anything we have currently. Bailey-Ramsey-Buendia Bailey-Buendia-Traore Bailey-Ings-Traore (effectively 442 with Ollie) AEG-Buendia-Bailey. Bailey-Buendia-JPB Bailey-Chuk-Buendia Comfortably the first with Benrahma is the best option Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomsky_11 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 When you factor in GD, we were closer to 6th than 12th last season in terms of points. Don't understand how some are predicting with such apparent confidence that we won't improve and are more likely to drop places than gain them without drastic changes to midfield. I understand we are probably weakest in central areas both within our first XI and compared with some of the teams around us. (And I'd agree that if we do spend any more money in this window, that's where we should spend it.) But I'd suggest we should be at very least marginally better than last season in this area: McGinn back to full fitness, had issues with this last season Luiz still only 23yo, should expect him to improve Sanson barely featured last season, expect him to be pushing for starting spot Ramsey showing great improvement in first two games, still only 20yo Barkley was inconsistent in both performance and fitness. Seems to have been effectively replace by Ings which is a definite upgrade (potential issue with shape change aside) Chukwuemeka is a promising regular option this season On top of this, our back 5 was already better IMO than most of the teams around us (7th best GA and 3rd most clean sheets last season, wasn't it?) and I'd expect gains here aswell this season both through further improvement in existing players and much better depth than last season. And even with the loss of Grealish, I'd say we should be at very least on par with last season. Bailey and Buendia replacing Grealish and Traore in wide areas looks like a pretty even trade off from a purely statistical perspective, the advantage this season being that we shouldn't be anywhere near as focused on one player and one side of the pitch. I certainly don't see us being weaker in this area than a number of teams that we'd be looking to catch from last season. I don't think anyone 6th-10th last season apart from maybe Spurs that have improved much either, so there's at least 4 teams above us that it's entirely possible we could catch. I don't feel the margins are that big, flip just our two WHU losses to wins for example (one of which we aboslutely should have won) and we could have been 7th. Seems more likely to me than anyone below us catching up. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AXD Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 2 hours ago, est1874 said: Are you asking if they have the potential to finish midtable? Of course they do. They're a quality team with a quality manager. They don't have great strength in depth, but that didn't stop Leeds last year. They'll do well. Same could be said about Norwich, who even have more experience in the PL. I'm not saying Brentford can't do well and perform like sheffield or wolves in their first season, but more often newly promoted teams struggle. Especially those coming up through the play-off final. Our own club as an example: on paper we had a good team with mings, mcginn, heaton and one of the greatest talents in England with Grealish. A good manager, strong support, wealthy owners,... everything to succeed and we still struggled because the step-up to the PL is massive. For every Sheffield (1 lucky season was followed by a horrible one) or Wolves, you have twice as many Fulhams, Norwichs, WBAs or even to a lesser extent Newcastle or Brighton (lower mid-table at best). So yes any team has the potential with a bit of luck, but to state this as a certainty is farfetched. I hope for Brentford to avoid relegation, but expect a difficult season. Happy to be proven wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craigy1874 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 1 hour ago, M_Afro said: At what? Wild guess but probably at football? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomsky_11 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 2 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said: Benrahma-Buendia-Bailey Would comfortably be better than anything we have currently. Bailey-Ramsey-Buendia Bailey-Buendia-Traore Bailey-Ings-Traore (effectively 442 with Ollie) AEG-Buendia-Bailey. Bailey-Buendia-JPB Bailey-Chuk-Buendia Comfortably the first with Benrahma is the best option Bailey-Ings-Buendia? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Steero113 Posted August 24, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted August 24, 2021 3 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said: Benrahma-Buendia-Bailey Would comfortably be better than anything we have currently. Bailey-Ramsey-Buendia Bailey-Buendia-Traore Bailey-Ings-Traore (effectively 442 with Ollie) AEG-Buendia-Bailey. Bailey-Buendia-JPB Bailey-Chuk-Buendia Comfortably the first with Benrahma is the best option Benrahma just isn't better than Bertie, sorry. 4 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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