Premiership 2020/21

[1964white]

Liverpool have finally confirmed the signing of Thiago.

Quality signing for the champions

[andrewjohnsmith]

Think its good the owners are putting money into youth in that case.

No substitute for being able to find your own gems over paying for someone elses.

Really Cjay? You don't want De Paul now?

[Cjay]

Really Cjay? You don't want De Paul now?

Nah mate, a 17 year old winger whose just signed a professional contract with Burton will do for me

Having your own youth players coming through is great but only when they are ready.

Majority of ours (almost all) arent.

[andrewjohnsmith]

Nah mate, a 17 year old winger whose just signed a professional contract with Burton will do for me

Having your own youth players coming through is great but only when they are ready.

Majority of ours (almost all) arent.

I'm in both camps. Always love to see us develop our own. But wouldnt complain about De Paul coming in either

[visitingvillan]

Think its good the owners are putting money into youth in that case.

No substitute for being able to find your own gems over paying for someone elses.

Clearly fell on your feet with the new owners.

Still just seems that there isnt much thought to recruitment last 12 months though.

Watkins is what, your 4th striker signing after Samatta, Wesley and Baston.

Martinez is another goalie after Kallinic, Nyland, Heaton, Reina.

Traore is another winger after El Ghazi, Jota, Trezeguet (how he has the cheek to name himself that i will never know).

Your wage bill must be massive?

I suppose by sacking the recruitment guy that was the owners admitting it was poor though and starting again this summer.

Know you had some injuries, do you think had Wesley and Heaton not got injured then you wouldnt have signed Watkins and Martinez or is this the club admitting they werent as good as they had hoped?

we've had horrific luck with injuries and their timing. we brought in Nyland and he played (and was unconvincing) and then popped his achilles which meant we brought in Kalinić who proceeded to get a concussion in like his 4/5th game vs sheffield united (and one of their goals was literally kicked out of his hand). Then we turned to Steer who led us to promotion and in the PL buy Heaton who then does his ACL in jan and Steer did his achilles in his first game in a while. That lead to us bringing in Reina and it just felt like injury after injury there.

Similar with strikers, we lost Wesley and Heaton (actually to both ACL/PCL injuries in the Jan 1 game vs Burnley). Losing Wesley left us with only Davis as a senior striker which made us go out and sign the other two.


Traore is one I'm still unsold on — there are other guys i would've targeted over him.

Our wage bill was actually very low for PL standards. When we got promoted, we had to sign almost an entirely new team and none of the players brought in (bar Heaton iirc) were on big wages. I think it was the 2nd or 3rd lowest which is now why we have been spending more.

[visitingvillan]

Well the important thing is staying up and that's happened no matter how it happened. I haven't put your lot down for relegation this season and barring catastrophe I stand by it, there are too many other clubs who either more look out of their depth or are in far bigger trouble behind the scenes than ours.

Oh definitely it was. Another year of TV money and FFP regulations massively helped us. oh and I agree, I think we shouldn't be "in" a relegation fight this year but a consolidation would be more like it. I also think its 18 teams fighting to avoid 1 spot as Fulham & West Brom haven't done nearly enough with their squads to even be competitive imo.

[mothbanquet]

Oh definitely it was. Another year of TV money and FFP regulations massively helped us. oh and I agree, I think we shouldn't be "in" a relegation fight this year but a consolidation would be more like it. I also think its 18 teams fighting to avoid 1 spot as Fulham & West Brom haven't done nearly enough with their squads to even be competitive imo.

For sure, but even more of a problem for them are the tactics they use. Simple possession-based football without constant forward pressure and momentum just wont cut it against Premier League teams. They're still playing Championship football, that was so painfully clear to see last weekend watching both games.

Even then you've got other clubs like West Ham, who look to be in massive trouble, owner pandemonium behind the scenes. Newcastle beat them but again, the overall quality of the football for most of the match was really poor and the Mags have been a bad run of results away from drifting precariously close to a relegation scrap many times since they last came back up. They've made good signings this window, true but they have before and once that black aura descends on the club it's really hard to shift.

If Zaha leaves Palace in Jan - we know he wants to - they'll struggle big time. Brighton look decent at times and Potter is a good manager but again, they just haven't kicked on and looked secure since they came up. Sheffield United are lacking a big part of their safety net in Henderson this time around and I wouldn't be surprised, should they not get some points early on, if they found it hard to climb back up again. You might laugh but I think even Spurs might suffer this season - those players looked like they couldn't be arsed last season and it's even worse now.

Sorry for the long post but I'm just trying to say that it's pretty open (in theory) when you look at which club can possibly get relegated alongside whichever other club. Going to be a very interesting season.

[visitingvillan]

For sure, but even more of a problem for them are the tactics they use. Simple possession-based football without constant forward pressure and momentum just wont cut it against Premier League teams. They're still playing Championship football, that was so painfully clear to see last weekend watching both games.

Even then you've got other clubs like West Ham, who look to be in massive trouble, owner pandemonium behind the scenes. Newcastle beat them but again, the overall quality of the football for most of the match was really poor and the Mags have been a bad run of results away from drifting precariously close to a relegation scrap many times since they last came back up. They've made good signings this window, true but they have before and once that black aura descends on the club it's really hard to shift.

If Zaha leaves Palace in Jan - we know he wants to - they'll struggle big time. Brighton look decent at times and Potter is a good manager but again, they just haven't kicked on and looked secure since they came up. Sheffield United are lacking a big part of their safety net in Henderson this time around and I wouldn't be surprised, should they not get some points early on, if they found it hard to climb back up again. You might laugh but I think even Spurs might suffer this season - those players looked like they couldn't be arsed last season and it's even worse now.

Sorry for the long post but I'm just trying to say that it's pretty open (in theory) when you look at which club can possibly get relegated alongside whichever other club. Going to be a very interesting season.

I think that they are the most "at risk" "big 6" club of falling out. Jose always is close to boiling over and if he goes, I just don't see who they could attract. The Bale loan is very interesting because he is going to be easily the highest earner there and that could cause some squad unrest. And their financial situation with getting a new stadium might be very interesting because of the COVID situation and not being able to host events there.

Yeah i think it's definitely a very wide open race because I could easily see up to 11 teams going down (Everton, Wolves, & Leicester I think are the ones who shouldn't be/won't be around it).

[1964white]

Lewis Baker (remember him)

Chelsea to Trabzonspor on loan for the 9th time

[BGwhite]

Jota to Liverpool for 41 mil + add-ons. Wolves profit 30 mil in just 2 years . Wow !!

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[HarryofOz]

If you want to see really bad set-piece defending, watch West Brom at Everton.

[Smudge3920]

Can someone answer me a question...

What is the point of allowing the play to finish (attacker score the goal) BEFORE raising the flag for an obvious offside?

Ta very much...

[SG90]

Surprised at Wolves selling Jota. But I guess there's only so long these players can take without Champions League football and trophies.

[mothbanquet]

Can someone answer me a question...

What is the point of allowing the play to finish (attacker score the goal) BEFORE raising the flag for an obvious offside?

Ta very much...

Seems pretty silly to me.

[SG90]

When was the last time scum were below us in the table

[The Subhuman]

When was the last time scum were below us in the table

Before the season started ...alphabetically

[1964white]

[1964white]

Bale's transfer from Real to Spurs confirmed yesterday

[visitingvillan]

Can someone answer me a question...

What is the point of allowing the play to finish (attacker score the goal) BEFORE raising the flag for an obvious offside?

Ta very much...

It's pretty silly, but they want to make sure the play goes on just to give "certainty" with VAR calling offsides (if a goal is scored).

I think its coming from a FIFA mandate ??

[mothbanquet]

It's pretty silly, but they want to make sure the play goes on just to give "certainty" with VAR calling offsides (if a goal is scored).

I think its coming from a FIFA mandate ??

Seems to actually wind players up - just seen another case in the Chelsea/Liverpool game now - because a lot of the time they actually know they were offside but seem to have to go through a charade of continuing to attack, just to make a limp shot to get the linesman to raise the flag.

Another case of reality in the meeting room versus reality on the pitch to me, so far at least.