Mhsc

On the bench

Jesus. Another reminder that life is fragile and short. 3 small children and a wife who is now a widow. His parents have now just lost both of their children in one instant too. Unbelievable tragedy.

Fabrizio saying we are “exploring” the CB market

What exactly is PL proven about him? He's basically flopped. 5G 3A. Guy hasn't even performed as well as Noni Madueke despite playing more games.

Yes definitely. I assume that was always only desperation. We have made signings to fix that now. Overall it is hard to understand anything at the mo as suddenly we have Gittens and Joao Pedro and need to understand what exactly the plan is for these two. I am assuming they are playing LW.

If there is any reason he can go tbh it is defos his attitude. Got sort of Ronaldo vibes in terms of selfishness/demanding taking pens etc but doesn't back it up with the numbers/performances. That said I overall like Noni and sort of semi believe in Project Noni. I have enjoyed having him in a way I didn't really with Sancho. At least I can see the point in Noni Madueke. He just isn't executing well enough yet.

Haha have been thinking for a couple of weeks it would be hilarious if we outbid them for him just to raise the price but then also don't move at all and turn the whole thing into a deadline day saga for them

Neto and Gittens will be insanely fast on the counter. Wonder if we're secretly building a park the bus and counter team and try to be a team that win 1-0 and solve the defensive problems without solving the defensive problems (i.e. hide our shit GK + CBs deficiencies by playing super defensive / deep / boring, instead of spending money to rebuild it and be a team that can play attacking and win big without being crazy open at the back). Then maybe we tackle those problems next summer...

Sorry I meant Sancho, typing from my phone

I suppose you can argue these signings make sense as Mudryk / Sancho / Felix / Nkunku replacements I suspect things will not end well with Joao, I like him as a player but I’m not sure there is room for this type of aggressive player in VAR ball. We already struggle with NJ who is comparatively an angel. And the Chelsea bias is real so he will never get the soft treatment he got at cute little Brighton

The problem of course is Bundesliga + not playing for Chelsea. Those numbers are likely to tank while being 2v1'd. The plus side is it might be another player that requires 2v1 defending and occupies players to free up space in the middle.

One table that shows Gittens very favourably: xG and xA from dribbling situations.

Gittens looks like more squad filler tbh, albeit decently well suited to Maresca's system Pretty underwhelming especially for £55m but lets see what he does for us. Who are supposed to be the stars at squad filler FC? Cole Palmer good player but may never be that guy doing insane numbers again, so then who is? Are we supposed to have faith that Delap does big big numbers on the first try? Or there just isn't even ambition to score the huge number of goals it takes to win PL? We still look massively short in terms of attacking threat imo. Upgrading our squad filler is good but it is more of a stabilisation job to get us back into being regularly top 5. Doing well in CWC papering over the situation a bit imo, will get found out in PL again during the season if we don't do something better than this before the end of summer.

I've just been ignoring the whole Gittens thing because I don't know much about him and wasn't worth looking much in case the deal doesn't happen as so many of them don't. Guess it is time to check him out. Usually I try to watch the "player vs team" youtube videos because you see every involvement (good and bad) they had in the game, but even then you still can't see so much (what runs they make, whether they are switched off in moments they should be switched on etc). In the stats he looks very Madueke-esque with slightly better defensive output.

Did the game finish yet?

I cba. Going to call if for the night. Fuck this tournament USA a great country for so many reasons but soccer is not one of them yet.

No doubt a local one - but a location they chose! Should have played it in a serious footballing country, proper stadiums, filled with fans.

On the plus side, the new offside stuff looks like a godsend.

Got to give all 5 people in the stadium a chance to get to cover from a drop of rain Fucking state of this nonsense

lmao just finish the game what a fucking mockery of football this tournament is So many people involved in planning this need to be sacked in FIFA. This tournament so far has been a totally embarrassing shambles.

Kudus is very similar to Madueke, but less successful / productive. A very low standard indeed. Madueke is already beneath the level we should have albeit I think its ok to have some squad filler like him, signing more squad filler is not what we need. Unless Madueke is on his way out and Kudus is a vastly cheaper replacement, it would make no sense. We need to be raising the standard not lowering it or just keeping it the same as the worst members of our squad.

Just entering his prime with 5 goals 3 assists. He has great physicality and little else. Selfish and low IQ player, which is fundamentally an unfixable problem and sets a very low ceiling. We don't need to stoop this low anymore.

Kudus is a Strasbourg tier player. I'll abandon all hope if we sign him.

Very very many shit windows tbh. The unbelievable lost opportunity of the final 10 years of Roman's reign, when we still had spending power + wage power but overwhelmingly no clue how to do it or consistent approach with a proper director of football, repeatedly letting managers pick players instead etc. That approach looks almost hilariously prehistoric now but when it worked it was pretty great in those little flashes.

We will have to loan and part pay Chilly's wages til he retires. We gave him a new contract in 2023 that lasts til 2027, in what was a remarkably foolish decision... No doubt pushed for by Frank Lampard, even though Chilly had injury ridden seasons until then. His career is over he's just winding it down getting all the cash he can on the way out, no point for him to move and slash his wages. There's no comeback story here.