Mhsc

A few days ago loads of people around the internet calling us mugs because we were going to overpay for this guy Today loads of people around the internet calling us mugs for refusing to pay lots of money for this guy after only a couple of day's of negotiation, it is the 4th of January and discussions just started

I think in football, history shows that money matters more than anything else on average.

I'm not sure how to feel on this. I guess Boehly and co don't contain when stuff leaks, so maybe what looks scatter gun is actually strategic but the timing that things hit the press make things simply look like chaos. Who can say. I do think that we are enquiring about most players who might be available, probably to collect data as much as anything (understand if they really are available, expected asking price). All of it helps us to understand the market I guess.

Extremely strange. I guess the type of fullback we want is generally overpriced, like Cucu, but still - surely there is someone we can get as backup for Reece, or someone in the loan army we can recall. We don't need to find the next best RB in the world, as we already have him, but I'm sure we can find players who have stats that improve us on aggregate. I don't buy that players wont want to come either because of Reece - they can see his injury record and also, Reece is so good he could potentially play multiple positions. People like Dumfries or Frimpong are surely both being looked at behind the scenes.

100%. People have totally forgotten that people thought Arteta was a joke for ages, now looks like one of the most promising manager's in the league again. People even turned on Pep and Klopp in their early days in the PL. Football fans and media are very short sighted, as football is a lot about instant gratification of the current or next game. However, we see time and again that the best long term successful manager's have difficult starts and eventually come good. A lot of instantly good managers are good for 1-2 years before losing their job, not just at our club but at many others.

Probably not making a lot at Benfica and he will get a big contract with us, and we're the ones with the money to buy him right now. Plus, while this forum is very short sighted, he is joining a big and ambitious project in its infancy. Maybe at his age that feels like something he's got plenty of time for.

Rudiger was inconsistent and made some bad decisions before he hit his good form, but never looked literally incapable of coping with the league. He had pace, power, athleticism and intelligence. KK has looked off the pace and looks like a liability in every game. He made some sense as a signing in a defensively focused 3 ATB system, but if we are playing 4 ATB again (which imo we should) then honestly there is no space for him here. I think it would be better for him and us if we just kill it off now and send him out this transfer window, let him go back to Italy or another slow paced league where he can play at a high level for a few more years.

Personally think he deserves until January in a year's time, getting this transfer window + summer + a full preseason under his belt with the club signing excellent players not specifically for him but because they are excellent players any manager will be happy with. If he can't get us firing by then it will be time to move on, imo. Personally I don't see that another coach could have got much out of this squad different to what we are seeing, Tuchel also struggled in the end after all. I do think you have to be patient and give manager's a chance because otherwise we'd also have fired people like Klopp and Pep and never got to see them deliver us to a high level.

Thought this was an interesting video on Enzo.

Wonder if Ivan Toney is being considered. Would be a big upgrade on Havertz as a 9, and Auba is just finished. Not sure who else exists that might be buyable tbh?

He’s just a bad version of Harry Maguire. My only hope is this was a Tuchel signing that Boehly agreed to despite the data saying it would be a bad signing and it is something he’s learned from. Honestly think we should sell him this window to any buyer that will pay 10m+

Probably in the summer yes, but I think he is almost our only feasible chance at creating an attacking / dangerous team without going to the transfer market and an upgrade should be chosen strategically not tactically (i.e. we should be patient and get a special player for the long term)

Think we have to double down on Ziyech and try to bring him to form and happiness. He’s our only authentically creative player, he’s been so shit for us before the WC but this could be a turning point with him. Watching the rest of them it’s like watching fucking robots sometimes. Just doing the same movements over and over and trying to do everything via dribbling but without the pace to super dangerous none of them really bring anything special like Hazard did. Ziyech is the only one that can do anything like Mata did for us or Fabregas did for us with creativity. Gallagher should go out on loan and we should clear out J5, KK and Auba already. Sell Pulisic while his value is high after the WC and before he gets injured. Build this season, try to get players in now and at the very BEGINNING of summer and have a good preseason with an improved group before we go into next year. Also, play the kids regularly for the rest of the year so we have something to enjoy at least, no point giving minutes to 25+ year olds who bring bad results. If we are going to lose / draw regularly let’s do it with a developing team not a team on the decline.

Would be nice to have him by the time we play City, if this deal is actually happening. If we got Caicedo as well then our midfield would surely be 'sorted' for a long time to come.

Presumably there is a science to recovery and 60 minutes was based on a likelihood of being injured being essentially negligible vs playing 45 or 30. I assume recovery is like a bell curve whereby there is a period in which you really must not play and then you reach a point where not playing is such diminishing returns there is essentially no point in waiting. At any rate, Potter does not seem the type to ignore medical advice and the club does not seem like the type to ignore science / medicine. I would imagine it is managed better than you are giving it credit, and it is no one's fault that Reece has a weak knee.

Could still have got injured in those 25-30 minutes and then we'd say "why not give him another week to recover?" Probably they did the right thing and just got unlucky.

Would love to get a documentary with inside footage in the club about how transfers have been done since Boehly joined. Would honestly be one of the most interesting (and probably funny) football documentaries ever.

This is the real mystery in all of this. He has not changed much from 6 months ago surely, if at all.

In before we sign some lad(s) for £100m+ each and they develop knee/muscle/something problems and spend 70% of every season for the next 3-5 years injured before we repeat the cycle. Honestly feels like the club has come up with some kind of strategy for buying players based on data but decisions are not risk adjusted at all. Feels a bit like they are treating the player roster like a group of assets in the same way you might with shares, and trying to build essentially a growth portfolio/index where you just invest in players who are quickly rising in the data and don't concern yourself with whether or not they are 10x over valued already or a risky buy that you might need to sell for 30% of what you paid. Having said all of that, would be excited like everyone else if we sign him... Excited but nervous...

Poor performance of referees and a hapless VAR is just a license to cheat for our opponents.

Players get older, get damaged by injuries etc.

I would have stuck with Tuchel to the bitter end because I think we’ve got a rotten core of players here and our inconsistency is down to 10 years of structural failings at the club. Now we have Potter and I feel much the same about him.

100% agreed. Genuinely disgusts me. Websites like WAGNH have not even given him a sliver of a chance either. This in a nutshell is why we've been on a consistent slow slide downwards for 10 years now.

All of our players look slow these days. We don't have anyone that seems to have the ability to leave defenders for dead anymore.

Such people are not fans.