Mhsc

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.

We seem to be really good at signing injury prone players these days. People blaming Potter for this but come on, the lad has hardly played and it is not Potter's fault if a man tears his hamstring. Maybe even in preseason we shouldn't play our "real" players to help them stay fit too!

Sad state of affairs when Man Utd are trouncing you in the middle of the park. Seems like not that long ago that midfield was probably our strongest area, now it is clearly our weakest. To be fair if Kante, Kovacic and Jorginho are all fit we have a very strong midfield, albeit lacking goal scoring. Feels like this crisis is a result of so many other crisis - this was always obviously going to become a problem, but it was never at the top of the priority list, or even close.

I assume he is trying hard not to play Kova because he’s trying to manage him back to fitness but keeps having no choice but to bring him on. Zakaria must be literally not at a professional standard to have not had a look at this point.

Agreed. Also this is an improvement imo as we would have lost this one 3-0 at the beginning of the season.

Wasn't that arm first and thigh second??

Pulisic looks a lot better since Potter arrived. Feel like he, Auba and Mount all need to start for us at the moment.

Link up play from Auba lookin good. Feel like this game wont end 0-0

Ah Kovacic, man has never been able to shoot but he's never lost the confidence to try over and over.

I think Potter has decided that either Havertz or Auba have to be on the pitch to serve as a target man tbh.

I wonder if Havertz being so tall works in his favour with managers. Is he our tallest player?

Excited to see what these 3 can do.