Tomo

It never works like that. If things were so linear Arsenal would have dominated once Cesc, Nasri, RVP etc matured. Not only that teams need constant refreshing to avoid going stale, even young ones. Case in point, look at City's current best lineup and compare it to their centurions.

Because he is at best Eghbali's second in command and has been since last winter.

I think Enzo benefits more from a more box to box player so he can dictate the play from deep, ala Pirlo/Gattuso. His main strength is how he controls games and gets the buildup moving quickly (11 succesful long passes a game on average under Potter/Bruno). Playing him further forward would totally negate that strength.

Ten Hag had a falling out with him at Ajax I think. Either way I'd be gutted if he goes to a rival and we end up with another season of Kepa, I may be in the minority but I really rate him (and an avid serie A Milan supporter friend I have has validated my view).

In the case of Van De Beek one of the "other managers" is Ten Hag himself. I'd say it was more the Dutch league that inflated their percieved ability, as good as that one European campaign (which still had the end result of blowing a 3 goal lead to bloody Tottenham) was, it was effectively a Leicester esque phenomenon.

I bet some saddos were accessing his tactics and would have unironically held it against him had he lost that.

I can't really blame them if I'm honest. We have massive TV deals in this country and they're all skint by comparison to even the lower teams. If the boot was on the other foot we'd want our board to try and make similar good of a bad situation.

This isn't about underating him more how highly I think of Colwill. I think he's got that high a ceiling I was even meh about the prospect of signing Gvardiol. I see this as a similar situation to Arsenal last summer when they had Ben White but Saliba was returning.

Badiashille will more than likely be injured at the start and even if he wasn't I think Levi would start over him. I like Baddy but Levi has potential to be our VVD.

I was in fairness basing it around the interview where he banged on about repaying faith in him, which I find strange given he'd probably get more games here by February next year than he got at Brighton last season. Also the fact Brighton keep coming in with bids must surely mean they've been getting encouragement from his side, but hopefully what you've read is right.

Can we really see Lukaku accepting nearly 10x less of Benzema wages given he thinks he's on par with him?

Will he? I can see him being a starter from day one. It's strange he has such a hard on for Brighton given he only played 17 games and got in due to an injury to Webster. I wonder if he's using them as an easier route to City, well Pep.

I don't feel you can hold that many passengers in the build up play these days, even if they're not the main "ball player" they still have requirements. If Rice signed for us I could forsee opposition manager commiting more resources to marking Enzo because they knew Rice wasn't that huge a threat in possesion.

It won't be nice from a sentimentality point of view but that's where the comparisons with Arsenal end. They were selling players at the absolute peak of their powers and not replacing them properly, Kova and Mount have not only had huge question marks on them for over a year now we have upgraded heavily on Kova and by the looks of it will on Mason aswell, certainly the last 18 months version.

I mean surely the fact no one wants to pounce on our "dumb decision" vindicates it?

We should make him train alone somewhere well away from any of our teams until Inter pay his book fee. It's very important we send a clear message here after the way both parties behaved last summer.

I wouldn't say completely blocked, a lot changes in coming years that could put one above the other. I'm actually more concerned how we seem to be going all out on building a squad that "stays together for a decade", sounds great in theory but even young teams go stale without refreshing it, look at Pep's first title winning team to his most recent one for example, a 5 year difference but only Ederson and KDB have been untouchable starters in all of them.

If it's between that and the return of Mr first touch it's a no brainer. If nothing else he presses well enough to not totally compromise Pochettino's system before he's even arrived. But yes in an ideal world he goes too at this point or at the very least is on the bench.

I would rather continue with Kai than give that wanker another chance. Even ignoring his lack of character and honour he's the total athesis of a Pochettino player even more than he was Tuchel.

If you set up say James on the right for a 1 vs 1 (which incidentally he had the chance to do Vs Everton but didn't see him/decided to shoot) it goes down as big chance created/key pass regardless of if Reece finished or not.

I would be very disappointed if anyone forgives him on the basis of stat padding at home to Luton. As far as I'm concerned if we're stupid enough to bring this dickhead back big goals that lead to big titles is the only way he should get forgiven.

The chance created stat isn't reliant on other players doing their job to go on record, hence I used that and not assists. I think I read he's created one big chance which if I recall rightly was Hall's missed sitter Vs Fulham minutes into his debut.

Even if that does happen (it won't) Nkunku will likely be better still so meh. He simply isn't worth the money it would take to keep him, an academy lad out of position created more big chances at OT than he did for the entire half season he was here.

Managers should never have that much control in the market. Getting in players of predominantly Conte and Tuchel's desires is a big part of what has got us in this mess.

He actually wouldn't be, our current attackers are inconsistent to poor but Eden is Alexis Sanchez at United levels of bad.