Tomo

My bad I thought he went back to Brazil on a perm. Edit: and i didn't read you initial post properly.

Can't see Oli going to Brazil given he came here to keep his family in London. Regarding Gabigol my first thoughts were "oh no" but after looking at his page he seems to have a pretty decent goal return since going back home so maybe/hopefully Inter was a case of too much too soon.

In that case , scrap what I said earlier.

Hes changed, he'll take setbacks on the chin more now.

I have high hopes for the former pair long term but I don't think they're anywhere near ready in terms of delivering week in, week out and look a good couple of years away from having that type of consistency, possibly more in Cal's case. They will win us games (like Pulisic did at Burnley and Odoi did Vs Newcastle the week before) but they look a million miles away from doing it at the rate we need. The December month shown this, there was a lot of pressure on them (especially Pulisic) to produce a moment of magic to win us the points like Eden did and they just couldn't do it. I don't blame them, it's just the stage of their career they're at. They need to develop at their own pace. Jadon while at a similar age is miles ahead of both on present day level and Zaha has been bailing out his side (admittedly at a lower level) for years, they're at a level right now that will turn a poor performance from a 0-1 to 2-1 a lot more regularly than what we will get from Puli and Cal. It won't be too big a deal for the pair long term because Zaha will only give us 4 years max and at that point they will still be only 23 with a good 8 years of peak/around level to come if all goes well. It will also give us scope to revert to 4-2-3-1 when need be or even a false 9.

In my opinion. Grimaldo ≥ Telles. Re Zaha and Sancho if it's financially possible we should go all out for both.

Thankgod. He's finished as a top footballer and if you think Willians bad at corners.....

Farewell appearance and gives Willian a breather. Although I guess Pulisic hasn't played too much lately.

Caballero Lamptey Christensen Guedi Emerson Kovacic Gilmour Barkley Pedro Michy Hudson Odoi

A bit of Palace perspective on Zaha if anyone's interested. If we can somehow get the price to £60m I'd take him, especially if (as is likely) we'll have to wait till the summer to make a play for Sancho. Go into next season with both and we seriously improve our attack, I got high hopes to both CHO and Pulisic but neither are anywhere near ready to carry our attack for an extended period of time.

Can't make a judgement either way as not saw a game he's played ever but 17 goals in 37 games is a pretty sound return at 21, even in the Russian League.

Liverpool only spend what they sell, unless there's a big sale of one of the front three Liverpool are firmly out of the race.

Assists are subjective as a whole in my opinion. You can make the best through ball in football history yet you're still relying on the player on the receiving end to score,while whoever played the one yard backward pass to Charlie Adam at Stamford Bridge that day technically got an assist. You also don't technically get an assist if you dummy it into a strikers path. The assist stat (unless you do it at a stupid rate like Cesc or KDB) is something for fantasy football really, key passes is a better barometer of someone's creativity.

Kova's form last season has proven to be the definition of short term pain for long term gain. Had he still been a loanee in this season's form we wouldn't have had a snowball in hell's chance of keeping him.

If you asked that for this time last year then Soccer Aid. This time you'd probably get only tours.

Don't think they will this time, think running away with the league will work against them similar to how it does Bayern.

I don't think I'd class Giroud or Bats as decent to be honest. Oli was but his legs have gone and Michy is diabolical outside of finishing, as much as an alternative on Tammy's level will be a massive boost right now. Usually my stance is suffer and wait for the "right" option however in this case I don't think we can, a competent alternative to Tammy is minimum requirement in my opinion.

Not saying Dembele or any of our signings will nesseserily hit such heights but just because players aren't big names doesn't mean it's a sign on unambition or they will flop, the champions elect are demonstrating that spectacularly, they have built what is looking like becoming the greatest PL team of all time mainly through signings people regarded as second rate and unambitious. We don't have the funds or the sheer worldwide appeal to get marquee signings bar unique set of circumstances (like Sancho with his fandom of the club and friendship with our products putting us in a race we wouldn't usually be in) so that means more thinking outside the box more, there be top players in waiting hiding in places we least expect.

He'll go to Villa, score a decent number of goals and whenever Tammy hits a bit of a bad patch people will bang on about how we've made a mistake without looking at the higher picture of why he never got serious game time here in the first place.

So what's the half term opinions on Kurt being back in the fold? I was pretty annoyed that he was back at the start and he has had some shockers but I think overall he hasn't done too badly, been defensively sound (when not paired with AC) and has not been as bad on the ball as I feared, although he'd never be great at that. I still think we need better going forward but given his skillset I think he's done close to the best he can do and that's all we can ask really.

He's an exciting talent but not sure it would be good business. I'd prefer us to go after attackers that are a bit more seasoned than those currently at our disposal. While I'd agree we do need some experience somewhere this is as good a time as any to take gambles with talent, especially if he's as promising as being reported. We won't be winning the league for the next 2 season's minimum even if we sign ready made players.

We don't have to buy ready made world class players or big names to improve, United fell into that trap and look what's happened to them. We need to find players relitevely young, hungry and on the up, find the current day version of Hoffenheims Firmino and pre Spurs Modric and watch them and us grow and evolve.

Lasted about half a season longer than he would have done at any other big club.

United most certainly have done, the fact Ole doesn't appear to even be in danger of the sack is absolute madness. No other big club would have let him get past caretaker.