Tomo

I never turned against him and found the whole episode bizzare.

They may not have been that level but all reliable sources said VVD wanted Liverpool, even City tried but his mind was made up. Furthermore let's not pretend we as a fanbase saw how good VVD would become, go on his rumour thread here and the Shed End there were more people against the signing than for, and when the rumours came about that we were prepared to give Southampton Christensen as a sweatner everyone was universally horrified at the mere thought of it. Bakayoko and Ross were both before the change. Look at Liverpools lineup and hand on heart tell me which players you thought could ever have been key players for CL and runaway PL winners? Were you looking at Andy Robertson getting relegated with the worst defensive record at Hull thinking he could be the next great fullback? If Jordan Henderson can play in an elite team those two most certainly can.

If that was the case we'd be fighting United for Calvert Levin. You say long term build but there's more to that than just snapping up the most high profile names that can be got, Liverpool are on course to become to the greatest PL team of all time (sickening but reality) however most of their current starting Xl were hysterically laughed at the point Liverpool signed them. Regarding Lampard's transfer strategy, little bit too early to make a proper assessment on that but the two big decisions he's had to make do far (retaining Kova, letting Luiz go) have turned out to be masterstrokes.

Although my preference is Morelos I'd be happy with Dembele, infact I suggested him in the summer even before I knew Tammy was going to step up. I've liked him ever since he faced us in the youth cup final in 2014, he worried me all through the tie. He's also at a good age where players tend to start to step it up a gear.

I swear you write off our chances against Arsenal every time we face them? To put this another way, imagine us in their situation, we are on a run of winning 1 game in 15, just got beat at home by Spurs who are miles above us and i was running around saying we could win at WHL in less than a month. You'd be the first to laugh at me and dismiss any chance of that happening of the bat.

They will probably eventually settle on 150k plus bonuses, which given inflation and the fact he will very likely guarantee 15 goals a season minimum for the foreseeable future isn't exactly that outrageous.

Even though their time was more the 00s I can understand Drogba, Lampard and Cole being in it due to Munich and the tail end of the double season however Essien being in it is outrageous. He was awful whenever he played this decade, had no part of the 10s side of the double season and wasn't a big player in the CL win or any trophy won for that matter. Bosingwa and Morata have a bigger claim to be in it than he does. One of the most laziest votes of all time, I'd love to come across the people who plumped for him and ask them to actually explain themselves.

Problem is by accounts he's quite ineffective in a one striker system, and with our wingers on our books (plus the fact one of Sancho or Zaha looks almost certain to join us) I can't see us playing two up top regularly.

The only one's that were truly a miss where the first two and maybe Mbappe. Neymar got talked round by Pele, VVD wanted Liverpool and only Liverpool while Alisson has a straight choice between us both and choose the Scousers. And you say judgement is bad, I'd say our recruitment since we changed our style of play has been very good.

Don't think so because time in Scotland doesn't count towards it IIRC.

Because take Klopp as example, he wasn't nesseserily looking to win straight away, he was looking to build a dominant set up which he unfortunately he has done. He ignored repeated calls to "sort his defense out" and kept going until his philosophy was perfected, I hope we go down that route, after all Mourinho decided to scrap the process, prioritize the defense and go for instant results and because of that we lost who are now arguably the two best PL players. I'm happy Frank's sticking to his guns and not panicking with quick fixes, because the potential reward of this youth movement is incredible.

What I'm trying to say is he did make that mistake, we could reverse every single result in our history by saying if this that or this didn't happen.

Exactly, point I'm making is if we want to go down the what may have been road then it's only fair we do it both ways.

I would sell Emerson and keep Alonso as back up.

If Emerson didn't give Arsenal the big break, if Mount placed his shot an inch to the side. If Tammy got his shot off (from Lamptey's pass) earlier. The on another day stuff works both ways.

I don't agree, in this era the most successful teams at this moment in this country set out their philosophy, stuck to it, took the punches and gradually got in more suitable players.

One thing going unnoticed about yesterday that he made an excellent interception that if missed Lazacette I think was clean through.

He tried by bringing on Willock to add pressing energy but I think it was more a case his team were shattered. They've been half arsing it for years so they were never going to be able to do 90 minutes of high octane football overnight.

Thats the one big gripe I have with Frank so far. It's absolute madness we've only seen the Jorginho, Kova, Mount midfield trio from the start once since the international break given how good it was working. It shouldn't have been broken up like that, not even for Kante. I remember an interview a couple of years back when Lampard in the most diplomatic way possible tore into Sven for picking on reputation as England manager, unfortunately he's fallen into that trap himself here, hopefully he learns from it.

Come on man, me and @Nicco disagree/clash as much as anyone on here but let's not go down this route, we all want the same thing ultimately.

Ive always had my doubts but was prepared to wait until he had regular game time in league and CL. Now he's got that, I can't honestly think of a stand out attribute he has, he may aswell change him name to John Doe when he's on the pitch.

To add further, with the way Frank is building the squad even if he ultimately turns out to not be a title winning manager he'd leave a competitive squad for a manager that is. At absolute worst we have a Ranieri esque situation with Lamps.

He seriously scored than many in 10/11? I swear he was diabolical every time he played.

That's what coaching staff are for. Even the greatest manager ever (Fergie) more than likely had his bacon saved by McLaren, Querioz and Phelan on occasions.

For a finished article manager I'd agree but for a manager in his formative years learning all the time i say it's a very promising sign he can not only rectify such a catastrophic mistake but turn it into a performance where Arsenal could barely get the ball.