Tomo

Not sure how much Bakayoko's loan fee was at AC but I imagine if some club pay £30m this summer or £25 next on top of a loan fee for this season that would put our loss minimul at worst. Drinkwater will be the one we do take a hit on, however a strong season at Burnley will likely see some midtable team take a punt at around £15m which that plus a loan fee maybe about £18m. All added up we will probably make about a £20-25m loss on all those players which isn't too bad a recovery considering.

Around this time last month the Arsenal fans started a #wecaredoyou hastag craze aimed at the club, the fanbase from AFTV were sounding out on their own platforms about how worried they were and it was genuinely looking like they may not be even be signing anyone, it was only after that rumours of signings were really hoting up for them let alone actual signings. They didn't "act fast" atall, infact their window wasn't to dissimilar to ours from last year, ie a Madrid man signed on loan and the transfer record broke almost spontaneously close to deadline day. Critisising some of our decisions is one thing but I'm sorry using Arsenal of all clubs as an example of how it should be done is grass is greener syndrome at its finest.

Yeah, Arsenal acted so fast the fans were still protesting against the owners at the tail end of July.

We get loan fees for them which ultimately will add to the overall fee once sold. We will likely almost make our money back on the 2017 signings thanks to that which is pretty good going all things considered.

He's been piping about last season again in recent days. He wasn't really my style of player anyway but i did respect his commitment, however he's going right down in my estimations now.

I could see it working with Mount more than RLC tbh, Mount will have a better understanding of that role tactically (when to press, when to drop back, drift wide etc), he could potentially be Firminho lite if given a run there. Furthermore playing Ruben there will neglect his biggest strength's of darting attacking runs turning a midfield situation into dangerous attack. That said i'd rather we not tried it atall, but if we did the role should either go to Mason or Callum in my opinion.

In part, but his performances these days are similar to Falcao's in the PL.

I actually think @Vesper is onto something when she suggests we should try for Mbappe if he doesn't renew at Paris. Logic suggests it won't happen but he does have previous connections with us even if just a trial and dined with Hazard, Willian, Luiz, Kante and Drogba at one point last season (i know two have since left but still) so he is clearly friends with a fair number of people here. Would be unlikely but it gives us enough scope to atleast test the water, what a statement it would be, even if we are a pitstop en route to Real. Now back in the real world i hope Cech/Lamps/scouts can think outside the box a bit, even if there's no stand out striker about there will surely be a very good one somewhere that's compatible to our style, like Firminho is for Liverpool (no one mentioned him as a potential solution when we had our previous striker crisis pre Costa).

Costa's decline has been as bad as Alexis Sanchez since 2017, if not worse. There's a reason Simeone turned to Morata.

I disagree, while it may be a ok ish short term option these sticky plaster solutions is a big part of why we're in this shit in the first place. With Pep about the league is out of reach for the next 2/3 years so we need to turn that negative into a positive and build something to compete in the long run (pragmatic quick fixes just won't cut it now). If this is the vision Lampard has for us i'd rather go full steam ahead and take the teething process.

He's far from the worst player we've ever had and the rare times he brought his A game (Qarabag, Bate, Arsenal in the 2-2 at The Emirates, Frankfurt) he looked a player. All in all we were a level above his skillset but he was a solid 6/10 player, can't recall any real disasterclass performances. A watered down version of Paulo Ferriera is probably the best way to describe him.

Hes been firmly on my radar for atleast 18 months, upto about 6 months ago I firmly felt he was better than Ruben.

We battered Leicester for the first 25 ish minutes and while we lost total control after that we were still quite comfortable until half time.

You call half an hour "seven minutes"?

If he's going to be a locker room problem he may end up going before the EU window shuts. I thought it would be insanity a month or so ago but if he's going to have a negative effect on team morale i would let him go and make Mason an option on the sides.

I think the second half demonstrated exactly why Sarri went down the cautious possession route last season after Arsenal at home, it wasn't pretty but we don't have the individual talent defensively to cope with counters after committing the runs in behind. However i would still want us to play that way vs non top six sides, risky but most teams don't have the quality and decision making to pick us off, even yesterday Leicester counters were constantly being broken down by bad decision making by Maddison and Vardy and those two are as good as it gets outside the top 6. Big games though has to be the same blueprint we faced Liverpool.

Apparently Alexis is going to Inter. Conte is going to the most popular man in Manchester at this rate, and to think some actually wanted to give him a blank cheque.

I think he's likely to end up as our top scorer this season, he gets himself in scoring positions time after time.

2nd for me, nothing will top Cuadrado vs Southampton in my eyes.

I think we decided on a long term youth project around 2012 but then bottled it to let Jose create a quick fix then Conte create another after Jose's spell got messy ( i know we got 2 titles out of it but we did a deal with the devil both times). In hindsight as exicting as it was from a fans perspective we should have resisted the temptation to bring Mou back and appointed a manager who would have nurtured the young guys. It does appear we are learning from that mistake but now we have to take the punches just like City and Liverpool did and resist reverting to type.

Apart from 2017 our recruitment has been pretty good for a while . Where we fall down is getting shot of players. The old guard early this decade, Ivanovic, Matic and now Azpi/Willian all stayed as important players for far too long after big declines whereas City dump players the second they become a hindrance more than help. I don't usually call for youth on a whim but when RJ is fit he has to play.

No love for Christensen tonight? I thought he was absolutely brilliant today, was given little to no support from midfield and dealt with a dangerous frontline quite well alongside good distribution. Big season for him, he's been given a huge vote of confidence with the Luiz sale and has to start delivering these type of displays week in week out.

When you're in a transition of sorts you have to look at the bright sparks and the first half hour was incredible, totally battered Leicester and should have been 3/4 up, very worrying what happened afterwards however some of you's complaints about Sarri was there was no "signs" of good stuff to come, well you certainly saw "signs" in the opening. The reality is we are an inconsistent side right now. Sometimes we will match some of the worlds best sides (vs Liverpool) and other times we will look poo against sides like Leicester, today we were brilliant, average and rubbish all at varying stages which is about aplicable for where we are right now. Sometimes Pulisic will look like he can replace Hazard, other times he will look shit, he's 20. We could have gone through this transition in 2012/13 but decided to go for a quick title, we have to go through this process now if we want to compete long term because with Pep and his 100 point seasons about going for the quick fix just won't work anymore.

And the overeaction of the decade goes too....

Due to the sheer volume of chances created enough goals will come, enough for top 4? Probably not, but im more worried defensively. We don't have a 30 goal player but enough capable of getting to ten (Mason should be halfway there already). They did well individually but there seems a structural problem defensively, it's pretty easy to see now why Sarri reverted to the LVG brand of cautious possession.