Tomo

Tbh i genuinely believe Colwill has Gvardiol level potential so i'm not too gutted about this one. If we somehow let Enzo slip through the net however, it would be up there with Moscow in my eyes, that's how much of a gamechanging signing i believe he'll be.

I remember one of the big concerns about Potter being manager was whether we would have sufficient pulling power. Well so far Nkunku and Enzo have been convinced to join (even if we fail to agree with Benfica he wants to come) and Gvardiol considering and that's with our UCL position next season in doubt. Think it's fair to say that worry is over.

I'm guessing Benfica sorted the deal out before our new ownership got their feet under the table. Also the "10m to 100m plus" narrative is a bit misleading, Benfica got him so cheap because the Argentine peso is totally fucked, Palmeiras got 70m for Endrick and Brazil don't exactly have a strong economy, under normal circumstances Enzo would have cost around that to even get from River.

Pre lockdown i thought we showed a decent amount of promise under him but after lockdown it was pretty brutal to be honest (although i did try to convince myself he'd find a way to fix it for a while). Pulisic's form then the Silva/Mendy novelty kept results good for a while but his tenure peaked in those Gilmour vs Scousers games.

Unless we think we have an immediate (next season) chance of winning the title then yes. We delayed fixing the pivot to sign Hazard.

My Haaland prediction proving spot on so far. He'll score goals, lots of them, but he won't suddenly make City an even further level up. If there's one positive about what Arsenal are doing is that it shows it is possible to compete with them regardless of how many records Haaland breaks.

It's nothing to do with hate (certainly not on my part anyway) I just don't think he suits the system we play atall. I remember last year when I made a similar argument with Lukaku and I was told it doesn't matter because he scores goals. Haha, it was a bit in jest but regardless I feel if we sign Rice we will be needing something more within a couple of years. Watching him then in comparison watching Enzo, Bruno G etc at our rivals will really hammer that feeling home. I absolutely despise it when that narrative is pulled out and it's usually to defend allright in some areas but flawed in others players like Rice or Cahill.

Jorginho has actually always played very well against Liverpool, with the exception of the 5-3 under Frank. I actually kept a close eye on Rice this World Cup especially purely for the reason of trying to convince myself I'm missing something and I was horrified with his positional sense while England were in possesion, he was literally hiding behind an opposition forward while Stones and Maguire were trying to play out, if he had blonde hair I could have quite easily mistook him for McTominay (who does the same thing). Only way his transfer will work is if we change our system to a more counter attack which will in turn make the task of eventually competing with City even harder than it already is.

I disagree. Rice is largely playing in a dumbed down counter attack system where abilities on the ball aren't particularly important let alone crucial. Here he's going to be expected to start attack and break lines in the build up. For example, how often if atall has Rice initiated attacks the way Jorginho did for our first goal yesterday? Also look the previous defensive minded players who shone in Moyes' compact underdog system but looked lost when they made the step up. Gravesen and Lescott the two big examples. Heck his system is so helpful towards defensive minded players even Tony Hibbert had a decade long PL career. He absolutely does have the potential to be a bust, "PL proven" or not.

I would pick Enzo over Rice even if the latter was avaliable on a free.

Crespo, Hazard, Kante. So two undoubtedly, the other is more debatable but for me all things considered he was very good for us.

This is only the 4th time I've wanted a player this badly. The last three players we got so hopefully my record stays intact.

I think the problem is Gallagher and Mount together don't work, too much of the same. I think if the worst happened with Mount's contract situation we could replace him with Conor and not lose much but if Mason's contract gets sorted we should look at cashing in.

And how did Mount and James become winners? Surrounded by the likes of Azpi, Rudi, Kante, Jorgi plus a manager like Tuchel. Even if they are all here in two years time I'm still not sure that's enough if the rest of the squad are cubs. We're looking at around an average age of 22 ish if it's those plus the kids we sign/have coming through make up the squad. Yes we'll get some good football and fun games but imagine a must not lose match at Anfield, The Etihad or even St James Park not to mention a UCL tie against Atletico who will spend the entire tie playing psychological warfare with us. Add a manager who's not yet won at the top level (as a player or manager) and it's asking for trouble in my opinion. I'd love to be wrong but these projects never work in practice the way they do on paper. Don't get me wrong I'm all for the youth integration to a point but there has to be a balance.

For me it's not signing the young players I'm happy we're going down that route but I fear we're going a bit too far the other way. As far as I'm aware the Busby Babes are the only exception to the rule that defacto U23 teams don't really win the big titles. Even United CO92 needed experience around them. And then if we can't offer the titles the best of the youngsters may get their head turned by teams that can.

I hate when this narrative is rolled out. The "boring English names" of John Terry and Reece James were/are widely thought of as world class amoung almost the entire fanbase.

All of them significantly better than Rice, especially at progressing the ball. Would be absolutely depressing.

Hopefully I'm being too paranoid but I am a little worried about him now the world cup is over. When he signed he made it pretty clear playing in Qatar was his main driver to keep going so unless he has developed some burning desire to lift the PL (which lets be honest we won't be anywhere near favs to do while he's here) I worry he may finally succumb to father time. I really, really hope I'm wrong.

Gone a bit under the radar this but Pulisic hasn't been injured for over a year.

I feel Sterling will be similar to Pedro. If we're shit he will be too but if we have a working system and teammates on form he'll do his bit.

The question marks over Potter isn't about his coaching, tactically he's one of the best managers in the league. The big question mark over him is can he adapt his mindset to a club with these type of expectations.

Regarding Torres, Michy and Falcao it's irrelevant because he made it clear back in 2014 he wasn't accepting anything other than undisputed number one so if he had the roles they all had he'd have caused a locker room stink. Given the standards he set himself with his actions the only fair comparison is with the player who had the role he wanted and any version of him falls embarrassingly short compared to prime Diego Costa in almost every aspect. Regarding Morata, two wrongs don't make a right, we should have ignored both of them and gone all out for Auba. However that said if someone pointed a gun to my head and told me to name the lesser evil out of the versions of the two we had then it would be the Spaniard.

I think what @OhForAGreavsieis saying is Lukaku wouldn't have suddenly developed what he didn't have if he played a few more games. He's got the exact same flaws now he did when he was "only 21" (the constant line thrown at me when I said he wasn't good enough back then). Lukaku's transfer (to Everton) basically funding most of Diego Costa's fee has to be up there with the best business we've ever done.

It's quite funny (in a bad way) that the one time signing Lukaku would have made some sort of sense we missed out and the two times it made no sense whatsoever we signed him. Although that said he would have been quickly out of the door once Sarri arrived. I'm convinced that tour of Stamford Bridge was a stunt and he wasn't even a Chelsea fan and unfortunately we fell for it twice.

I honestly thought they were pretty poor against us which is what annoyed me about the loss even more. Ultimately despite how shit we were the result came down to Willock hitting his shot a little bit better than what Gallagher did.