Pizy

We’re already going to need a high quality striker with JP here! The idea that we can ever consider selling him this summer is crazy. Unless he himself literally begs the club to let him go AND Barca can come up with £85-90m we shouldn’t even be picking up the phone. I don’t know of any striker of JP’s level who we could go out and easily replace him with.

^ @Vesper For me we need a Jorginho type but with significantly more mobility. A controlling, deep sitting midfielder with excellent technical ability. Lavia was supposed to be just that for us of course and does that defensive screen role perfectly but we need to move him on this summer because he can only play 5 games per season. Andrey Santos does the job well in this role but I’m not sure he’s every match starter level at a club like ours. Very good squad player who gets starts here and there. We really need to replicate the Kante, Jorginho, Kova midfield. We have Caicedo and Enzo who can be the box to box guys but we need a super high quality string puller this summer. You plug a Anderson/Wharton/Scott type right at the base of our midfield and it transforms how we can play.

More than anything this summer I just hope we target ONLY highly technical ballers. Whether they’re “big” names or not, we need to stop going after players who are nothing but runners or physical specimens like Delap or Garnacho. I’m sick of seeing our rivals going for super skillful, classy wizards like Cherki, Eze, Wirtz etc whilst we get dudes who can’t dribble past a training cone and whose only abilities are running in a straight line when theres’s a mile of open space. We have enough big and strong or powerful players. I’m hoping that with Alonso now here we target EXCLUSIVELY highly skilled players who can’t dribble past excel in one touch, fluid football. It’s why I’m actually warming to the idea of us going for Alex Scott from Bournemouth. Whilst our rivals are going for the bigger names like Anderson/Wharton/Tonali etc I feel like Scott is much more easily attainable for us. Has been one of the best CM’s in the league this season and fits that deep sitting Xhaka role Alonso loved at Leverkusen.

A club can opt out of the Conference League if they choose to, right? There is no way on Earth we should be playing in that again if it comes to that. It could destroy our season under a new manager having to juggle all that travel and rotation and injury risk. At least the Europa League is a decent level for some of our fringe and squad players to get minutes and experience in. What do we need to do to get Europa?

We really can’t afford to sell Enzo, can we? And ESPECIALLY not to Maresca and City.

And as soon as I say that we score 😂

Pretty shocking second half performance here. We just stopped playing and are trying to just see out the game at 1-0.

Well, I was pretty confident that we’d win this despite our shit form. But with Delap starting I don’t know where the goals are coming from.

I have a lot of respect for Bowen but he would be a no for me. When we say we want experienced, high quality players we mean in the 25 year old range not 30 like Bowen. He’s a player who depends entirely on his physical tools and doesn’t strike me as the type who will age well. And his game is also not really suited to a possession based short passing style. He’s a counter attacking player and essentially a slightly better Garnacho. Plus, with Estevão and Quenda on our right side I don’t know where he’d fit. Especially if we’re playing 1 match a week.

That would be cool in theory but top keepers can play at their best level well into their 30’s and Maignan is only 30. If he were to come here and perform amazingly then Penders is locked out for at least a few years. I think what I would probably do is just take the risk and make Penders our #1 this summer. What I think will actually happen is the club will convince Alonso to give Sanchez one more season before Penders takes the job after another Strasbourg season of development.

Yep. That’s kind of my worry if we throw Penders into the fire too early. He may be super talented and the next Courtois but what if he comes in and makes even more mistakes than Sanchez because he’s so young? We’re in kind of a tricky place with keepers. We go sign a world class, super expensive keeper and that’s curtains for Penders’ chances here after we spent a huge amount of money on. We stick with Sanchez and we’re never going to be a truly top side. We put Penders in straight away and we risk him producing howlers as he’s getting up to speed.

Yeah, ideally I don’t want to sell him. If he is happy to continue here then I’m happy with it too.

That’s shocking. By far Brazil’s best all around #9. I know the guy from Brentford had a nice season and everything, but wow. Guess we’ll get angry JP out to prove them wrong next season.

If Barco is indeed coming than I do definitely think Cucu is off to Spain. Barco + Hato as our left sided weapons that cover that entire side of the pitch. I love Cucu and he’s one of my favorite current Chelsea players but assuming the fee we get for him is good it’s probably smart business if Alonso is going to play with wingbacks.

Ngl, this definitely makes me lose a bit of respect for Maresca. It absolutely looks like he snaked his way out of here because he had been told Pep was going months ago and City wanted him to be the replacement. He’s got the plausible deniability to blame it on clashing with our board, and there likely WAS some of that, but no manager in his position just up and walks away from a top PL job with zero compensation if he didn’t already have something he considers better lined up. Maresca knew LONG before he left Chelsea that he was the next City manager and was working on it WHILST he was managing us. That’s fucked up, tbh…