Jype

True, but a 25yo player who's just about to hit his prime years will want to play. Going to a club where you're expected to be second choice is a short sighted decision for an ambitious player. Sure in the short term they may get a bigger wage package but if their career development stagnates as a result their long term earnings may suffer. There's a lot of hype around Dumfries and if he stays at Inter now he could easily get the chance at another big club as a starting player, maybe Man Utd?

Never actually seen him play but I watched some compilation video of Mudryk last night and I didn't see him as similar to Grealish at all. Hands down Mudryk's best attribute seems to be his explosive pace which he uses to breeze past opponents which is not something I'd describe Grealish with. But yeah I'm with you, even in a youtube highlight video I didn't see anything that screamed 'must have' to me. Seems like a decent player who in the right setup could cause some havoc with his pacy dribbling behind the lines but probably not someone to go all-in for. For a guy with 13 goals in 66 matches for an Ukrainian club as his career total, the price Shakhtar are demanding seems very steep. In the PL he won't have the same space to run at defenders so he could easily end up struggling.

You don't say? With hugely important players like Kante, James, Chilwell and Fofana all out simultaneously for all of the last 10-15 games (Kante even longer) I struggle to see how anyone would perform miracles with this squad. On top of that we're desperately crying out for a striker yet we have only Aubameyang, who was always going to be just a mediocre stop-gap, and Havertz who's been underperforming ever since joining the club. Pulisic and Ziyech have also been terrible for years under each and every manager and they were never going to magically step up with just a managerial change. Silva is also starting to look his age so having a leaky midfield, James/Chilwell also out has only amplified that problem. Azpilicueta has looked over the hill since last season but for some reason got an extension last summer before Potter even came in. All together it's very much a dysfunctional group of players that Potter so far has had absolutely fuck all chance to try and repair so I don't think it's a surprise we're not seeing him implement his ideas to the team's play yet. For me the jury is still very much out on Potter. Right now I too am not seeing his 'identity' on the team but I definitely saw it at Brighton and I liked what I saw so as it's still relatively early into his career at the club and the squad is a total mess due to no fault of his own (the long term key injuries and neglectful squad building under the previous manager) I'm willing to look past this problem for now and let him work in peace. He won't be allowed, nor should he be, to play mediocre football for years like Arteta while waiting/hoping for things to click together but making a judgement based on about 2 months of football while the manager has had no input to the squad building and has also been battling with an injury crisis is so very unfair IMO. Personally I'm just planning to keep an open mind till the rest of the season and with a full summer transfer window and a full pre-season we need to start seeing much better things very early into next season. If Potter can't deliver that, he needs to be sacked before next Christmas and be replaced with someone whose playing style is suite to delivering the goods with the same group of players.

Drive up the price for Arsenal just to fuck with them? 😄

The guy I was replying to literally just said he didn't even care about the results and for him the most important aspect was the playing style, so I provided him with some statistics and an insight to how they actually played. I personally couldn't give less fucks whether you or some other fans of the club are reassured about Potter or not. What matters is that, at least for now, the people running the club seem very much reassured. Lately I've had my fair share of concerns about Potter as well, and I'm not really seeing him having implemented anything new to the team's play that wasn't already there. Whether that will change in the coming months or going into next season remains to be seen. It took a while for his Brighton team to get fully going with how he wanted them to play and it's not like we haven't had our fair share of other problems in the team as well like for example the James, Chilwell, Fofana, Kante etc. injuries and having no a deadwood like Auba for a striker. Because of all that, I for one am trying to refrain from being overly critical of Potter right now but obviously things need to change for the better very soon. And btw, the football under Sarri was terrible. So much possession for so very little chance creation. The only reason it worked even reasonably well was that we still had a prime-Hazard to bail us out with some great individual brilliance. Replace 2018 Hazard in that squad with a current day Pulisic and under Sarri that team would have struggled to score 40 goals in the league over the season. See that's where you're clearly wrong. Certain people who love a good whining were always very vocal about the 'shit on a stick' football even when it was super effective and brought the club plenty of silverware under the likes of Mourinho and Conte.

The bit about the results in the big games was at most a side note in my post. I provided you with lots of team statistics to prove they were quite consistently playing good/great football over two full seasons but conveniently you ignored them all because they went against your narrative. If you take a second to re-visit the statistics I listed on my previous post, you'd see that Brighton had a very high amount of passes in the final third and allowed the opposition to complete very few passes in their defensive areas. Same goes for touches inside the opposition penalty box (6th most) and opposition touches inside their own box (5th least). All that pretty much confirms that despite their lowly position in the league table they were consistently outplaying the opposition teams and controlling the game in midfield and the final third, which is probably the furthest away from playing the kind of football you claim they did. If you reduce Potter's Brighton to have played 'give away the ball and counter attack' football then you obviously either didn't watch them or just didn't understand what was happening right in front of your own eyes. If anything, Brighton with Potter more often than not aimed to play exactly the type of football the top clubs 'should' play and in that regard they were pulling well above their weight when considering their overall squad quality and resources of the club. People now saying how they always knew Arteta was destined to the very top from watching Arsenal trying to figure things out and then at the same time saying they never saw Brighon's football as anything other than lower mid table play now that he's struggling with Chelsea is revisionist history at its finest. It's true things haven't worked out in the slightest for him at Chelsea so far but at the same time the criticisim is going way over the top.

Yeah if the money's there to be spent I'd definitely still go for Rice in the summer. Enzo/Rice/Mount/Kovacic as options in midfield would set us up for years with top quality and if Kante extends he would complete the lot for the next 1-2 seasons and play occasionally when fit. Release Jorginho and try to sell RLC and Gallagher to make room. Definitely agree that it's easier to get the current attacking duds to play better if the midfield was a functioning unit filled with good options. He was pictured driving into Benfica's training ground this morning though. The photo was posted on Fabrizio Romano's twitter and originally reported by some Portuguese media.

Potter's Brighton were a really well coached team though. Especially in the 2020/21 season when they finished 16th their underlying metrics were actually quite good. For example: xG - 10th (not great but still better than the 15th in actual goals scored) xGA - 3rd (gave away very few good scoring chances to the opposition) xPTS - 5th Passes completed within 20 yards of opposition goal - 5th Opposition passes allowed within 20 yards of own goal - 6th For a team to play like that and then finish 16th in the league was an absolute travesty. In the 2021/22 season they placed roughly the same in all the above mentioned stats across the EPL and finished 9th so things were clearly starting to click a little bit better on the actual score sheets as well. I'm pretty sure last season Brighton's record against the top-6 clubs (3W, 4D, 5L) was also the best out of anyone not in the top-6 so for a midtable club they were quite decent against the big teams. And the results weren't flukes either, they played some really good football in a lot of those games.

Romano really is the master of tweeting things without actually saying anything new. Every time there's a high profile transfer in the making he just whores endlessly for clicks and likes even if there's been no developments. He just changes a few words from his previous tweet and makes it seem like something new has happened and that he's in the loop about it. That tweet already has almost 500K views and 10K likes in just over 30 minutes even if it's just repackaging the same info we've all known for days. I suppose that's how he earns his living so I understand why he does it but just comes across as lazy.

Not really.Having the transfer fee amortization spread over a longer period definitely plays a part but it's not necessarily the only reason. For the younger players (Slonina, Chukwuemeka, Casadei) a contract longer than the usual 5 years allows for the club to see out their development over the next few years without having to worry about their contracts running down and having any negotiation leverage shift to the player's camp instead. As for W. Fofana and Cucurella the lower amortization and thus FFP was certainly a factor but it also means both of them are tied to the club for pretty much the entirety of their prime years (Fofana till 29yo and Cucurella till 30yo). Same for Enzo if he ends up signing. As long as the players are succsesful it's very good to have them tied on long-term deals. However if they end up being terrible buys it will mean they're very difficult to get rid of.

Seen some people saying this 'contract offer' for Jorginho is the very same one that's been on his table for months and not a new offer. So far Jorginho hasn't accepted it so clearly he's not exactly happy with the terms being offered but the club haven't rescinded the old offer either. His agent has always loved talking to the media and now that he can officially start negotiating with other clubs in January it's not a bad idea for him to drum up some interest elsewhere by saying he already has an offer from Chelsea. If someone else is looking to sign him they may get the idea they need to act fast and offer something over the odds. At the moment I'd be quite surprised if Jorginho stayed beyond the current season. Before today the same went for Kante as well but now Ornstein is saying a new deal is close, though still not completed. Without knowing the exact terms (wages, contract length) being talked about I can't really comment on whether I think it's a good idea to extend Kante or not. A multi-year extension with top wages would definitely be a shit deal but getting Kante tied up on a 1-2 year contract either on more modest wages or having his salary incentivised by bonuses for the amount of games he plays (or is at the very least available for) would sound much better from the club's perspective. Still love Kante as a player and think he can be very a useful asset to have in the squad but his injury worries mean we can't exactly keep relying on him throughout a full season so some new key replacements are definitely needed. If Kante stays I hope it will be in more of a squad role capacity rather than someone we're really counting on.

Exactly. Even if we assume the likes of Silva, Azpi, Jorginho, Kante, Auba and maybe even Koulibaly will be gone, either the coming summer or the next, there will still be players with plenty of top level experience. That said, I definitely hope the plan of the current owners won't be to have a constant U25 squad and bankroll the club by always selling 'the oldies' before even reaching their peak years because that's most certainly not a winning formula. Instead I think the ideal balance is to have most of the squad around 21-25 years old and then complement them by having a few older heads in the prime of their careers around the team to act as the leaders.

Chukwuemeka only played two games for the PL2 squad in August a week or two after signing and has been with the first team ever since. If he hadn't gotten injured before the WC break he'd have had a few more first team opportunities for sure. As for D. Fofana I can't say I've ever heard of the guy, let alone see him play, but with Broja's ACL injury there's really no excuse to not have him around the first team squad from the start. Auba has not exactly been great so assuming the club won't buy another already established striker in the January window there should be some opportunities for him in the second half of the season, whether as a starter or from the bench. If he looks out of his depth at this level for now, he can then be loaned out for the 23/24 season with Nkunku (hopefully) coming in. I definitely approve of the signing. At €10M it's a very low-risk gamble.

Yep it's 6-12 months out for Broja. Terrible timing too. Aubameyang has been shit and there was nothing stopping him from claiming a bigger role in the second half of the season. Just can't seem to catch a break with these fucking injuries.

Swap deal for Pulisic or Ziyech, who says no?

Yep, personally I've never really rated Enrique as a manager. Barcelona did very well with him in charge but it's not like he was influential in building that squad when it already had Messi, Neymar, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Pique, Mascherano, Dani Alves and Jordi Alba in the prime of their careers. Enrique did bring in Suarez and Rakitic, but I feel they'd have gotten the former anyway no matter who the manager was. Credit to him for getting them to play as well as they did but I think there are many managers who could have achieved similar success with that squad. Before or after that stint at Barcelona, Enrique has failed to achieve anything of note as a manager. Flopped at Roma, did alright at Celta and done about as expected with Spain. 'Offensive and attracting' football seems to mean something entirely different to me and @NikkiCFC. I didn't watch any of their WC games (nor any other game in that human rights abusing shit of a tournament so far) but it seems that 7-0 thrashing against Costa Rica has papered over some cracks and made lots of people think Spain play great football under Enrique but overall they've been a dire team to watch and despite all that ball possession they often struggle to create clear goalscoring chances. While Enrique has been their manager they've also failed to perform when it really matters, though it has to be said their squad quality has also declined a lot from around 2008-2016 too so maybe that's just their level now?

Maybe Joe Shields knows what he's doing.

Musiala left when he was 16 and at the time he wasn't even eligible for a professional contract yet so there wasn't anything the club could have done to prevent him from going. If I'm not mistaken his move had most of all to do with his decision of switching international allegiance from England to Germany so it made sense for him to go there and try to make a name for himself in the Bundesliga. The club can be blamed for many fuck ups with its academy trained young players but I don't think Musiala is one of them, despite being hands down the best player of the lot.

Been saying it all season that I don't rate their squad depth at all. Ramsdale, White, Gabriel, Saliba, Saka, Xhaka, Martinelli and Jesus have all started every league game so far. Ödegaard has missed one and Partey has missed three. Basically that means apart from LB, where they've had some rotation, they have so far fielded pretty much an unchanged XI in all games so far. I don't see their squad coping well with injury problems at all, the drop off in player quality is way too steep. They'll be fine regarding top-4 because of the gap they've built with this early season momentum but I feel any title challenge talk will be totally gone by February.

I don't think the Boehly-Clearlake people have much to do with signing these youngsters though. If anything it looks like Neil Bath has been given a free reign to make the youth signings and he's the main man behind these deals, he's been at the club for decades and recently got promoted to a new 'Director of Football Development & Operations' role that includes both academy responsibilities as well as involvement in some first team matters.

True, but at €15M it's not the worst of gambles either, assuming the club can afford it and it has no effect on the more immediate first team concerns. With Chukwuemeka, Casadei, Hutchinson, Slonina already in and that Brazilian guy as well as possibly Zakharyan also thrown into the mix we'll have invested quite heavily on teenagers since Boehly-Clearlake took over. Not all of them will make it of course, but these days if even one of them becomes a first team regular and another is maybe good enough for a backup squad role, it will already have been a very decent investment.

Were they really? Since the Calciopoli there was only maybe a few year period (around 2015-2019) when Juve's pull was at it's highest point and at that time they were definitely ahead of us. Anytime between 2006-2014 absolutely no chance the majority of players would have chosen Juve ahead of Chelsea and lately their aura of success has been on a steady decline once again, way before all this dodgy financial stuff that's been doing the rounds in the last couple of months. They had a really good period of success when the rest of the Serie A were at their lowest which, for a while at least, increased their pulling power but I definitely wouldn't put them in the same category as RM, Barca and Bayern. For all their domestic success Juve haven't even won the UCL in almost 30 years ffs.

Would assume he'll join the training camp in Abu Dhabi with the non-WC first teamers and probably gets to play in the friendly against Villa too. Should be a good opportunity for him to impress the coaching staff with Kovacic, Mount, Gallagher, Zakaria all at the world cup and Kante still injured. Should look to either promote him to training full time with the first team squad with the occasional matchday appearance or send him out on loan for the second half of the season. He's clearly too good for the PL2 and his development would be better served playing at a higher level, whether it's at Chelsea right away or out on loan somewhere first.

Same here, zero games watched so far. I've seen a few of the goals on Reddit though. I never actually planned for a full-on boycott and before the tournament started I thought I'd watch at least the odd game here or there but so far I just couldn't care less. Maybe I'll watch a few of the knockouts if there are some interesting match-ups and/or Chelsea players involved but then again maybe not.

Is Nagelsmann an elite manager though? He got Hoffenheim to play some excellent stuff and even made the CL a couple of times but we also have to remember the Bundesliga is far less competitive than EPL. For example in the 2017/18 season Hoffenheim's highest ever league finish of 3rd place was achieved with 55 points in 34 games. A similar point return in the PL over a 38 game season would amount to around 61 points, which would basically get you anywhere between 6th-8th place in any given season. A good achievement for a young coach for sure, but elite? I'm not sure. After his time at Hoffenheim he got a slight step up following his move to RB Leipzig but they didn't really improve much under him. The season prior to Nagelsmann's arrival they had got 66 points in the Bundesliga and in the two seasons with Nagelsmann they got 66 and 65 so basically stayed at the exact same level. They did reach the semis in that weird COVID-time UCL one-off knockout tourney though, so there's that. He then made the big step to manage Bayern where winning the title is very much a dead certainty and I don't think he can be credited too much for that when any half-decent coach would achieve the same with the squad they have. Their points total last season was the lowest Bayern have got in the last ten years and this year he's been under some criticism and there have even been calls for him to be sacked so it's not all sunshines and rainbows there when making the leap to one of the biggest clubs out there. I don't think you'll find many Bayern fans who would call Nagelsmann an elite level manager but he's still very young and can improve a lot. Had Potter stayed at Brighton I think it's very likely they would have reached the UEL spots in the Premiear League this season. In an ideal situation we'd probably have waited a bit to see how he develops as a manager but the dynamics in the EPL are very different to the Bundesliga. It's not like we could have seen Potter first take charge of an already established European level side (like Nagelsmann did at Leipzig) before snapping him up to the big time so the opportunity to take a gamble on him was now or never. Whether he's ready for that is another question entirely but let's see how it goes.