Sideshow Luiz

Many pages of many words have been used to try to describe our managerial policies and board functions. But, this sums it up very nicely. Lock it up.

Thought he played okay today. We're a different midfield when we're not carrying a passenger. Still needs to get himself in to better defensive position quicker. Too reactionary at time. Needs to be more proactive all over the pitch.

Can we get Musonda and Ross on now?

Also: Caballero cannot claim a cross. Brighton seem to know this too and are throwing the crosses in even closer to the goal. His wandering is giving me a heart attack, then he turns around and saves point blank headers (that are point blank because he can't claim them).

Early start here. Had to have my coffee, so was watching the first half on delay. Caught up now. The "winning a penalty" shit bothers me to no end, and I think that VAR will only compound that. "There was contact" is always the argument, but in my mind: Penalty = foul in the box (and even then, I was brought up that a foul in the middle of the pitch isn't always a penalty) But, this is still a contact sport. Not every piece of contact is a foul.

I know. Right after Jose was announced as the Utd manager, I thought "Shit. Mata can't seem to catch a break lately". But, he's playing him. Don't know why he couldn't have done that here.

The clips are so bad because they're so old:

First time I saw this was when I had my ACL reconstructed and I was recovering. I'm a big Hitchcock fan. 39 Steps, Strangers on a Train, and Rope are probably my favourite Hitchcock films.

Hahahahahaha.

Thought Willy made some good saves tonight.

Hahaha. Can't say that they don't deserve it.

I can't. I've never been one to hate any Chelsea player. But I can't really come up with a bright side at the moment.

I'm not as big of a Baka hater as a lot, but thought you guys would enjoy this:

Jose sold them because he didn't like them in training and they didn't track back enough.

Butland? You wish If we're going to use Andy Carroll as a bench mark, then we're looking somewhere between: Robert Green -> Ben Foster -> Joe Hart. Somewhere in that spectrum

I'm sure they would

I can get behind this signing. I don't know anything about him other than he plays in a position we need and his name isn't Andy Carroll.

LOL

I think he's gone too. He looks a shell of the man we saw 18 months ago. Can't get excited or even speculate on who's coming in next. Can't get too attached to them, they'll be here for 2 years, tops. Their football philosophy/style won't matter since they won't get players they are after. It will be watching them try to turn Bakayoko in to Iniesta because they like to play 433 and keep the ball.

Exactly. Trying to have their cake and eat it too. Be cheap, but win now. Doesn't work like that. If you don't want to spend to bring the quality in, at least bring through the youth so we can get excited about our youngsters and see what they can do. Blocking their progress with top tier players is one thing. Blocking their way with mediocrity is the worst of both worlds.

There's a lot of info/talk on the wages, but how many years is he going to get? He's 29, and due to the 1 year contracts for 30+, I'd say that we'd only be comfortable offering him a 2.5 year deal So, with a 30M transfer fee, 10M agent payout and a salary of 350K/week. Clubs amortize the up front fees over the length of the contract, so that would be 40/2.5 = 16 + 18.2 (350K/week), that's 34M/season, that's what goes on the books. That doesn't include any signing on bonus to be paid to Sanchez, haven't seen that number floating around either. Sandro, on the other hand, if he would cost 60M, he's 27 next week, so let's say we offered him a 4.5 year deal along the same lines as Sanchez regarding our 30+ policy. Don't know about any agent fees, but even if we go with 10M like Sanchez, that would be 70M/4.5 = 15.5M, almost the same as Sanchez, but his wages would be far less than 350K a week. Mahrez probably cheaper than that, Telles way cheaper than that. I know it sounds overly Arsenal-y, but that's how the clubs look at it. https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/2016/aug/24/transfer-window-market-myths Anyway, this is all moot, if we won't pay 1/2 of that for a position of need (LWB), there's no way we're going in for Sanchez.

What's the 3rd thing?

Not going to happen. We should just hijack the Malcom deal. Arsenal, we can compete with. This feels a lot like the late Lukaku bid. Pretend to be interested for appearances.

We like having oft-injured back up strikers. What good is a back up if they're not fit when needed. See: Loic Remy

Forgot about that, maybe a ST too. We need one, for sure. Could possibly see us getting one in.