We were only a couple of late goals off it last season and we've got a couple of good players and a manager who has done a good job of improving players' confidence so far.
Finished 7th and 5 points off 4th in a strange season. I don’t see a massive improvement from last season squadwise if I’m honest. Got some promising youngsters but they’re for the future. Didn’t sign anyone who can really hit the ground running. 6th is attainable but the top 4 looks nailed on to be City, Chelsea, Pool and Utd. Plus you got Leicester and even West Ham to compete with as well.
Uncle Fester has left us short yet again, we are a striker and creative midfielder light. Other than Kane and Son, nobody scores with any regularity and we have also lost Bale`s input. Blofeld will be looking at the league table and thinking the squad is good enough, we all know otherwise.
We've (hopefully) improved the defence with Romero and Emerson but we've lost 26 goals worth of players with Bale and Vinicius returning to their clubs, which may potentially result in Kane and Son being ran into the ground because there just isn't enough goals in Bergwijn, Lucas and Dele to cover for those two when not in the side. I don't see us getting top four, City and Chelsea are comfortably better than us, Liverpool's first XI is great and if they remain injury free they'll finish above us, Utd have made some brilliant signings and I doubt even their Hobbit manager can mess things up too badly. I do think top six is a possibility and we should absolutely be looking to win the ECL whilst also one of the domestics.
There is a feeling of deflation but I'm sure loads of clubs are feeling the same. Such a hard window for so many reasons. Clubs (ourselves included) very reluctant to sell their best players, preferring to wait a year until the market has recovered a bit. Another knock on effect has been the difficulty in moving players on; teams just don't have the money to take known risks on iffy players. I also think we shouldn't underestimate the impact of having no CL football to offer. Reports that plenty of targets turned us down for this reason, and unless you're prepared to offer ridiculous wages, they just aren't interested. On the one hand we could've taken the risk of signing someone who wasn't hoping for CL football, or we can save the money, hope to goodness Kane and Son stay fit all season, a minor miracle occurs and we creep back into the top 4 this season. That gives us a bigger budget and a totally different pool of players next summer. Can't see it happening if I'm honest but I can see the club's rationale. We haven't shifted enough players, is it worth a £30-40m flutter on someone if Nuno is working on a system that circumvents the need for a creative CM (i.e. the Liverpool interpretation of 433)? Tbh the things that really bother me is the lack of a back up ST, and the fact that Aurier and too many CBs are still Spurs players.
It's a problematic window...BUT...we left it too late...again. If we really wanted Traore, why leave it until it's too late? It's not like it's the first time that we've done this. It's such a regular occurrence that you can set your watch by it. We've made some good signings but there's no escaping the fact that we're going to be short of goals this season and we left it too late to solve it. That's just piss poor..
Seems you're forgetting we had Bale last season, and Vinicius, and Kane getting highest goals and assists in the league. We were still short of goals. Where do you figure the additional goals will come from now?
Bale and Vinicius hardly scored in the League. Dele hardly played and nor did Bergwijn. We will score more goals simply by attacking more. Probably concede fewer too.
Bale only scored 6 less goals in the league than Son - 17 to 11. Dele didn't feature for good reason.
Not sitting back for 60+ minutes if we go 1-0 up in the first half It has to be said that, while the scorelines do look like those of last season, here's a comparison of the shots-to-goals ratios of the five teams unbeaten in Europe this season How many times were we even having twelve shots per game last season?
My bad on Bale but not many of them earned us points as far as I recall. Dele didn't feature because Mourinho didn't like him. All through last season people were slating Mourinho because he was too negative. Are we really now saying that we would have done no better if he wasn't the manager?
Last season table. 3 Liverpool 38 20 9 9 68 42 +26 69 7 Tottenham Hotspur 38 18 8 12 68 45 +23 62 Same number of goals scored, we conceded 3 more. 4 Chelsea 38 19 10 9 58 36 +22 67 Scored 10 fewer than us , concede 9 fewer. We don't have to score more goals than last season!
What do you all think of our transfer window ? Signed 5 young talented players with Sarr staying at Metz for one more season. (The kid is going to be a star) Romero will be a revelation in my opinion and our latest signing Emerson looks a very powerful attacking RB. Gil is exciting cant wait to see him develop. Gollini looks to be Hugo's successor. Kane staying is great news and Skippy is like a new signing. N'Dombele needs to seriously sort his **** out because he is the creator our midfield needs. Were relying on Kane and Son big time and we will just have to pray they dont get injured. Disappointed we didn't bring another attacker in. Hope that doesn't bite us on the ass. Young Scarlett is certainly one for the future and Nile John looks promising. For me a 7/10 window. 2 more ins and 2 more outs was needed but we were never going to do it all in one window especially after waiting so long to appoint our manager.
