The striker Iljutcenko who got a couple was decent too, as was the lad who committed the bad foul on Skipp.
Looks like it was Jeong Jae-Hee. He was unlucky Son was on the pitch otherwise he’d have been MOTM by a distance I’d say.
This has gone worryingly quiet. We were linked with a few options right at the beginning of the window but they've all evaporated since. With Udogie coming back from a serious injury, we all saw the mess last season with no proper cover for him. Davies can't play the role. Unless the plan is to use Micky as cover and play Radu as CB, I'm not sure what's going on.
I think thats generally what most fans are thinking during this transfer window so far. Two weeks out from the season opener and not a significant signing has arrived. Best of luck, Ange...
I wrote about this at the end of last season. I felt that missing out on CL and therefore its income would have a hugely negative impact on our spending power in the market. I think Ange's stormy demeanour toward the end of the season reflected that. He seemed torn between wanting to fully integrate his football on the one hand, and doing the pragmatic thing and securing CL qualification on the other. My gut feeling is that we've got enough in the bank to fund one big signing, but will play hardball with whoever that is to get them as cheaply as possible. Any other signings will require further outgoings first. We really are counting on the likes of Royal, Lo Celso and Skipp/Bissouma to leave for decent fees. This will allow us to make two big signings.
Our recent policy seems to have been to spend all the excess cash we have in hand. I suspect the limit is the covenants on the stadium loan rather than FFP. So until we know who is leaving and for what fees we don't know who we can afford.
I’m not sure about him trying to be more pragmatic, he said the other day that we lost our way towards the end of the season (I'd say it was a bit longer than just the end) but I just personally felt we got found out a bit. Teams seemed to suss onto our style and were able to negate a lot of it, the injuries to some players didn't help either. As for finances, I genuinely don't know what to expect with regards to how much we've got or not got. I'm not really too concerned with how much we spend but more who we spend it on/ who we bring in. With just over two weeks until the season opener I thought we'd have at least made one signing with genuine likelihood of making our XI by now though. I don't think we're helping Ange out at the moment, we're basically heading into the season with more or less the same squad as what just finished 5th. Was hoping we'd be aiming to improve on that.
That's also a large part of why Bissouma dropped off so badly in the second half of the season, as by November teams had learned that there was little use trying to press him - but they did learn that cutting off the passing lanes meant he couldn't dictate our forward momentum so that's what they did, hence so much of his passing was overly conservative from then on
Same squad with a lot more games next too. I still think 4-5 more are needed but I can’t see more than 1-2 now (not including youngsters)
Just a reminder for all commentators, the way to pronounce Seoul is to say "Sul" but with the merest whisper of the e while the o is silent This is why I prefer travelling to Japan, as pronouncing their cities is a piece of Pocky
Bit of a cluster that one. Spence needs to protect the ball a bit better but Vic also probably shouldn’t have played that pass. We’re struggling to settle so far in terms of holding onto possession.
I know there is other priority positions to fix first but Vicario needs competition imo. Also another LB is needed. Far too reliant on Udogie. I also still have big questions on how Ange sets the team up defensively, far too open and you’re not going to be successful if you can’t keep clean sheets
