It was notable to me that they appeared to start with Ndidi in defence over Vestergaard. He must be something like 6th choice for them (at best) And Bertrand is 3rd choice at best and they (and Newcastle) are linked with Lucas Digne. I expect he will go to Newcastle though
Certainly ? I wouldn’t say it is certain Everton will want as much money as they can get from him to help ease their FFP issues. That won’t come from Napoli I hope you are right. I would quite like to see Newcastle restricted to Bournemouth players and lazy mercenaries / journeymen
Can't see why people are hating on Bertie and Big Vester personally. The former was class for us for many years and we got good money for the latter.
Where do some of these managers get off with their lies ? Brendan Rogers : “"We don't have that deep squad. If we could go to five subs, we would certainly advocate that.” As discussed they have two of our starters from last years as 6th choice CB and 3rd choice left back. Whilst that is also an indictment of our defense last season it also makes his claims outrageous They also spent close to 30m on Patson Daka to be something like 3rd choice as well. Behind Vardy and Ihenacho or one of the winger How big a squad does he want?!
To make it clear - I am not hating on them. My position is that I am ruthlessly mocking the claims that were made over the summer that we were weakened by selling “two of our best defenders” That claim is only definitively true of Bertrand if you take much earlier seasons into account. Certainly not the last two. And even if it was technically true of Vestergaard as the “best” of our CBs the difference was wafer thin and mostly based on non defensive contributions So it isn’t a knock on them. Just on lazy media narrative from the summer
Laughing at Leicester more than anything. Bertrand at his peak was absolutely great for us, but has been past it for at least two seasons. Vestergaard on his day was good but always extremely inconsistent. Silly signings from Leicester.
Not hating them, but it is certainly much nicer to sell a player for in his last year for what was considered cheap (£15m) who goes on to prove not to be worth it than to be an absolute steal that we should have gotten more for. Also it does amuse me seeing players thinking they are better than Saints and then not being able to step up at a bigger or better club.
Also saw the beginnings of a few Rodgers out rumblings which made me chuckle; 1 - Because Rodgers is still a total knob of a man. 2 - Because of how ridiculously entitled that would be, he might be a knob but he’s clearly a quality manager and he has delivered for Leicester overall, looks like a few of their fans have forgotten where they have come from.
I wouldn’t blame them for being at least a little annoyed after reading his bemoaning of their lack of squad depth. They have a deeper squad that probably all but the traditional top 6. Few clubs would respond to an injury to a central defender by spending 15m and circa 75k a week on one of debatable quality from another premier league club. Most would promote a young player or rely on a loan
The plus point is hopefully others will look and think our 'best players' maybe aren't that good anymore and will leave us alone
Big local derby on saturday with Sholing (4th) taking on promotion rivals Totton (2nd) at home, should be a bumper crowd for this one...
Good win for the Cherries tonight so hopefully their wobbles are over, although it has to be said that Cardiff are absolutely woeful at the moment.