I think there's a lot of elements to this that one player can't be taken out in isolation and made the reason why something is wrong. windy pops was no more or less important than mane who was no more or less important than a bothered trent, a vvd who could run, a prime salah or a prime Henderson it worked because they all worked. there was a balance to the side from left side to right side that enabled the best of each player. now there's no balance. there was a willingness to all press as one and not bottle it or hold back and bum out your team mates. mane firmino and salah without the ball had shape and they were leading the line driven by firmino. windy sat deeper with mane without ball but still did the job and anchored the side as he wouldn't lose the ball ever. Henderson could run about then on the other side. trent would actually push up and press onto his man and not let them out of press so easy right now none of that works either consistently or sometimes at all. we might get 20/25 mins at times. if you watch the game v Bournemouth, they were very average but has a constant outfall on their left wing cos trent would simply.not engage his opponent and nobody was going to help him. they could flip the ball out that side all game then back in and beat any other faux press the midfield put up. look back at arsenal at the Emirates. thiago did the same in only the 2md minute. jogged up as his man then stopped and let them play it round him and then vvd doesn't hit saka as he receives it. it only takes seconds then for the ball to hit the net. intensity is hitting man and ball together, not moving once you finally see your man receive the ball. it's putting the effort in the close the options we simply don't put the effort in round the park cos we don't look like we can.
The latest rumour mill has ox, naby, Bobby, Kelleher, Matip leaving in the summer. Only the latter two will bring in a fee. The Italian lad is going home after his holiday in Liverpool so there will be a lot of activity this summer. Possibly Mount, Gravenbach and Bellingham in and another central defender. Things can only get better ( can’t they?)
these are all well advertised, milner will go too. Phillips will finally be dispensed with if he will finally take a lower wage (we have him on 60k ffs)
Yeah, expecting quite a few Ins and Outs this summer, hopefully a bit more exciting than more recent windows
Problem is we are now competing with several oil states City, Newcastle maybe Mancs and a spendaholic yank Chelsea with Arsenal and Spurs also outspending us. Foreign clubs with good players are looking to cash in big time and home grown talent is at a premium
Well if we look at the squad critically then Adrian. utterly pointless kelleher wants to go so let him. he's very injury prone. then the keeprs need: 3rd keeper promotion pitaluga or Davies. I think both are just as good as kelleher ever was. 2nd keeper as senior hg option on a free. I am hearing gulasci. rb: it's high time. we need to sort this. rcb: konate is good but injury worry. matip must go. room for work here. lcb: vvd and gomez. no point thinking anything else this year. lb. no change. no 6. fabinho is toast. what do we do? morton and bajcetic are young options rcm. Henderson??? a lot of work here lcm. imo nobody should stay. I'd send Jones on loan as make or break tbh. much work here. I do not want more thaigo. the lad cannot run and won't track. lw: no change imo no 9. Hard to call this. jota and gakpo have a lot to do. rw no change. gk rcb rcm lcm no 6 rb probably 250mil needed lol. not a hope. Bellingham, Mount, gravenberch all the same sort of player. only 1 of these likely.
I think Zanjinho alluded to it earlier - we were hoping the pandemic would be an opportunity to recalibrate; it was but it went in the opposite direction to what we were expecting. Football is eating itself. Greed begets greed.
I think this was the problem last summer. We clearly targeted three different CMs but they opted to go elsewhere.
The PL isn't greedy it is very altruistic after all it is keeping half the teams in European football going by chucking huge sums at them to keep them going . The scheme has the full working title of the PL transfer fund for deserving penniless clubs .
Rumours going around that we've agreed a deal for Gravenberch Wouldn't mind that (as long as there are others coming as well) was good for Ajax and probably moved to Bayern too soon, struggled to dislodge the established players but he wouldn't be the first young player to do that at Bayern.
Jose Enrique apparently confirmed it’s been sorted, shares same agent. Was full of potential at Ajax as you say. Hard to judge based on limited appearances for Bayern but obv a player there somewhere.
Actually the one scenario (other than what you just said) nobody is talking about is Bellingham staying at Dortmund for one more season and then coming to us the season after
