Do you know, if UEFA really put their minds to it they could have come up with something even more complicated.
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I think we will get top 4 but it does feel like a wasted opportunity not getting a top CB and CM.
Salah will score for sure against NewCastle after all the drama. If Thiago miraculously stays fit for the entire season we will win the league.
Realistically the only thing that could stop us from top 4 is our attitude to finishing games off. Far too many lower teams got points off us last season. Letās hope our new midfielder lads put a stop to that.
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The Salah rumours keep on being peddled all over the place by Ornstein then every body else then the same shite is being rechewed in this forum depressing the hell out of everyone to the point where I cannot believe that some posters are actually suggesting we should sell him this summer canāt you all see they are waving wads of money at anyone who can validate this rumour it is intensifying for a good reason just before the Newcastle game
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Konate was injury prone before we bought him. I remember the mental gymnastics from a lot of people trying to prove that he wasnāt, but it turns out that he is as fragile as he was at Leipzig. This issue is exacebated by the fact Gomez has been poor for 3 years and Matip isnāt good enough now. This is the situation weāve found ourselves in again because we stick with certain players too long.
As for the window, each individual deal has been good, but we havenāt done enough of them. The club seem to have run out of ideas in the second half of the window. This summer should have been an incredibly busy one, we simply havenāt done quite as much as we should have.
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The full quote from Koop on the CB thing is a little more encouraging. Little being the key word.
āIn and ideal world weād have 6, 7, 8 centre halfs and cover for absolutely everything, no we need to be lucky with injuries, thereās no doubt about it, I have no doubt in the quality of the boys we have, Quansah a super talented player, in this moment we are covered, but itās not dreamland where we can be prepared for any situation, we had to learn that in the past a couple of times, we will try to do our absolute best to have a squad next week where we can react to pretty much everything, is that possible? We will see.ā
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I just canāt wait for the transfer window to shut.
Not that I anticipate it ending the whining over transfers, sadly.
The Salah rumours are prob just the Saudi owners (who of course own Newcastle as well as the 4 x Saudi clubs) trying to unsettle Mo before we face them this weekend at St.James Park. A Mo away day masterclass would be lovely.
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Itās a bizarre world where teams Iāve never heard of, in a country that has no synonymy with the game, are trying to buy the worldās best players with tales of untold riches in exchange for them saying, āThese Saudis are actually pretty cool. Itās time we moved on.ā
Every day there seem to be fewer and fewer good things in life, unless youāre a psychopathic billionaire.
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To be fair, Saudi Arabia have made it to the World Cup a couple of times, and the most successful club in the AFC Champions League is Saudi. I think itās quite wrong to say that they donāt have any history with the game.
However, that doesnāt change the fact that itās sport-washing.
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Maybe itās an expectation thing. Top four is minimum requirement this season but our aspirations should be to be in the title race.
I donāt want to be defeatist but if at the start of the summer people were told the sum total of our business would be three new players, all in midfield, AND weād sell Henderson and Fabinho too then I think everyone would think we need to do more than that.
Weāve the best keep in the league and possibly the best group of attackers in the league. The bits between those two were where we were weakest last season and weāve done the bare minimum to address one of those areas and nothing in the other.
It leaves people talking about ātop four contentionā rather than challenging City and Arsenal.
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Weāre obviously rebuilding the team after losing a lot of the players who brought us success in recent years.
Salah will go next summer, and weāll be looking at a successor for VVD. Top four and a good run in Europe have to be our targets. Anything more would be a bonus.
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See, I think this is just a bit arrogant on our part to be so dismissive. All those teams bar Spurs and Chelsea finished above us last year and both have had changes of managers so arenāt going to be the same teams anyway.
Canāt see how United are worse off. Mount is a better player than Fred. Onana is at least on par with De Gea and the new striker will essentially have to be injured all season to offer less than Weghorst did.
Newcastle have added to the squad that finished above us last season. Sure, on paper Iād take ours every day of the week but two new fullback options, a big piece in midfield and an exciting wide forward option all added to a squad that is returning with all their core players from last season.
Spurs have already shown they arenāt going to be completely irrelevant and Chelsea are a complete wildcard.
Iām not saying our squad hasnāt improved or that everyone else has done better business but I donāt see such a significant improvement from last year that will see us comfortably leap frog all but City and Arsenal.
Itāll all play out on the pitch and I hope im wrong but I said the same last year. I thought weād left ourselves short and we had. Iād say it now looks like weāre doing the same again.
Ā£350k a day. I reckon i could play at this level for at least Ā£250k a day
https://twitter.com/TrollFootball/status/1695009263016411521?t=YsMjEzk6cYEaeDy_PmcVKw&s=19
Realistically, with a summer of huge changes I didnāt think we would be challenging for the title anyways. Too many players need to settle and we wonāt be operating at our best for a few months.
Butā¦ I think we will be challenging Arsenal (City is out of reach) and in the top 4 even without an addition to our CB ranks.
Iād like to see a top CB come in now, but I really donāt believe it will too change much if the right player were to come in January instead. Letās just find ourselves a top player rather than just anyone.
I donāt disagree, however worth noting my original post was in response to claims we werenāt even going to challenge for the Top 4, that I disagree with.
I want us to be challenging for the title annually. Its disappointing that it looks like this summer transfer window will close with us feeling like weāve not done enough to challenge. Still a few days, but transfers late in the window always feel panicked.
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Thing is though that CM is better than it was last year and in my view considerably.
We also hopefully have the likes of Dias,Gakpo and Jota for more games.
My issue is Central Defence right now, I think we have the numbers in CM.
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These highlights are from a charity match from 2018.
Thatās fine, we can check back in May. City, Arsenal and Liverpool are significantly better squads than the rest of the league.
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