cityfanlee23

I think…. It’s time 😢 It was a nice dream while it lasted

Barely any of the footer links work, Support doesn't link to anything, the example links are broken. Curacao is pretty much the global hub for illegal casinos and money laundering.

****ing hell, thanks again Nigel

Maybe we could organise some sort of Owner/Manager type role for Marti??

We don't need him unless we plan on selling Thomas/Kristiansen or JJ At left back I'd rather just stick with Thomas and JJ, at Right Back have Woyo and Aluko. Ricardo pushed into midfield. If we sold Thomas and Kristiansen then sure, bring Lowe in.

Great result for Chelsea and played really well on the day, but what happened to PSG? Stuck in 1st gear. Fluminense gave Chelsea a better game. I still have a gut feeling they will be 4th in the league though, a mixture of Enzo's stubbornness that Chelsea fans referenced all season costing them results, and the fact he doesn't seem to be standing up to the board signing another 300 players, either because he wants the players or he just doesn't feel like he has the power to say no. I think this will cost them massively in the long run. I said when he left Chelsea is probably the ideal club for Enzo because he needs big investment to make his system work, but Chelsea's investment still seems to be scattergun rather than targeted, I think there are going to be a LOT of unhappy players at that club this season, maybe we can take advantage of that and offer some of their young stars guaranteed exposure and play time.

Do you think they even know we don't have one? My bet is they forgot they sacked Ruud

If this falls short somehow I think we are going to panic. I can only hope they panic and give Hassenhuttl whatever he would want, I dread to think what Dyche or Wilder would do with the crop of youth talent we have coming through, probably 1 of them would be managed well and the rest end up leaving.

Just stay calm everyone, give the club time to work their magic, they have it in them, they can get this one to fall short of the line too.

You could be right on that one it was hard to tell from yesterday I thought his positioning was great but he was often crowded out. Let’s face is we are likely going to see Soumare here anyway, as much as I want Soumare to go I think in 3rd gear he can deliver in the championship, it’s more out of principle that I don’t want to see him here.

This is very much a work in progress as I'm honestly lost as to how we maximise the game time of our youth players whilst not rocking the boat too much on players that we can keep for multiple years. Thoughts at the moment: - Right back is a difficult balance, we can't keep 3 players that are all good enough for the Championship happy, Ricardo can play inverted as a CM, so i'd be tempted to play him there which allows us to rotate JJ/Coulibaly, not sold on this idea, but I don't think it's worth selling JJ/Woyo for the sake of Ricardo who is likely in his final season for us. - Players to go at ANY cost, whether that be a loan or a sale with subsidised wages by us: BDCR, Either Skipp or Ndidi, Ayew, Kristiansen, Mads (for PSR do not subsidise) Souttar, Soumare - Junior Kroupi in on loan from Bournemouth. - If Ricardo can't play CM, we will need to loan out JJ or Coulibaly in order to accommodate him at RB and keep everyone happy. - I really don't know how we fit Mcateer into this squad unless Bilal leaves, at which point I would prioritise Monga in that position, possibly striker? I think given the situation we are in with PSR, I think I would accept NOT getting promotion this season in order to stabilise and give these young players a proper foundation to grow into.

We are actually in quite a difficult situation at the moment but it's a nice problem to have, dependant on points deductions, if we want to get promoted we will need a good balance of experience, the issue being the experience at this level that we have are the exact positions we have talent coming through. We all desperately want our young players to get a proper chance this season, I just don't see how we are going to give them all a chance. Alves is fighting potentially Bilal and Ayew Aluko is fighting Thomas and Kristiansen Evans is fighting Fatawu/Mcateer/Ayew Monga is fighting Mavididi/Bilal/BDCR Golding is fighting Skipp/Winks/Ndidi Louis Page is fighting Skipp/Winks/Ndidi Wilson-Brown looked decent yesterday... You've got Choudhury and Soumare fighting for these positions too. I really think we are going to need to make some really difficult financial decisions now where the likes of Choudhury, Soumare, Skipp, Kristiansen, BDCR, maybe Ayew are moved on at ANY price and we just take a short term hit on the chin, subsidise their wages and send them out.

Early on last season the full back position was our weakest, fast forward 12 months and it's one of our strongest now. Hopefully we can get Kristiansen off the books otherwise we have him, Thomas and Aluko all fighting for the same position, and on the other side we have Ricardo, JJ and Coulibaly, I don't think it's possible to keep them all happy. I know he made a big error yesterday, but I'd be tempted to play Ricardo as an out and out CM which would save us needing to sign a midfielder, and would allow us to rotate Woyo/JJ on the right and keep them both relatively happy, if we play Ricado as an inverting RB, either Woyo or JJ will be starved of game time at pretty critical points in their career. I don't even know if that position would suit him, I think he can play it at this level but whether he would thrive for us there would be another conversation. Difficult puzzle for us at the moment.

Marti arriving to watch the match today...

Just give Rudkin a chance to mess this up will ya? He's got this.

@StriderHiryu is sat in front of his sewing machine as we speak trying to repair his RVN one

Of course, we need to use them as indicators but also need to look into the context of each club, on paper Iraola's career showed no real indication he was going to have Bournemouth in the top 6 for most of the season. Win Percentages and club names don't always paint the full picture.

Gentle reminder to anyone concerned about Cifuentes' career before he joins us. This is Andoni Iraola the current Bournemouth manager, who is easily one of the best young coaches in world football right now. The career/record of the manager is obviously an indication of their potential and if they are on an upward trend or downward and should not be ignored, but it's easy to get caught up in the weeds on that.

Corky can I just have a moment alone in the Danny Rohl thread?

Let me have a few more hours in denial 🤣

I think he bridges an important gap, he’s definitely closer to Enzo than for example Rohl or Klopp in approach, but he’s far less wedded to his setup, he plays to dominate the ball but he comes across to me as less patient to get shots on goal and is happy to let wingers run free and create chances rather than looking for the perfect moment. I think he could possibly be the compromise that gives us entertaining, fast paced football but blended with a style that focuses on ball retention.

Simon Jordan says Cifuentes is a disloyal rodent. GET HIM IN. As usually SJ only sees one side of the story and ignores the other, Cifuentes had a complete breakdown in relationship with the CEO because of the direction of the club, just as Pearson did post promotion for example. If you’re in a role and you feel like your immediate boss is making decisions that actively harm your chances of success in your role and the effectively tell you to suck it up, of course you’re going to want to go somewhere else. The fact he’s willing to pay out of his own pocket some of the compensation money to join us, when he could easily just sit at home picking up a paycheck until a new job comes along is a good thing imo.

Don’t worry, within 12 months he will be back… in Red.

That is wild! I have to say the drama between him and Toto over the years has been great, let’s face it, he hasn’t done much that other TP’s wouldn’t have done its unfortunately the nature of the sport to be petty with eachother and try to bend the rules, Horner is the one who did the most work building the team and he’s overseen an incredible rise. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the Ferrari pit wall in the near future. In the last few seasons unfortunately the Max problem and Helmut Marko have become too big of an issue to solve and could argue his lack of foresight has contributed. With max they have got a generational talent so it’s no wonder the car has been designed to suit him and win him world championships but ultimately it’s results in a car so difficult to drive it’s killing the 2nd drivers careers and now it seems more difficult than ever to win a Constructors with any of their driver pool as only max can get anything out of it. He’s done an incredible job, he’s been thoroughly unlikeable at times but his contribution is colossal. His Cambridge Union talk was brilliant and gives a great insight into how he’s developed such a formidable machine over the years.

He likes to play line breaking passes, so that likely puts Winks back into the starting 11. Cifuentes needs to get his attitude in order, and if he can utilise him to actually pass the ball more than 4 yards and sideways then he will probably dominate.