Guest

The thing you should be really worried about* is they've got him down as being slower than Jordan Ayew. *you should not be worried about this because FIFA/FC ratings don't really mean anything

What tune's that to?

Yeah that's where I'm at too. I think it's unlikely that Carranza is going to smash the league to pieces but you look at some of the strikers who've hit 15+ in recent seasons - Emil Riis, Tom Bradshaw, Lewis Grabban. It's not a high standard. It remains to be seen if we'll create chances consistently enough but if we do I think even a distinctly average striker should score goals.

£9.99m

My instinct is somewhere in the middle but really it's difficult to assess because so much of it seems to have revolved around trying to un**** our finances, and none of us have any real way of knowing to what extent we've done so. From a football/competitive point of view, I'm not blown away but it certainly could have been worse and I'm pleasantly surprised we've got three incomings over the line today. Need to wait and see how they get on obviously, particularly Carranza who I'm not that optimistic about but am looking forward to seeing. James and Ramsey I hope will prove decent additions to what I'd have said was the weakest area of the squad and it's good to get the likes of Alves and Braybrooke loans. We've also kept hold of Fatawu and, even better, not kept hold of Coady. Disappointing not to have shifted any of Faes, BDCR, Vestergaard, Daka, Soumare, Winks and Ayew, particularly given you'd imagine the last four will now almost certainly be leaving for nothing at the end of the season without Turkish/Saudi intervention.

I accept there could well be more announcements to follow but as it stands I think that's quite a generous assessment of our window

They did this when Faes signed as well but unfortunately not quite enough to stop him becoming Woot Faze. They'll probably have to do one for Jordan James as well

That sounds lovely, see you there

HAMPSTEAD HEATH

Is this the sort of swamp-draining everyone was after?

Another one on the "selling makes complete sense as long as we're able to get a replacement in" pile and I fear time is running out for us to do that

There's no way Arteta is going to let a minor detail like that get in the way of his commitment to time-wasting

I think we got slated moreso for losing every week and never scoring

If (and it's a big if because it's coming from Pete O'Rourke) £26m is the fee then that's really not very good I don't think. He's definitely going to need replacing - fine you can take the piss out of his numbers last season but none of our other midfielders have ever bettered two goals or three assists in their careers which is bleak stuff. In an ideal world I'd probably rather have seen him stay and knuckle down but if we don't believe that's going to happen then I suppose we take what we can get and hope there's time to reinvest it.

If they have indeed made it clear that it'll take a "seriously large offer" then hopefully we take the hint and look elsewhere rather than obliging

He did have quite a long time ago, yeah. 23/24 he put up less impressive numbers than everyone's favourite punching bag Daka and last season he didn't start a single league game through a combination of injuries and not being very good anymore

He was OK, some poor touches but some good ones as well including an assist on his second ever senior start - you can nitpick if you really want by saying the pass itself wasn't perfect but it was his positivity and work rate that created the opportunity. Got through a lot of running too as Ayew being the striker meant he was having to lead the press a lot of the time. Just as it's not going to be helpful to constantly compare any current or future striker to Vardy, I think we need to be careful not to judge all our young players by Monga's standard.

I thought it was noticeable against Charlton and again tonight that he's very often the one dishing out encouragement/praise/bollockings as needed. At the same time he gets put into some really unenviable positions because of how scared of the ball a lot of his teammates are but he never seems to be waving his arms about at them or getting visibly frustrated, just cracks on with it.

The only way this would make any sense to me is if we've been really unpleasantly surprised by the state of Begovic to the extent that we don't trust him as backup

Personally I think he's got a long way to go before we can start calling him Ollie. Still very much an Oliver in my book

I'd be interested to hear from people booing Gray all game about what the thought process was there exactly. Happy to be corrected if I've missed something but as far as I can tell, the worst you can really say about him is that he wasn't a particularly great or consistent player for us. I'm not sure the default treatment for former players should be booing but even if it is, he played a (small) part in our greatest ever achievement and did come up with some moments for us, most obviously away at Cardiff. Cheering him going down injured and singing about him being ****ing shit seemed a bit weird to me. Again, if there's a good reason for it (i.e. not "thinks he's better than he is", "looks moody") then do tell.

I am on board and more importantly it looks like a lot of the players are too

Good again, credit where it's due. One silly tackle but otherwise very few complaints about him thus far

We not doing a deep dive into his reaction to the goal this time then?

Didn't think much of the overall performance again but these wins must, gradually, build confidence and fluency. I've almost entirely given up hope of any signings but fingers crossed when the window closes that certainty will at least bring some sort of focus and closure. Vestergaard was excellent, much better from Soumare and even Skipp started to resemble a footballer. If we do end up relying on individual quality at times then there won't be many better individuals at this level than Fatawu and Monga. Lovely for Ricardo to score. Other than the almost team-wide reluctance to be positive and take responsibility for getting the ball up the pitch, the biggest negatives for me were Mavididi was completely anonymous and not for the first time, Okoli is truly horrific on the ball and Thomas really doesn't look up to much. Yet again we look so much better with an actual striker on the pitch - ideally that's a new signing but for the moment it's Daka, so play Daka. The chances of him scoring a goal seem more remote than ever but his movement, link play and work off the ball make a huge difference. I'm not sure there's much point trying to understand this team on any level but from the body language, players being vocal in supporting their teammates but also bollocking them when necessary, the work rate, the celebrations for the goals and at full-time: Marti seems to have the majority onside. Please just give him some new signings and if there are players who aren't buying in then do whatever we can do **** them off.