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Best of luck to him, I'm sad to see him go and I think he's a superb player. The fee I think is both a bit low for someone of his quality and potential but also probably about as much as we could hope for in our (miserable, self-inflicted) position. Can only hope these recent outgoings are a prelude to some activity in the other direction and mean if/when BEK goes it's for his release clause rather than a cut price.

It is. Unless they "clearly impact the goalkeeper" or end up playing/challenging for the ball then it's no problem and I think you'd have a very hard job arguing that Young clearly impacted the goalkeeper

Remains to be seen if we're any better but these are both ****ing crap

Not much overlap between players who would be realistic and players who would actually improve the squad I don't think. Can't say I've watched a great deal of him but I understand Viktor Johansson is meant to be one of the better Championship keepers these days so he's probably one, I don't rate George Hirst particularly but he would at least be an option and I know some people get very excited at the prospect of a big, crap target man up front

The gameplay is broadly OK but if the size and chokepoint-heavy nature of these three maps is representative of what we're getting at launch (and we already know two of the remaining six launch maps are infantry only) then it's probably no deal for me

I'm guessing the stats that are meant to be particularly damning here are his save and clean sheet percentages? The former is accounted for by the incredibly high quality of the shots we allowed the opposition to take and the latter by the fact he was playing behind an absolute clown show defence. No shit he conceded a lot of goals playing with Wout Faes and Conor Coady. Interesting how many people are saying Stolarczyk is better at both shot-stopping and dealing with crosses yet the stats that actually correspond to those two things are in Hermansen's favour.

I'm choosing to believe it's mainly just sour grapes because anyone who genuinely thinks he's not an excellent goalkeeper needs their head reading

Didn't expect him to stay but still a shame if he leaves. I think he's outstanding and a cut above Stolarczyk who I'm happy enough to see step up but, like others, not yet entirely convinced by.

I think they already have too many attacking midfielders/behind the striker types to have an interest but they do have some form for spending that sort of money on young, relatively unproven UK-based players too, e.g. Pedro, O'Riley, Rutter, Minteh so it wouldn't be entirely out of character

If you forgot something and then were reminded of it then you still forgot it in the first place, which I suspect is the idea

Doesn't actually start until 6pm today I don't think

Through the first act of Baldur's Gate 3 for what I would guess (conservatively) is about the fifteenth time, still loving it two years after full release and almost five after early access. Next playthrough will be Honour Mode I think, not usually one for ironman permadeath stuff but I want those sweet sweet golden dice

I too would love to notice what he offers

Not particularly I don't think but looking at their bench it might be more like it in the second half

****ing hell

I definitely wouldn't go as far as saying I disliked him but like others have said I struggled to warm to Schmeichel in the way I did with most of those successful teams, not entirely sure why. I don't think there are many players of ours good or bad that I've properly disliked, it would take a really sustained period of incredibly half-arsed performances combined with obvious off-pitch bellendry. I'd find it much easier to come up with players I had a soft spot for despite them being demonstrably not very good. I don't think I get as angry about football as a lot of people do and in a lot of cases it seems to be based on armchair psychology ("thinks he's better than he is" a classic of the genre) which is really tedious stuff.

He could score a hat-trick of bicycle kicks and I think my overriding emotion would still be relief that at least he's not "playing" for us anymore

Sweepstake on how many times he says "football club" in his first interview with them? I reckon four figures minimum

On penalties, I think I'm right in saying this tournament is very much an outlier and generally penalty conversion rate isn't much, if any, lower in women's football than it is in men's. I guess there could be any number of reasons why - there is obviously a lot more attention and thus pressure on these games than there used to be and it might be a self-fulfilling thing across the tournament where once a few get missed a sort of collective panic sets in. The thing I find interesting is I can't remember seeing any players watching the keeper and waiting for them to commit which almost seems the default technique now in the men's game for any regular takers. I'd be interested if anyone knows why that is because it seems like goalkeeping has evidently come on such a long way and maybe as a consequence penalty techniques have been left behind a bit.

Some header and some cross by Chloe Kellbrighton

Raw may be a bit of an overstatement but so is productive from day one given he put up one goal and one assist in his first dozen games. He definitely improved in the second half of the season

It's possible to simultaneously hold the beliefs that bringing academy players into the first team is really important and that Hamza Choudhury is not very good

I was in one of the tests a couple of months ago and came away cautiously optimistic, imo it plays like a mixture of BF3/4 and MW2019. In terms of feel and atmosphere it's an enormous improvement on 2042 which definitely comes across in the various leaks. I am however a bit surprised by the rumoured October release because even accounting for it being pre-alpha and potentially quite an old build at that, it seemed a long way off being ready - placeholder assets all over the gaff, loads of features broken, half-finished or just altogether missing. Another bin fire launch would not surprise me in the slightest but the open beta is allegedly happening next month (announcement with the multiplayer reveal next week?) so hopefully we will get some idea of what kind of shape it's in. I would dearly love it to succeed because done well there's nothing else quite like it.

I have tried this sort of fact-based approach before but unfortunately what you tend to get back is penalties don't count, goals from close range don't count, goals against teams in the bottom half don't count, goals when the team is already winning or drawing don't count, goals when you've come off the bench don't count, goals that aren't aesthetically pleasing don't count and so on. Easier to just agree that he's subhuman scum and the worst footballer to ever play the game and let them crack on.

I'm starting to wonder if he never properly recovered from an injury, or has just been really struggling for fitness since he got here, something like that because his reputation as a busy, all-action, energetic midfielder could not be much further from what you see when you watch him. Even putting to one side the fee, which I think is fair because that's an error on the club's part not his, he just seems to make so little impact with or without the ball. He wasn't done any favours today by Winks who looked incredibly half-arsed pretty much throughout but I think it's a real problem that so many of our midfielders are these safe, plodding types who add almost nothing in terms of creativity, goal threat or solidity.