StriderHiryu

Will Kristiansen ever put a cross in with his left foot? So frustrating! From the Brednan Rodgers school of football he is!

https://www.skysports.com/football/story-telling/11686/13188812/next-up-yaser-asprilla-watford-s-rising-star-modelled-on-ronaldinho Recent article on him. He's an excellent prospect but not the sort of player that helps you stay in the league. It doesn't mean we shouldn't sign him though, if you could tie him to a 4 year deal, he's the sort that even if we got relegated would help murder the Championship to get us back up. I just think that compared to say Soule or Nelson, he's more raw. High celing though for sure!

Cooper already looks like a fan of rotation, so I think the 3 behind Daka (and maybe even Daka himself) will change positions to try and drag their markers around with them. Mavididi so far has looked promising in pre-season with a more flexible role.

Looks like a 4231 with Bobby as the 10. Interested to see how this plays out.

Yes it's about Chelsea, but the first few minutes of this video eloquently sum up much of what I showed off in the tactics thread last season. This will be useful to compare to what Cooper is and isn't doing, more of which will be posted after tomorrow's game.

Maybe it's taking into account players off the books like Kelechi, Praet, Albrighton? But in general I do find their calculations off, and suspect that we aren't that low. However, just like the last time we got relegated, I think it shows that we overpay for below average players in general. Do we have enough Premier League quality players to stay up this season? We have some for sure, but attacking areas the big concern. At the same time when we went down, we should never have finished that low and like many am convinced that sacking Rodgers earlier would have saved us. I reckon even if Dean Smith was the manager throughout the entire season, we would have stayed up pretty easily. This season we don't have Maddison, Tielemans, Barnes or KDH. We have Mavididi and Fatawu. Maybe Reid will be OK. Feels like one or two genuine attacking players short to give us a real chance though.

Copied from another thread, but interesting to see. Our Wages and Squad Value compared to other teams in the league: This won't be up to date yet with more signings coming in, but this is quite a big change for us from a few seasons ago when we had the 7th highest wages. And of course, despite being a good indicator, there is one team that has the unusual record of both over-performing AND under-performing their expected finish based on wages. That team of course being Leicester City who finished 1st and 18th respectively. Here's our Squad Value, though this one is much harder to gauge: As it stands, it's got relegation written all over it

Not the same, but over the last decade the most indicative indicator of final position has been total wages rahter than squad value: This won't be up to date yet with more signings coming in, but this is quite a big change for us from a few seasons ago when we had the 7th highest wages. And of course, despite being a good indicator, there is one team that has the unusual record of both over-performing AND under-performing their expected finish based on wages. That team of course being Leicester City who finished 1st and 18th respectively. Here's our Squad Value, though this one is much harder to gauge:

I get the same vibe as two seasons ago where we signed nobody other than Wout Faes after Fofana departed. The silence is deafening, the weird pre-season with games announced last minute and not to fans, etc. We might have signed a few players, but we've lost our best player and haven't adequeately replaced him. What I find confusing is that I don't see any sort of overall strategy. I would have thought one of the following would have happened: Sign a "loan army." Don't commit to long-term signings but try and bring in 4-5 highly rated propsects to improve the overall quality of the squad. Low-risk, but low reward if the players do well. Sign players that are young with resale value, that are also proven in the Championship. This is what Ipswich are doing. Go all out and gamble to stay up this season by spending big and accept penalties down the road, like when Forest first got promoted. Sign no-one at all, rely on youth players and pray. Cheapest option, realistically accepting relegation. It seems a bit all over the place at the moment. Weirdly it seems a lot worse than last season where it seemed like we had quite a good strategy. Admittedly, Fatawu, Yunus and Casadei joined quite late on, and I am expecting that to happen again this season with the loan signings. This is because many players go away on the US tours to see if they can get into the first team squad, before a decision is made to loan them out. Not looking good with the season starting in two weeks though. The KDH replacement should be in the team now, to learn the system and be ready to go on day one. Despite the idiotic Thailand trip, one thing Enzo did brilliantly was to drill and coach the team so that they learned the system very quickly. Game one against Coventry was a bit rough, but we got off to a good start and went on a good run early. Leaving signings till the last-minute might cost us 1 or 2 points, and that's the reason we went down last time round.

https://www.fr12.nl/transfernieuws/feyenoord-bereikt-akkoord-met-brighton-over-buonanotte Buonanotte going to Feyenord on loan.

WTF!!! This is so sad. Was an amazing servant for the club, and it was brilliant being at the KP against Sevilla for the "unleash the dogs of war" TIFO. RIP Craig, thoughts and commiserations to his family.

His new tactic of getting the game called off due to bad weather when not playing well is inspired

This is more the type of signing we would make in the past, a young player with a high ceiling. Inconsistent but had some very good games, like the one above against Southampton. He's left footed and can play in the back 3 or usually as a CDM. If we played Enzo's old style, he would have been a decent pick for the left sided CB that advances forwards. All that said, not really the type of player that would make me think we'd improve our chances of staying up, but from what I've seen, he looked a very tidy and accomplished player.

From before he signed for Lens. This guy was highly rated before that move, Chelsea wanted to sign him (if this means anything anymore). More of a wide forward than a striker IMO, but probably the type of player that can play across the front 3. Given his previous history, I think we should steer clear though.

This is why we ended up breaching PSR - wages were 117% (lmao) of actual turnover! I think for our very best players, this is acceptable. But the wages handed out to players that haven't performed yet is too much. E.g. if Ricardo was one of our top earners, fair enough because inuries aside he has shown his quality. Whereas say for Daka / Soumare, though I could understand why we'd give them high wages, it's a risk as they were unknown quantities in the Premier League. Some wages are also just plain stupid. Danny Ward, Ryan Bertrand come to mind. Even now Connor Coady is on ridiculous wedge for hardly any appearances.

He's creative. IMO more creative than O'Riley, but less solid as an all round player. He is more the type that sits a bit deeper rather than being box-to-box. Somewhere between Tielemans and Winks maybe would be a good way to describe him? In the last friendly there was zero creativity in that midfield, this is the sort of player that would help with that. But he'd be more the type to set them up rather than get on the end of them. He's solid, I mentioned him I think in one of the post-matches recently ha ha!

Been linked with this guy before. A weird one because he's at Huddersfield where he was bang average at best, being more of a squad player. He's at the Olympics now, but not seen what he's been like. However, if he's a cheap signing with upside, I could see the interest. 21 years old, plays as a CAM.

In general I agree with you. But this season we have the PSR penalty dangling over us, which makes it likely we get relegated again. In such a situation, loaning players for this season is way less risky than considerable outlays. Ben Doak is a pretty decent player and would be a useful squad addition for the upcoming season. This season is all about survival if we can do it. We establish ourselves again next season if we are still here.

I thought he was our best player. I was worried after seeing him in the previous game, today he looked very good.

That is not me! I'm Anil!

Doing some analysis now: First half of the match, stable but boring. Second half not bad, more open. For me the overriding thought is "why aren't we playing like last season", as when we did, we looked better.

It is similar to last season, but this half we've gone for a 343. We look better in this system than the 4231.

Ricardo acting as a 3rd CB at times this half, getting involved in the build up along with the double pivot.