honeybradger

Honestly I just cant see how we're going to even be close to staying up this season. Especially if we're targeting Skipp.

Cooper has barely played Ndidi in the DM role. Can he still play that position at a high level? I'm not so sure. Winks isnt a DM, if we're not in possession and we're not pressing as a unit (which we arent under Cooper) he doesnt offer much. He's only useful when we are in possession. Hamza is Hamza, he struggles to make a forward pass. Someone like Mandela Keita would be transformative for our team, we need someone who is comfortable on the ball and also combative in midfield.

DM is definitely a priority, you could see the quality we've lost there when Papy Mendy bossed our Winks/Choudhury midfield in the Lens game. If Ndidi cant rediscover his form/Cooper doesnt play him there then it has to be one of our main positions to target, Choudhury wont cut it for us as a starter and Winks doesnt have the defensive ability we need in that position for next season.

He wouldn't be allowed to play against Spurs anyway.

I prefer this approach, if we aren't going to have complete meltdown this season then he needs to try and reduce the negativity and try the best with the players he had. I think if Rodger had done the same in 22/23 we would have stayed up.

Hopefully the reason that this didnt go through was that his agent was stalling for a permanent transfer elsewhere rather than us taking too long on the details.

Why do people not see this guy as our 9 for the future? He reminds me a lot of a younger Van Persie or Lewandowski where they started on the wing but were able to use their elite technical abilities to be lethal in the box.

We were willing to spend 9 mil on Zaha. Use that 9 mil on Mandela Keita and leave Skipp at Spurs at we will be better off.

Blessing in disguise, now lets go ahead and sign Hlozek and one of Asprilla/Ionnadis/Hamer

You can get far better midfielders than Oliver Skipp for what Spurs would be asking for him. Definitely skipp this one.

Didnt Rodgers play him? I thought it was Smith who didnt like him in the slightest.

Genuinely dont think Kristiansen is much better than Thomas. The Lens winger went past him at will the other week.

I think he was just a solid part in a good team. Think Danny Simpson in our title winning team, he won the league with us but there weren't any suitors lining up to sign him just because of the amazing season we had as a team. The fact that Bologna weren't that bothered about retaining him, who have plenty of money to burn, tells you everything to know about how he is rated in Italy.

Not gone down well with the Betis fans in the comments.

This guy looks very good on the face of it. Hopefully in a years time we're going to look back and think how have the other teams allowed us to sign him.

Kristiansen and Justin at fullback, Choudhury at DM alongside Winks. He's better than all of them in any of those respective positions, hopefully it was just giving the rest of the team minutes.

Stop trying to force the Stinky Winky nickname 🤣. No one else is using that, it belongs in a school playground.

Yeah, i agree. Alves, Nelson and Baybrooke are arguably more talented than the generation before them of Barnes, Chilwell and Dewsbury Hall who we sold for over £100mil. If managed properly they should go on to being good PL players but based on the pre season so far it doesn't look like they're being given a sniff. I guess we have to see first hand how he manages them, it will be a black mark on his record here if none of them make it with us.

I think he managed all of those I mentioned at club level, mostly on loan at Swansea. The only two starting players from Swansea's academy that broke through when Cooper was there are Cabango and Cullen from what I can see. It's different giving players a chance in the championship than in the PL though.

He has a good record with picking up players from his u17 winners team and taking them to the next level in senior football such as Gibbs White, Guehi, Bhrewster and Gallagher.

Personally after looking at him he's less comparable as a player to someone like Vardy and more similar to someone like Maddison. His goal scoring record even last season would be fairly unimpressive if he was a pure box striker but he looks more like a 10 to me.

Akgun got 8 goals 9 assists in the Turkish league 2 seasons before he joined us and he wasn't even starter quality in the championship. If we're looking at the PL he had definitely fallen from his best even with Crystal Palace.

He's not the same player that was destroying us every time we faced him. There's a reason his team are sending him out on loan after a year, he's on the decline. It's like if another team signed Ndidi and were expecting to sign one of the best midfielders in the PL, he's not that player anymore.

Is it possible that we see this guy as our attacking midfielder? All the videos of him are him linking up in midfield and on the wing. There is the worry that maybe he doesnt have the strikers instinct to make the right runs and score goals, which seems to be backed up by him not scoring much in Greece. He seems to have a good scoring record in the Europa league though. Still he looks like a good player.

If Cooper is only going to use Ndidi as an attacking midfielder our sole priority should be Mandela Keita or someone similar. Our midfield is by far the worst part of this team.