honeybradger

He's played quite a few professional games and the fans who had watched him previously all said that he has good physical attributes but lacks a defensive brain and has some stray passing, which is what we're seeing in pre season. Sadly that's not going to change overnight, I dont think he's a bad defender, he's the type that's good in the right system but then so are all our other defenders. Realistically we could have stuck it out with Faes and Vestergaard and I think we wouldn't be any worse off, and we've spent too much money on Okoli for him to just be more of the same.

What does he expect when he's started a choudhury/soumare, Winks, Ndidi midfield for half our friendlies with Ndidi in the 10 role? Ricardo not being a starter and inverting into centre back as well. I could stomach us going down if it felt we were building towards something and giving our young talents a run out, but they're not even getting minutes in pre season, we've used most of our budget on a centre back we didnt need and we're loaning/signing on a free a bunch of plays who dont look good enough to keep us up on the face of it. He's complaining about not having enough signings but the signings he's made Okoli and Cordova Reid arent performing better than those already at the club and I'll be surprised if a washed Zaha and Bouananotte is going to make a difference. I was actually quite excited by him as a manager before the friendlies because he has a decent record with English youth but it seems like he's more willing to play experienced players who will only ever be not good enough than inexperienced players who might not be good enough right now but can develop into good players.

I am less annoyed at the player and more annoyed that we seem to have spaffed the majority of our transfer budget on a centre back who doesnt seem to improve our defence. The fault lies with our ownership and scouts for this one.

Zaha would just be a continuation of us targeting the wrong profile of player. An over the hill left winger is not what we need, we need a creative spark in midfield.

Meanwhile we have Ben Nelson sitting in reserves who likely will go on to be a centre back than Bassey and will also leave after not being given a chance.

It's not just the tactics but it's our movement in the transfer market. Cordova Reid and Okoli have not improved us and we're signing 19 year old Buonannote to play over the 19 year old CAMs we already have at the club in Golding and Alves. Absolutely piss poor.

Not very good.

This Mendy guy looks quite good, we should sign him.

But he has eXPerIenCe so he needs to start over Alves.

you cannot convince me that Golding would not provide more quality to this team than what we are seeing in Lens right now.

https://x.com/JackWhitman_7/status/1822250160920965191 more quality from Golding in this clip than we have seen all pre season.

Is this our last friendly? We're seriously wheeling out an Ndidi, Winks, Choudhury midfield? This is supposed to be us testing the starting lineup for next week and it's not looking good. With Ricardo on the bench as well I wouldn't expect Cooper to be here very long sadly.

Hopefully this is our Akgun replacement rather than our Dewsbury Hall replacement, otherwise we are going to be in a lot of trouble next season.

The issue is not just that he's past it, he's also got a huge ego which is never a good mix. He will expect to play regular minutes but if he performs like he has in Turkey then he will get benched and cause problems in the dressing room. Hopefully this doesnt happen.

£140,000 a week. Net is after tax.

Zaha had already declined fairly substantially by the time he left Palace. I'm not sure he has the ability to back up the wages he would be asking for any longer.

Now is the best time to sell him really. We might be able to make a small profit off a club with a lot of money but little sense (likely to be Marseille). He's never looked good for us and didnt look particularly good for Denmark in the Euros either, if we stick with him I dont think he will be able to match the level we want.

Rennes signed Jordan James, could mean that they are no longer in for Asprilla?

In my opinion Brighton could win an FA cup in the coming years. Weiffer and Minteh are excellent signings, Weiffer especially is one of the biggest talents in Europe, I am surprised a bigger club didnt get him.

This might make sense if Buonannotte was actually PL ready but he isn't. He offers very little goal threat. This is more of a Sheffield United loaning Luke Thomas type deal than us bringing in a PL quality player.

Skipp is PL proven in the same way Luke Thomas is PL proven. He has quite a few PL apps under his belt but this is not his level, the championship is.

Apparently he scored 5 penalties last season, 20 mil for a 7 goal 5 assists winger in the eredivisie who is also 26 is probably too much.

I thought he was good? 12 goals 4 assists in the Eredivisie last season but Ajax fans seem happy that he's leaving.

£20mil isnt cheap though.

I like Guiu, would prefer him as a loan over Fofana.