-sodapop

He's managed 4 games in the league and has 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses (admittedly one very bad one) vs Barca and Real Madrid. Hard to say he's doing anything good or bad yet. Valencia might have one of the worst owners in world football, too.

Be funny if United get him the sack

I can't say for sure and you're not wrong to say the recruitment has been shit across the board for about 5 years now, but I truly believe we never sign Ayew for anybody other than Steve Cooper. I do see your point, and I doubt it's a case of them hand-picking players, but they certainly say what they need and almost certainly have a veto. I don't think they went over Enzo for Cannon/Coady; Cannon was seen as a bit of insurance for Daka possibly leaving with the potential to be good - we moved him on for a profit so hard to criticise that. Coady was seen as a smart pickup by almost everybody I saw comment on it; cheap but experienced defender used to playing in a back 3 to add leadership to a shit defence that just got relegated. Turns out, he wasn't that good or necessary, but you can definitely see Enzo asking for a player that fit that mold. It's probably a good idea to have some sort of recruitment profile for players that isn't at the mercy of each manager that comes in. The really big issues are rather: a) this profile is shit and I can count on my hands the number of unquestionably good or profitable signings we've made since winning the league (Ndidi, Maguire, Tielemans, Maddison, Ricardo, Fofana, Hermansen, Fatawu, BEK off the top of my head), and beyond that you'd be hard pressed to name what style we want to play outside of vague references to Top wanting us to play like Man City showing up in John Percy/Rob Tanner/Tom Collomose articles. b) we don't seem to match whatever this recruitment profile is to the profile of manager we recruit. I can't think of one thing that stylistically binds Rodgers to Smith to Maresca to Cooper to Nistelrooy - hard to even say they all play football.

Looking forward to hearing what exactly he's been doing for the last month when the window closes with only Woyo Coulibaly brought in (not that the manager seems to have any interest in playing him particularly?)

I think the difference is, we don't sign Ayew/Skipp/Okoli/BDR under Corberan. Maybe we miss out on BEK but frankly I'd rather we the chance that we signed five 6/10+ players than one 8/10 and four 3/10s

Charisma carries you further than ability, even in football it seems. (not saying Cooper was in any way the right choice for the job, mind)

difference is you have to have something about you to follow through on that, otherwise it's just empty chat. RVN doesn't seem to have much about him

Seems like Hamza had a good match today. (Cannon with an assist too.)

Absolutely not. Everton were down in this muck until they got rid of him. They scored 9 goals from our last game against them until Dyche was sacked (14 games). 4 of those coming in one game against Wolves. They've now scored 8 in their last 4.

Wonder when Woyo will get his first start

reading his Personal Life section was quite a ride

Just seen Atlético Mineiro's captain is Hulk btw, what a blast from the past

I think the hype of a south american signing will push us to 6/7 pages before it's completely dead in the water, personally

Reading some of the Brazilian comments on this; a lot of them felt they got taken to the cleaners by City Group for Savinho, who went for 6.5m and was a better talent. They think they'll hold out for more money. Doesn't seem like he's being bought to start though, as a lot of them see him as not ready to start every week in Brazil even. Some others are saying that they're too conservative and should be starting him, and that if he was allowed to play every week they could charge double what we've bid. Interesting link for sure.

Couldn't find anything on them being related, but one of Tariq's middle names is Nii.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14347275/Brighton-defender-Tariq-Lamptey-set-join-Ajax-forward-Chuba-Akpom-poised-leave-Dutch-club-Lille.html Moving to Ajax for £1.5m

The article describes him as a winger, so perhaps that's the plan

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/cardiff-city-close-move-leicester-30908750

I mean I totally respect that, but he's a better person than me if that's the case. If they're willing to drop that much on signing you, imagine the (tax free!) wage they're offering

Brighton turning down 90m+ for Mitoma is crazy. Good player, but for that much money you have to sell, surely? It's not like they're just on the edge of European places and Mitoma would make the difference either.

Hlozek scored for Hoffenheim tonight, seems to be doing okay despite their league position. Soule is already out of favour at Roma, yeah.

Honestly, I think that's just par for the course for being poorly run. I think I could have written that post word for word about ourselves.

If they get 3 players in and we get nothing we can just wrap the season up now.

Wanted him when he was at Bielefeld - don't think he comes here if Milan/Juventus are in for him in the summer.

Had a feeling this one would pop up. I get that he's a decent hold-up striker but I'd only do a loan