JimJams

There's a reason he's a free agent and it's nothing to do with his quality. He's an absolute liability in the injury front.

Bend over. Them, not you.

It's nice that we only need to be better than 3 teams by the finest of margins now, rather than by an arbitrary number of points plucked out of thin air decided once the season is up and running. So we fxxking better be Coops!

A fair type of dynamic pricing is you charge people on the way out and they pay a sum dependent on the entertainment served up....

Registration ends Sept 13 doesn't it?

When he talks about not dropping levels when making subs it'd be interesting to know if he means dropping energy levels or quality levels. You'd assume he means quality levels, because with subs you shouldn't be dropping energy levels at all. But with that said doesn't that kind of sound like you're hampering the starting 11 so have a stronger bench. Rather than fielding your strongest 11 and having a bigger drop when the subs roll on?

Actually

True, but that's where the incentivised contracts will come in. That and hotels....

I don't think it's particularly shenanigans, I think the idea is to protect the players value beyond the 5 years of amortisation. They're all young players really, probably be 27/28 when the 5 years is up, so they'll be paid for whilst still having long contracts so still have value in their prime years and effectively sales are like selling your academy players. 100% profit on the books then. Fxxked if the players turn out to be shit on big wages but apparently the new Chelsea contracts are heavily incentivised.

It wasn't. But I don't mind the idea of him at CB. You've now swapped him n Faes around!

Room in the squad?

Will it? All depends on how desperate we are for money and how desperate Chelsea... sorry anyone is to get a new keeper. Rutter went for £40mill. Can probably still get decent money in the Champ.

Whilst I agree that Coady is a leader, and that Okoli can learn from him I'm pretty sure the consensus from Wolves fans was that he was only really any good in a back 3 and a bit of a liability in a pair. He then went to Everton under Dyche and couldn't nail down a transfer for the sub £5mill option they had on him, such was his impression on Dyche, a manager that you'd expect would love a Coady type player. He's done ok for us in the Championship but I'm unsure if he's any improvement on any other options tbh. He's certainly more likeable than Faes though, I'll give him that.

Probably good for us right now. Prep time with the new players. Rest for Vards. Or do we lose the squad?

Playing devils advocate a bit, who are Belgiums other options at cb?

It is an awful design choice. But I suppose they'd argue it gets more notice for the women's game.

Although I don't particularly rate Ipswich and think reactions to their window were OTT, you have to remember that they played Man City and Liverpool in their first 2. Their only game on paper you'd argue they could get something from, they did. Everton are down without a change of manager. They've played against 2 beatable opponents at home and conceded 3 in both, as well as 4 against Spurs. Saints look shit, are creating their own problems and I doubt change manager. Palace will be well clear barring a massive injury hit season that kills off their best players. Unsure on Wolves at the moment. They've had no easy (read: easier) opponents yet.

Think you might have taken a wrong turn in the forum mate... This is the Faes thread.

Cooper has 2 weeks and 3 very winnable games in the 4 after. We'll have then played a good mix of teams in the division. Then we'll have a good idea of what he's about. Home games vs Everton and Bournemouth, you'd expect us to take the game to them. However he chooses to play points are all important. Whether it's turgid stuff or exciting and free flowing all that matters is how many points it gets us.

I suppose offering him a new contract was a sort of safety net. It was an easy deal to do and we have since added Skipp, but had we not got Skipp in, despite there being other possibilities in the market, with the way our transfers have gone this summer, having him in just in case was better than not. With that though, he should now be a squad filler, not a starter.

I think Iversen would have gone had we not had Stolarczyk injured. But he is, so...

He should be a sub and cup player.

9.5?

Not according to xG. You might not put much stock in that as some don't but their xG was 1.41 for the match, ours was 1.03. I remember seeing something after the game that said despite their dominance in the first half against us, we'd limited them to their lowest xG in a first half in 2024. Their first half xG was 0.68, ours was..... 0.01 Which you wouldn't think was possible! *Editing in: Today Villas was 1.48 ours was 0.39. Against Fulham 1.96 for them, 0.86 for us.