shen

Most of us probably could

He did indeed. CM legend

Never heard of it.

That could also just be down to culture in some cases. English football has a long tradition of attracting Scandinavians players while Belgium has a rich history of producing top level talent and exporting them to the major leagues, with a large influx over the last two decades. The German leagues are of a high quality so local talent mostly stays in Germany - much like English players mostly stay in England. Then there's the price factor. Belgian and Scandinavian clubs aren't in a position to ask for as much as German clubs who will be wealthier.

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the deal with the flag he's holding?

Not sure what pattern you're seeing here. Plenty of Nigerians about in English football in general. We've only signed Ndidi and Musa as 'foreign' Nigerians as far as I recall. One was a major success, the other a flop, but we recouped the fee. We signed Hermansen and Kristiansen from Denmark (pretty big time gap to Amartey), with one of the two being a resounding success. If you add Vestergaard and Kasper (neither came from Denmark), then it's the same situation - one hit, one miss. It's the same for Belgians - Tielemans was a massive hit, Castagne was fine, Praet and Faes less so. Seems pretty 50/50 to me

Ilarious joke

He probably bumped his head on the way in and is out for 6 weeks with concussion.

But you also have to include the buying clubs, like Spurs, Newcastle, Leeds, us... I would also shine the spotlight on the Middle Eastern clubs, some of which will have a vested interest in helping out the likes of Arsenal (see Martinelli), Man City (Cancelo, Mahrez, Laporte, Reijnders), Newcastle (Saint-Maximin) etc. The Duran and and Diaby sales by Villa also looked suspicious. But maybe I'm just seeing ghosts.

But they're different and not recurring injuries... ?

I was having a laugh. Obviously that pitch was unplayable and the goalie is at least as much to blame in both situations. You could tell by the striker's almost lack of celebration for the second goal, that part of him felt embarrassed about it.

To sum up: Our keepers are poor, our defense is poor, we don't create chances and when we do we don't have the quality up front to finish them off, we have no squad depth and no prerequisites for our manager's preferred style. Sounds uplifting indeed.

He's perfect for a RM team then!

He can't catch a break. It's a shame for Spurs as he's a quality player. As a parent of twins, I can only Imagine how desperate he must be to get out of the house with TWO sets

And this has to be proof that PSR is a myth. As you say, no-one in their right mind pays £50m for Delap, £40m for Trafford, £75-85m for Savinho. We saw the shady dealings involving ourselves, Chelsea, Newcastle, Villa with all the academy players going for huge sums. Surely it's all a ruse to exploit loopholes in the system.

I get that. But we're still very much on a downward trajectory, we haven't stabilized the ship yet. Once we get a foothold we can start looking forward. THEN maybe we can have a brilliant window which sees us buck the trend.

Brilliant is a bit strong. We're still only clearing the deck. Incomings are too early to judge, but early signs are not promising.

What a beauty. Give him the GotS award already. Once in a lifetime goal, surely.

Can we loan Csepregi? 😅

It's certainly revolting times to follow top level football! It's even more disgusting that clubs like Chelsea, Man City et al stand make profits on players whose value should have dropped significantly during their time there. I mean, if you look at what we sold Barnes, Maddison, KDH for despite their proven record and then see what Delap and Savinho go for, it's criminal. How are Spurs even contemplating this?

Well done turning it back around! Looks like you've done some major coups on the transfer market. Tactics are obviously a massive factor, but it feels difficult to quantify how much is down to tactics, player attributes, squad cohesion & morale or team/club reputation. I find it odd how in my Diegem save, my wing backs often end up with the highest ratings (and also seem to have high impact in games), but they're also often my worst players technically and mentally, i.e. I wouldn't expect them to make the right decisions/runs as often or be as technically efficient as they are. It suggests to me that attributes are less important than tactical roles, which could explain why Hawighorst played above expectation for you. Obviously team cohesion is important, but it's still secondary to tactics*. The way tactics work is more unclear though - I feel that tactical efficiency is more linked to club reputation. Primarily because of how teams try (or don't try) to counter you. If you improve the club's standing and the perceived quality (i.e. the cumulative CA/rep of players), then you likely have to adjust tactics to stay ahead of the curve. Maybe that's another explanation as to why your more attacking switch against Mainz paid off. The higher the relative reputation of the club/squad vs your opponent's, the more attacking the tactics should be*. *From my experience at least.

Surely, that's just a minor inconvenience

Of course, I'll cut them some slack because of Brugge. But you can still make yourself difficult to beat against the top teams. It's still early days, but I just feel from the friendlies and games against Charleroi and Brugge that there are worrying signs and that they're too open at the back. Fingers crossed Lawrence beds in quickly. Have the Ikwuemesi transfer links cooled off a bit? And are the club still targeting more signings?

You mean scrapping the playoffs is bad for Belgium? And Van den Heuvel did not look good for the opener, but then he made some other good saves (the double save first half, from Forbs later) too. Looking at the highlights in isolation, the left side looks particularly weak defensively. Forbs had a field day and should've had a goal or two, notably from the chance I mentioned. If you stand off as much as OHL did (which I think was extremely dangerous), you need to stop runs that break the lines and also tall, powerful centerbacks to clear high crosses. The double chance and Mechele & Tresoldi goals shows that OHL are quite soft there as well.

Indeed. Wow. If this is what you get when buying British, then we definitely have to shop abroad!