Dan

His assist record is a bit misleading. 7 assists granted but expected assists, a more accurate measure of quality (due to it being finisher dependant) he was lucky to get that many. Anomaly.

This would work if he was a youngster. He isn't. This can't even really be classed as building. You know we'll hand out another 3 years as well.

This is just so so poor. What a disgraceful decline it really has been.

That sort of thing. I like the bottom one. Something to track.

Any good long shot RABs on Sky? I've got loads of frees to use and fancy just hitting a load of 25/1+ shots.

O'Riley or Nanasi for midfielder - both would be great. Ioannidis for striker. Bet all three move to European chasing German or French sides though.

Distinct style (unless it compromises your mates positions)

I don't even get the Prem proven argument with Ayew. He's proven to be probably in the bottom 25% of players in the league. What are we proving?

Think we're going to be the lowest scorers by a distance if this is the route we're going up.

Well if that was his and Top's idea then appointing Maresca especially would be absolutely daft, so yeah, not a gotcha.

I don't want to be too down on Okoli as he's a new signing and a youngish player who may turn out very good, but I think if we were in Atalanta's boat selling the equivalent in that position, we'd be looking at about a third of the fee maximum and that's in the rare instance we actually got a permanent move rather than a loan. Correctly pointed out by you and Finnegan. It's both a Premier League tax, the flip side of having the most resources of any league in the world but within that prism we're bad at negotiating and we've seen it over and over again now.

I think I could tolerate the flaws that surround the club if I felt that there was a real collective effort to overcome them, but I increasingly just think I'm in a minority far greater than many of us truly appreciate. I think this forum could be seen to a very large proportion of fans of ours that are not on here as complete insanity and what I mean by that is those in favour of the ownership etc... they cannot comprehend that people could feel the way many on here actually do. I just feel it's all a bit hopeless. We're a club where the majority of the good nowadays is the residue from our previously strong era which people incorrectly attribute the success of to those currently in charge. To top it off we have utterly terrible fan engagement and I think my types they would happily do away with if they could get away with it. Since covid I made more of a conscious effort to increase the social side of football and I've hit a point where that's about the only thing keeping me genuinely interested. Part of it I think is age and the fact we've seen so much that how can you ever truly entertain or stimulate our fans again? But then at the same time there are still things in football that truly get to me and I think that it hasn't completely gone for me yet. Yet there's just something with us these days, there's a hopelessness about it all. I can't really explain it. I think we're in a bad way, in a terrible vicious cycle and our fans have demonstrated they will do nothing to change this as there's simply not the acknowledgment of the issues that I think should be totally obvious. I thought it even during the friendlies. I went to both simply for the new ground but I had so little interest even by friendlies standards. Just stood chatting for the majority of it. Something's really off here. I feel a bit trapped.

Sounds familiar other than the building bridges part.

Mad how Rudkin is able to claim the praise for that. Players signed worth hundreds of millions for hundreds of thousands under a regime that predated him. Not a bad situation to walk into. We have largely worked off the coat tails of that era. But for a strong phase of recruitment in 2018 it's been extremely sketchy and it eventually catches up with you. If we're going to have Rudkin here on what he did in the early days then we may as well reappoint Pearson or Ranieri, given that's how it now apparently works.

The lone forward point is a big one. He's generally excelled in a two. He's not really got the game for a lone forward role, as much as he's trying to add it.

It's ****ing ridiculous. We create deadwood for ourselves by signing players who are ill fitted to a style of play that we want to play. The Souttar signing and situation around him is everything wrong with us.

I know it's only a friendly but sometimes you can just tell can't you. What an absolute joke of a result that is

Yeah but Rudkin is a quiet and unassuming character so we should just get on with it!

Entirely predictable article. Crap

Not good is it.

We always find a way to add to it as well.

There are people out there who will genuinely cough up £40 for all four hahaha

He's a worse player than he was when he broke through four years ago. Get rid.

Bump this thread every 20 minutes just to keep it in the headlines.

£50k a week for a goalkeeper that we never at any point planned on being first choice (but for one era where the manager was making a point). At times I sort of think we deserve it all.