I rarely criticise Pep because we owe him so much, but for me today was down to the wrong team selection. Not things that can only be seen in hindsight, but glaringly obvious selection errors. Savinho shouldn’t be playing a single minute on the left while Doku is fit, and the midfield 3...
Some very odd decisions by Pep today. Most notably choosing not to start with Nico and Doku, who made us look infinitely better, and then allowing Savinho to stay on the pitch for 82 minutes. It’s pretty obvious that Villa targeted Nunes today but in the absence of Khusanov we aren’t blessed...
World class. The improvement in the defence will be strongly linked to the increased confidence he gives them. A real lift to the entire team. In Donnarumma, Haaland & Rodri we have 3 players who are arguably the best in the world in their position.
Overall it’s a positive start, in the sense that despite tons of injuries we remain “in the mix”. The most annoying one for me is Spurs at Home. You can always count on dropping some points away from home (Brighton, Arsenal) but home games need to be bread & butter and we were toothless on that...
If €80m is true he has to go. Only cost £30m a year ago and he’s been OK.. he has done well and has the potential to justify his fee but I don’t know if there’s any ceiling he’s capable of where we would regret selling at that price.
This is a good test for the start of our season, not necessarily because Spurs are a fantastic side, but time and time again this is the type of game we really struggled to win last year. If we want to get back towards 90 points then 3 points consistently in these home games are key.
The...
I personally think Trafford at 21 getting to work every day with this City crowd won’t do the boy any harm. If we do well in the cups he’ll still get 10-15 games which for a year would be fair. The challenge for him would become if donnarumma joins and stays a beast then what does Trafford do...
If we get £90m+ for McAtee & Savinho then that’s excellent business in isolation. But as many have already said a big factor will be who comes in to replace.
Unless Pep thinks this is Bobbs year & between Bernado, Cherki & Bobb the right is creative enough.
I think the way Isak has dealt with it has probably made the deal a lot more difficult. Had he kept it out of the press (or his agent) then it’d be getting done. Now probably less likely.