Barham Blitz

Maybe we've kept the receipt and they've come to collect someone...

Should be goals with that lineup. One way or the other. That is such a lightweight midfield 3 for a 4-3-3 that I'm wondering if there may be a bit of a surprise in the formation somewhere.

I was wondering that. Seems to just be the Pinkun. Which raises a whole load of other questions...

^this. I love Teemu as a player. His movement is exceptional even if he has lost a touch of pace and he was intrinsic to Farkeball and some of the best football I have ever seen City play. Ironically we have started to create some of the chances he would thrive on (see the 1st goal on Friday) but the championship is a long slog and if we got promoted I suspect we would be looking for a more physical Sargent type of player to fit the way that Webber has decided (rightly or wrongly) that we will need to play in the Premiership anyway so what would be in it for him ? He is 32 and will be justifiably looking for a last payday. A two year contract with a pay hike (and presumably staying up bonuses) for £10-12m would I suspect suit all parties. Everton would get a Premiership proven 10-15 goals a season player within their FFP obligations that would probably be the difference between them staying up or going down. Given that I can't see him signing a new contract we would get enough cash to potentially break our transfer record in replacing an asset that we would lose for nothing soon anyway, one on high wages which isn't going to get any better and one that however reluctantly we need to begin to move on from. And if Webber hasn't got potential replacements lined up for a 32 year old nearing the end of his contract and who doesn't suit the identified style of play for us in the Premiership then he really should be questioned. So for me - if the offer is in that sort of area - it's a reluctant and emotional thanks for the memories Teemu, good luck in the new job and would you consider coming back to coach our strikers in a couple of year's time please ... ?

That's weird - I drew exactly the same Noble parallel about him to a mate earlier. Has that tidiness in possession with the odd quarterback level long pass and generally seems to be in the right place without appearing to run around that much. Deserves to keep his place IMO. Although Kenny has done little wrong at LB aside from one suicidal charge out in the second half where he completely missed the ball and took himself out of the game. Oh, and an apparent inability to take a throw in and find a teammate. But aside from that linked well from an unfamiliar position.

I suspect he likes the idea of Brighton because under Potter last season they were a front foot, possession-based team, however I suspect that when he gets there he is going to fall into an Yves Bissouma sized hole that is going to be too big for him to find his way out of. Cucurella will be a big miss for them next season as well - I don't know anything about his replacement Pervis Estupinan but as far as I can see he is the only left back at the club. Imagine going into a season without adequate defensive cover ... 🤔 Whilst I rate Potter it is going to be interesting to see how they cope this season.

Apologies for the sizable post but I missed Parma's thread first time round and it piqued my interest. Looking at what Radcliffe has done at Nice since buying the club could be indicative as to how he would treat his new plaything were he to persuade Delia to sell. According to Transfermarket here hasn't been PSG levels of daft spending - an average transfer deficit of around £25m a season suggests steady investment but the overwhelming majority of incomings have been in the 19-23 year old age group. Ramsey and Schmeichel appear something of an anomaly albeit for a negligible transfer outlay. So in that sense he might fit the current model but with the scope to take slightly higher value gambles than we are currently able to. But we wouldn't be outbidding Man City for players if he took over. My knowledge of French football isn't encyclopaedic by any means but as far as I can see they've bobbed around mid-table for the best part of 20 years with a 3rd and two 4th placed finishes and a French cup the best they've managed in relatively recent history. They have history as a founding member of Ligue 1 and a glory period in the 50s but even in a relatively weak league (in comparison to the Premiership) have only made the Champions League once and the Europa League a few times without making any inroads. The reported cost of Ineos's 80% stake was €100m. So far so not entirely unreasonable in a Norwich comparison. But they do have a modern 36,000 seater stadium albeit one which they only average around 22,000 gates in and are just a short helicopter ride from a Monaco where a certain Mr Radcliffe resides So in summary, my personal opinion of him aside, Radcliffe would appear to make a reasonable potential investor in the context of giving us a bit more scope to continue the current model with a bit more oomph without the risk of asset striping us a la Burnley, but don't expect us to start breaking Premiership transfer records. But I wonder if the proximity of Nice and the potential of achieving relative league success and a relatively regular foray into Europe without massive investment makes it a more enticing smaller scale (ie. Not United or Chelsea) hobby club than we could ever be even with the carrot of Premiership incomes.

Different type of player though. Rashica was bought for the [theoretically] fast-countering 4-3-3 in the Premiership where we wouldn't have much of the ball. Sinani is much more suited to games where we have a lot of possession against a deeper lying defence - a sort of Buendia-lite - which he wouldn't have seen for them as much last season. Ironically Rashica would probably have looked better for Huddersfield last night than us - I imagine the sort of goal that the young lad scored for them is what Webber envisaged Rashica doing for us last year ... But at the moment, no contest - Sinani all the way.

Indeed. And if going 4-4-2 against a deep lying defence and slinging aimless crosses into the box surely Hugill is the better option anyway. The only advantage Sargent has over Hugill is that he runs around a bit more quickly which isn't really a consideration on the edge of the six yard box. An odd one.

Entirely accepted. But nobody as far as I am aware has tested that as yet ? Why would the club say that we were open to a sale if we don't want him to go ? If nothing else it drops the price. If someone comes in with a decent offer then the agent would be correct and I could understand Pukki's position given the stage he is at in his career. But until that happens we are hardly holding him hostage.

Has someone come in for him ? We're only holding him against his will if we are turning down bids after all. I think after all the internationals over the summer and no real break as well as a bit of a truncated pre-season he just looks a bit off match fitness and off the pace slightly. An improvement on last week though. He'll come good and was just a fingertip away from scoring today.

C'mon Dimi - get it over. I've been practising my jumping for the new formation ...

Completely agree with your observations in general, and the logical assumption would see him as part of that midfield 3 in a McGinn style role but just a thought based on the admittedly patchy evidence of the Nunez YouTube highlights reel ... As a relatively slight 5'8" tricky player with good feet, an eye for a goal and more importantly an eye for a slipped pass, combined with a good engine a bit of pace and excellent ball retention there appear (dare I say it) to be a few similarities with a former player of ours currently playing his trade in Birmingham. Whilst it appears that he has mainly played centrally he has also played wider and even at full back. The highlights (admittedly almost by definition) show him receiving the ball higher up the pitch - generally in a wider 3/4 type position -and cutting in or running beyond a defence with a give and go. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch for him to offer a more athletic (than Cantwell or Dowell) Emi style option in a 4-2-3-1 as well.

Long-time lurker. Seems to me that as various posters have suggested, Webber needed to top up the transfer kitty through the sale of an asset and may well have preferred that asset to be Aarons but in combination with his desire to move on and the fact that the only sizeable bids received were for him, that asset turned out to be Buendia. The interesting element for me then focuses on the change in formation and personnel following the sale. We didn’t look to replace Buendia like for like (if that was even possible) – the signings of Rashica and Tzolis in particular up top and Normann, PLM and Gilmour in midfield looked to be geared absolutely towards a counter-attacking 4-3-3 with the midfield trio looking to provide longer vertical passes in a faster transition from an essentially defensive standpoint to more traditional wide players. I vaguely remember an Athletic article on Normann highlighting his use of longer channel passing for example, and I wonder if the Sargent signing was a recognition that Pukki might not thrive in such a set up, but that Hugill wouldn’t be mobile enough. It obviously didn’t work – Parma has articulated the shortcomings of traditional wingers if you don’t have the ball in the Premiership - but there is a [sort of] logic there. The fact that Cantwell disappeared, Sargent demonstrated that he lacked a striker’s instinct, and Rashica and Tzolis had nothing like the expected effect would certainly not have helped the change. Similarly Gilmour and Normann’s inability to find them regularly and the fact that even as a relatively low central block in midfield they were all questionable defensively in comparison to Skipp also undermines the approach. So the question for me would be a chicken and egg one of whether the move to a counter-attacking but more direct 4-3-3 was a result of the sale of Buendia and the lack of a direct replacement, or whether he was viewed as potentially expendable given a change in formation that was viewed as more likely to keep us up than the Farkeball 4-2-3-1 (which was also always going to suffer from the lack of an available alternative to Skipp and our demonstrable dependence on Buendia in the Championship formation.) If the latter, the sale of Buendia and the subsequent “justification” that he had forced a move would be necessary to finance the changes that perhaps Webber thought needed to be made anyway – hence Farke suggesting that we [Webber] had chosen to sell. Given Farke’s comments about his preferred targets and the general tactical approach during his tenure, I’m not sure that the decision was entirely mutual mind …