Btay

As much as I’d love to have him here he isn’t a priority. Depending on how big we go in the window but we need a RB, RW & Striker first.

Understand that. 6 years is a strange deal but I guess that was at a time in which we as a club where extremely sloppy with some of our decisions. I don’t think Brands would have sanctioned it and I’m glad we don’t go throwing silly deals around.

I get what you are saying but Besic was young and in decent form when he got his contact. Josh king is a 29 year old we signed from a lower league, with 6 months left on his contract and a striker who hadn’t scored a goal all season for his club. Besic was young promising player who had a strong World Cup and showed potential. Cannot compare the two situations.

He was decent enough at the time though and looked promising. The club should have gotten a fee for him a season or two ago, thats poor business in my opinion. I think in the games Delph has featured Besic could and would have done no worse.

Besic is/was a relatively low gamble and hasn’t been on mega wages. The others are simply ill advised panic buys where others clubs knew we had money and couldn’t spend it fast enough. Ancelotti is the variable to all prior situations - the caliber of player he can attract ( even without Europe ) far exceeds that of managers past. This year I believe has been an improvement - a couple more windows and tweaks I think we will be there or there abouts.

Gomes. Thoroughly enjoy watching him when he plays like that. Good performance as a whole. We match a strong city team for 80+ minutes. Difference on the day was the quality they injected into the game verse out fatiguing players.

This version of Gomes playing alongside Doucoure and Allan would be immense. Need to see it more often from him.

I think so too in the end. Second goal doesn’t count for a lot we had to open up to go after it. Good shift by the guys. We just lacked that real moment of quality to get a the first goal

Thought it was a high foot at first. Oliver even had the whistle in his mouth

What do we think here, 2 minutes added time

Bring Holgate off and coleman to CB. Iwobi wide right.

Heart break

That is a top top save

Good half. Gomes having a good game. Think he and allan when they can stay composed and get us through the initial press will be the key for us second half. Holgate has me concerned, dangerous how he is always leaving a foot in and I feel like they might try and get at him more second half.

Off the line. Best chance of the game there

Absolutely. We’ve absorbed and grown into it. Kept our keeper relatively out of the game.

First foul and Allan gets a yellow.

Just compare the benches as well!

3-5-2. Hopefully our wingbacks can get up the pitch. Interesting Keane has been dropped with an international week break after this.

I’m only just watching the game now. Honestly 25 minutes in. Davies got sold out, no way was that ball on. As I’m watching, we’ve actually been good. We gave them their first goal and the second is just a class moment.

They have depth and we have delph. Sums up where we are really.

The players can probably be grateful that the fans are not there.

Iwobi and bernard simply do not provide enough goals or assist. Can only compare then as a type of player to Pienarr but his ability to “pre assist” you could say far out weighs both theirs. I love the sentiment of this club and everything we stand for but we need to be ruthless and move a few more on. As mentioned before - our stars need to become the average quality of the squad if we want to compete with Champions league.

I don’t think we have been great but we have been extremely structured, which is credit to Carlo. Personally I’m a big fan of the Martinez/Silva style football but we had no structure, players had no accountability for their tasks/jobs. Hopefully, another 2/3 quality additions to the team and we can a bit more possession, control and flair come into our games.

Not wise to ask or expect Gbamin to come in and do Doucoure’s high intensity role. Davies is hugely underrated defensively. Himself and Allan can hold the midfield with a more expansive player between them to supply a front 3.