etho

Think it's forgotten the form we finished the season in, with the old midfield. Nowhere near our best but comfortably better than everyone else bar city. Early days but debatable as to whether any of the others have improved. The exception will be Tottenham with big Ang who's the real deal. Gutted he's there, I'd have loved him to replace Jurgen

Centre back will arrive next summer when matip leaves. Were at the mercy of the injury gods for this season again. Thing is unless gravenberch arrived and gets moulded into one, we will still need a 6 as well. And very likely need to replace mo although at least we should have the funds of his likely sale to fund that one..

...I've always liked Chris Sutton, despite what I said earlier

I'd say we look incredibly threatening going forward. If we're comparing them to absolute prime Salah Mane Firmino then of course they're not there yet. Youd struggle to sign 3 players in world football and put them on the pitch and have them play as well as that. So it's not really a fair comparison. But, it did take time for that combination to become what it did, and also mane was good but could be erratic and not world class for the first year or two. He became absolutely world class. So no they're not at that level, yet, but for me the signs are promising, I look forward to watching them all play and I have absolute faith they will be successful

Don't get the negativity, our forwards are fucking class. Absolute arsenal of brilliant players with different styles who, Salah excepted are only going to get better. You wouldn't want to play against any of them.

He already did replace him that season. He literally took manes place and mane moved to number 9. Think people forget mane had lost a yard by then and Diaz signing arguably propelled us to what we almost achieved. Also by that very harsh description you could describe alot of top forwards. I will say the cohesion and link play isn't quite there yet among our forwards bur that will come, just needs time.

Is this the same Diaz who joined us, immediately made the left side his own and deservedly took the spot off Sadio mane, almost was a key part of pushing us to the quadruple and then was just unlucky with a serious injury last season? That Diaz were questioning? I think they're both fucking brilliant and as I've been saying, I wouldn't swap our forward options for anyones

He's not as good as szobo or Mac, so 3rd choice off the bench is where he's at right now. Youd have to spend some money to get his skillset in

This just feels fucking huge

So so many positives from this today...I said at 1-0 even if we lost there was a huge amount we can take from it, didn't see this though! Defensively excellent and matip and Gomez both were superb. Szobo and Mac are the difference, they transform the midfield and Newcastle's three have had loads of praise. They've been outplayed by two here. Nunez! Finally he looks ready to shove the shitty criticism of rival fans and some of our own. 7 points from these 3 games? Down to ten in both and we haven't even played well yet. So much to build on

His link up was good as well, superb hold up and lay back to Jota who should have done a bit better

Regardless of the result here now I think there's positives to take here. I was worried these might he a bit better than this...they're not. We've looked as in the game as you could expect with 10 away from home, and we haven't completely fallen apart which is what I feared. Give us 11 men against these and we'll be fine

Nope, even the actually connected journalists have no idea until we actually make the move.

Slightly different in that we were completely comfortable with the system we played at the time and nobody could have foreseen all of van dijk having his leg snapped off by Pickford, Gomez doing his ACL and matip missing half the season. Once that happened it was negligent we did nothing agree. This is different because we have the same number of personnel, however it appears to all of us that the new system is unsuited to matip, and Gomez looks shot to pieces. So currently our whole season looks dependent on a top form vvd and Konate remaining fit for every game.

The only positive I see with the Konate injury is that it's happened early and before the window closes. We are going to have to play Matip against a very good Newcastle team who will target that side, so we'll see exactly where we're at with this squad suited to this system by the weekend. To my mind konates papering over the cracks with his pace

It would also make sense to buy his replacement in January if we could

It's obviously not even an option to sell Salah this summer, and one week until the window closes. When they come in for him next summer, I really hope we recognise the strength of how much they will want him despite having a year left on his deal and being 32 and we make sure we get a 100 million plus region fee

The squad is short of a Fabinho replacement and a defender at a minimum. Doesn't look like we'll get them or the players are available now, so while we have improved the midfield, the window would have to be seen as a failure and we're walking a tightrope defensively as none of the cover is adequate

Tidy looking bench

Is Bajcetic in the squad? He just posted something online that made it look like he is

Exactly, it's not exactly low pressure but players who aren't yet top class can learn on the job and play most weeks without the absolute scrutiny that comes with playing for us. And if/when they become ready we have to pay the premium to then get them. Not to say we couldn't buy them and loan them till they are, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to work as well that way

Think this overlooks how much Klopps tactics did for those players. We didn't sign Sadio Mane as a world class player he became one and a big part of that is Klopp. Similar with Firmino and Salah who's obviously still here. Sadio had already been replaced on the left by Diaz at the age of 31 when we sold him. I agree that the sum of its parts and the players they became may not be replicable, bit then that's the point of a new team. Diaz Gakpo and Nunez all have huge potential for growth and improvement but they're different players. I can't think of a forward roster in the league id swap ours for. And Fabinho again became world class and probably was the best in his position for a while. There's not many of them around so as we've seen this window you'll need some serious cash to replace him. But, that's not to say we even need a like for like replacement, he was never the quickest and relied on positioning and timing, so maybe a doucoure or the like over time might become equally as important but with different attributes

On talksport now a 'football finance expert' saying they're in trouble. Clubs should be pushing for this points deduction.

I think we can safely say after the debacle the hatches will be battoned down now. If we sign someone were not going to hear about it till it's close to done. I'd rather not panic to try and fix the fuck up. If we get a good one which we need, amazing. No point blowing all your money on someone not good enough, that's what united have done for years and look where it gets you long term. We just flushed a load of turds we don't need more in the door

I think the club will probably take the view of are they better than Thiago or Bajcetic, and the answer from this list is probably no. It's an absolute fuck up and is going to cost us in the short term, but it looks like madness and lack of planning on a grand scale to have not proactively bought upgrades on Fabinho in particular, and then let him go without a proactive plan to replace him.