The Fish

Really important performance and result. Just a few thoughts, in no particular order. Isak, Bruno, Botman and Schar were superb, but Willock was Man of the Match for me. Didn't massively miss Joelinton really, but that could be because of the opposition. Thought Murphy did well in that limited role of his, and ASM looked quality in flashes. I'm looking forward to Isak getting a better understanding with Bruno and Trippier and ASM/Almiron. He looks like a very different threat to Wilson, in that he looks like a threat. Play like that, we'll beat Forrest.

I think they're going off the all time table. Premier League + 1. Division » All-time league table (worldfootball.net) Pre-premier League, the last time they finished top 10 of the top flight was 1955/56, they were relegated 57/58. Also in 1955/56, the First McDonalds opened and Elvis first broke into the Music Charts with Heartbreak Hotel and the first Snooze alarm clock hit the shelves. In the PL era they've finished in the top 10 on 3 occasions (99/00, 00/01 and 10/11). We've done it 18 times since 1992

Love a curveball.

Of course I don't. And of course I won't.

I take your points, but you can't divorce the fee they'd likely want for him and the value he'd add to the team. Longstaff is a mainstay in this team for 2 reasons; a) he's a passable Premier League midfielder with higher than average ability at the pressing game and ii) we have zero squad depth. Is JWP better than Longstaff? Yeah, probably overall he is. But we'd have to throw big wages + a big transfer fee at someone who is probably better than someone we're not paying huge wages for. We'd be better off spending half of the estimated JWP fee on someone else on big wages, and adding further depth elsewhere. Ward Prowse is 28yrs old, he's got 3yrs left on his c£100k pw deal. Milinkovic Savic is 28 and has 1yr left on his c£100k pw deal. The latter is also much, much better.

Blink and you'd miss it.

Right, so, shut up.

He's a midtable or below central midfielder, with an exceptional talent for striking a dead ball. Honestly think we can do better, without spending as much as it would take to prise him from Southampton's cold dead hands. He's vital to them, not just for his ability, but he's a leader, a local lad and all that. They'd want North of £75m, surely?

Come on man, that's really insensitive.

Milinkovic Savic has Mateja Kezman as an agent. So there's that.

This touches me

Sounds like the metropolitan elite are out of step with the rest of the country after all.

Have you watched Godless?

Just turn him over and he'll be fine.

Don't think it's the kind of transfer we can expect. He'd be too expensive, he's not that good away from dead ball situations and I don't want to have to try and Milinkovic-Savic is the only double barrelled name I want added to the squad.

Did you read the whole article? Lots of data driven fun things.

Read a piece in the Athletic about this very thing. We got so much joy in that little pocket of space between the lines of midfield and defence and between fullback and centre back positions. Bruno would take up that position and link with Trippier and Almiron to fashion a through ball for the cross or shot. Teams have gotten wise to it and are overloading that position to nullify the threat. Unfortunately we don't have the same balance of abilities on the left flank, so despite switching the play more than most we still focus on this as the main weapon in our arsenal. I think you're right that if we had an overlapping fullback on the left it would balance the threat out a bit. It'll also help when the team collectively find their shooting boots.

Spurs are such a weird side and have been for ages. Able to beat Man City away, then lose at home to Leicester. And this has been across a few managers and with loads of changes to their squad. Never put them in your acca.

How're your sheets these days? Piss wet through, or tenting?

I am deeply insecure. I'm also right almost all the time about football and deeply secure about that rightness.

Excellent, cheers. So I'm curious about the 'moves', and please please forgive me, but you know the stuff that Tom Cruise was doing in that opening sequence of one of the Mission Impossible movies, where he's got his back to the wall or he's leaping from one spot to another? a) It's entirely bullshit or b) yeah they're legit moves and would be highly graded?

I guessed it was something like that, was curious what each thing refers to. Like is 7a harder than 7b? Is 2a harder than 3a?

It's either this, or do work.... Mind you, boss just sent an email around saying his shifted his meetings about because he wants to go sledging with his daughter at 2ish, so clearly slacking off is the done thing.