The Fish

Retirement After finishing his playing career, Sibierski briefly became a football agent with his brother. He is currently the Sporting Director of Ligue 2 club RC Lens. Off the top of me head...

More a flexible 5-3-2-1/-3-5-2-1. Oh Deano

Shelvey is both our most talented and least dependable player. Ritchie will provide assists if we sack off short corners, if we get better movement from our striker or see our striker compete more with the defenders physically. £30m must be spent on a striker, best bet would probably be getting some young lad on loan? Maybe Ings or Sturridge? I think the latter is brilliant when he's on fire, but is always a selfish cunt. I'd try and get an attacking midfielder of quality in, even if it's a loan deal with an option/obligation to buy in the summer. A left back is vital too. Dunno how to stretch £30m without knowing what's out there. Get back to the 4-2-3-1 that wasn't great, but we at least looked more defensively solid. Elliott Yedlin Lascelles Clark Mbemba Merino Hayden Ritchie Murphy Atsu Mitrovic/Gayle* Mbemba is alright at LB, but I was thinking if we're struggling with numbers in midfield, Atsu and Yedlin can move into more of a wing back position, Mbemba can slide across to go 3 at the back. Ritchie stays on the right but tucked in, Murphy moves to the mirror position on the left, like this; Elliott Lascelles Clark Mbemba Yedlin Merino Hayden Atsu Ritchie-------------Murphy Mitrovic/Gayle* *depending on opposition; Mitro when we need to hold the ball up and compete physically, Gayle when we need to pull their defense around or take advantage of gaps behind.

What does he say? Giz a summary.

Wonder how long it's going to take before we get to the next stage of this takeover?

He'll slot right into a roister doister team like Stoke, or any Allardyce/Pulis/Pardew side.

Two mutch pashun

Fear.

No, some have been harsh, reputation cards from the referee. Some have been a tackle/challenge that sometimes gets a card, sometimes doesn't. Honestly, it's like you think he tears onto the pitch like a mental and doublefoots the first person he sees.

Not the stupid cards Shelvey is getting though. fwiw Yellow Red Min Min per Y Min per Red Mitro 8 2 3836 479.5 1918 Shelvey 15 2 5611 374.0666667 2805.5

Shelvey has already been sent off twice this season, once for petulantly treading on a blokes foot, and once for getting a stupid second yellow in the 94th minute of a game. He also has 2 yellows. Mitrovic got a trial by tv red card for a rash elbow. No yellows and a goal. At the beginning, when the system was working with Joselu up front, I didn't mind the lack of goals. but when the defence is shocking, Joselu isn't scoring, and we're losing, I can't make a case for keeping a goal scoring striker out of the team. Especially when he hasn't been as disruptive as Shelvey.

Because Joselu's strike rate is appalling, and the only thing Mitrovic seems to do worse than him is keep his cool. Now, given Shelvey gets the stupidest red cards going, his are even less defensible than Mitrovic's, whose are a loss of composure at best.

Cannot fathom people wanting to stick with Joselu ahead of Mitrovic and in the same breath defend Shelvey.

Does Ashley still have an interest in Oldham?

Aye it's fair to say that theoretically we could build a side of stars to compete with Man City next season. But realistically it's would take time and a shit ton of money, because players the standard of Cavani, Bonucci, Dybala, Mertens, Malcolm are going to need some convincing to join a fairly newly promoted Premier League side that isn't in London and isn't one of the massive clubs from the North West.

Since 2003 when Abramovic bought chelsea and the landscape changed. They will have rebuilt a few times, but the new owners would have to buy a team that could compete with Man City's. How much would that cost us, given it's cost them millions upon millions for years? they had to go through a phase of signing "star names" to announce themselves on the big stage. They had to change the perception of Man City. We'd have to do similar. We'd have to convince the football world we're a serious consideration.

Atmosphere should be good tonight; return of key players, return of disliked manager, the takeover news.

We maybe can surpass them, but if they sell their top players, they'll get a shit load of money on top of the impressive budgets they normally have. That shitload of money will be reinvested into playing staff. Eriksen, Alli, Dier, cost Spurs comparative buttons. # Club(s) Seasons Expenditures Income Balance Gross Spend per Season Balance per season 1 Chelsea 14 £1,480,000,000 £785,670,000 -£776,200,000 £105,714,286 -£55,442,857 2 Man City 14 £1,470,000,000 £427,260,000 -£1,156,850,000 £105,000,000 -£82,632,143 3 Man Utd 14 £1,170,000,000 £456,710,000 -£791,410,000 £83,571,429 -£56,529,286 4 Liverpool 14 £997,410,000 £624,520,000 -£414,320,000 £71,243,571 -£29,594,286 5 Tottenham 14 £880,760,000 £676,230,000 -£227,260,000 £62,911,429 -£16,232,857 6 Arsenal 14 £615,490,000 £403,930,000 -£235,070,000 £43,963,571 -£16,790,714 7 Everton 14 £498,670,000 £353,380,000 -£161,440,000 £35,619,286 -£11,531,429 8 Newcastle Utd 12 £483,290,000 £374,310,000 -£121,090,000 £40,274,167 -£10,090,833 9 West Ham 12 £425,590,000 £288,650,000 -£152,160,000 £35,465,833 -£12,680,000 10 Aston Villa 12 £412,970,000 £245,390,000 -£186,210,000 £34,414,167 -£15,517,500 11 Sunderland 11 £385,680,000 £224,290,000 -£179,320,000 £35,061,818 -£16,301,818 12 Southampton 7 £354,950,000 £350,990,000 -£4,400,000 £50,707,143 -£628,571 13 Leicester 6 £267,100,000 £132,140,000 -£149,960,000 £44,516,667 -£24,993,333 14 WBA 11 £258,510,000 £122,220,000 -£151,440,000 £23,500,909 -£13,767,273 15 Stoke City 10 £249,870,000 £86,670,000 -£181,330,000 £24,987,000 -£18,133,000 16 Middlesbrough 7 £246,320,000 £163,050,000 -£92,520,000 £35,188,571 -£13,217,143 17 Fulham 11 £238,620,000 £192,240,000 -£51,530,000 £21,692,727 -£4,684,545 18 Crystal Palace 5 £235,460,000 £104,730,000 -£145,250,000 £47,092,000 -£29,050,000 19 Watford 3 £226,310,000 £126,980,000 -£110,370,000 £75,436,667 -£36,790,000 20 Swansea 7 £216,970,000 £222,670,000 £6,340,000 £30,995,714 £905,714 Look at the gap between the spend of the title challengers (and Liverpool) and the rest! And Liverpool aren't realistically anywhere near challenging for the title. Even if they do have great forwards, Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd are much better. And should Liverpool fix their defence, those three will just spend another couple hundred million to keep the distance.

You wouldn't like, if you read what I said and refrained from acting the quim, you'd think that it's unlikely that the new owners will be able to finance an assault on the title given how competitive it is already, how well heeled the competitors are and how far behind them we are. Trouble is you can't refrain from acting the quim long enough to see that.

Yeah, I reckon when Man City fans heard they were being bought out by an Oil state they thought they could muscle in on the title challenge, I mean it was only Man Utd and Chelsea operating with that amount of money at the time. Plus Arsenal's grip on 4th. Now there's Chelsea, Man city and Man Utd who have unlimited funds, Spurs are up there in terms of quality and aren't short a bob or two. Then there's Liverpool and Arsenal I stand by what I said. Whoever buys us out will likely pump cash into the club and the squad. But how much will it cost to challenge for the title? Genuinely, how much? To be fair, Quiff lifted a conversation I was having on RTG about expectations. Not Hopes and Dreams. That's on him, not me. I'm not sure if he's as excited, but I don't know if he's bothered enough to pull back his investment.

Then Ginger Biff is comparing his hopes and dreams, to my expectations. For the interweb lols.

Pardew's season was a one off. Sneaking a top four finish is possible, but not consistently. If Chelsea drop out of the top 4, what will they do? They'll spend £200m on the best players around, appoint a top class coach and yada yada. Best bet is to swell the group competing for the CL spot, but that's not top 4, that's 4-8, isn't it?

I'm hoping for us to separate from the rest of the league and join the big boys table. I'm hoping that we compete for CL spots when Chelsea and the Manchester clubs have a bad season. I'm hoping that we see some great football again. I'm hoping we win so many cups we stop caring about them. If you want to dream about become Man City, you crack on, but I don't think mine are risible.

I'm supposing that whoever buys us will have to rapidly catch up, then compete with the spending powers of Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd, they'll have to build a squad of top class players (who'll need to be convinced to join a newly promoted side) all the while they'll need to obey FFP which will mean they can't simply throw £500m at the problem in each of the next 3 windows. Do you honestly think that Daddy Warbucks is going to buy the club for £300m, then pump £1bn into playing staff?