OTF

How is Traore able to get a clean forward pass off every time when he's marked. Combination of shite defending and good Fulham movement.

Or Willock who plays in that area.

Can definitely see some half time changes coming up. Gordon for Almiron? Tonali for Willock? Potentially Hall as well.

Yeah very lucky there, Jiminez stopped with the intention of winning the foul which is I think why the ref mistakenly let it go.

So much for Trippier bringing us composure, not his fault, but this is the least composed we've looked when they put a little pressure on us and we're totally bereft of ideas in building an attack.

For fuck sake. We're asleep out there.

Classic LTA rope a dope tactics.

Ref is calling the slightest contact against us.

Touched his arm?

Or not

Good for the confidence anyway.

Apparently Tonali was all set to start until Eddie saw his new hair style.

Glad to see such an important change has been implemented.

It's not any earlier than usual? Normally an hour from kick-off.

Agree, and add Tonali into the mix and the service to Isak should only get better.

Big Joe is still a bit out of form, but I agree a Joe swap makes sense. Just like Barnes, Willock is a fantastic player to bring off the bench. That seems to be what Howe was planning on doing against Wolves from the start. Due to injuries last season he never really got the option to bring on such a high calibre of player, maybe why he generally only ever made quite late changes. Tonali should definitely be starting over Longstaff, we need to see how our best three midfielders work together (give them the time on the pitch together to figure it out). Until we have Botman back and fully match fit our defense is going to need a little more central protection. Especially because we're no longer playing with that hybrid defensive system that allowed Dan Burn to slot back as a third centre back when Trippier was getting further up the pitch.

Tuck your tail between your legs and waddle off. Your comments are not fit for purpose.

Again and as usual Jordan is talking absolute nonsense that doesn't stand up to the slightest bit of investigation. Were we supposed to buy players in January 2022 (our first transfer window under new ownership) when faced with relegation that we intended to sell for a profit 2 and a half years later (July 2024)? Obviously not, the only priority was Premier League survival. So having miraculously achieved that in the next window are we supposed to buy players who we can then onsell for a profit one and a half years later? Who did we buy? 22 year old Alex Isak (La Liga), 22 year old Sven Botman (Ligue 1), we made 26 year old Matt Targett's transfer permanent after he had a stellar end to the season. Bought Nick Pope (30). Alex Isak and Sven Botman could be sold for a profit (probably even on the back of Botman's ACL injury) but we don't want to sell them yet. Even Pope we could sell for a profit on the <£10 million we paid for him, but his value to us far exceeds that. Targett is the only one we couldn't and his price was recouped through not being relegated. Even in the next windows we bought young players who for the most part have increased in price (e.g. Gordon, Minteh, Tonali, Barnes). All good business overall (unlucky on Tonali's suspension and Barnes' injury). The only not fit for purpose windows we've had were under Ashley and this most recent one under the stewardship of Mitchell. Too early to judge him harshly on this alone though. Yes we do need to now shift our approach a little, but this is because we now already have a quality first team and squad and players who are attractive to other teams. We also have training facilities that are 2.5 years enhanced, a vastly superior coaching staff, a much much better commercial income and a much broader scouting network. Now we can start to take even more chances on bringing in young players of promise with a view to them either making the first team or turning a profit. It's not a unique strategy, everyone has been doing it for over a decade, some are just much better positioned to do it effectively. Now we are too due to the hard work across the board in the last 2.5 years. Celebrate the success of the last two years and plan for our continued evolution over the next several.

He certainly doesn't come across as clever, let's just hope he's good at getting deals done. His comparisons to elite clubs's strategies are misguided at best because such clubs are making transfers from a pre-existing platform of top quality players (with high wages) and facilities and huge commercial backing where as two and a half years ago we started with a squad bound for relegation (second bottom of the table deep into November) championship tier coaching, a barebones staff, run down behind the curve training facilities and hopelessly poor commercials. The first thing that needed to be done was improve the quality of the team to achieve the first target of avoiding relegation. Objective exceeded. The next was to improve the team further to compete for Europe. Objective exceeded. This has given us a legitimate springboard to improve our commercials beyond reasonable expectation in such a short period of time (without any obvious dodgy Man City style sponsorship dealings). Objective exceeded. The next objective was to bolster our squad for an extremely busy calendar with the addition of European games. Despite some great results a combination of an injury crisis (+ a lengthy suspension), European inexperience and inexplicably poor officiating saw us fail to qualify beyond the group stages. Tough break but who will forget us pumping PSG? The injury crisis hurt us in the league massively and through a cruel FA Cup twist we missed out on all European competition. That said we were never realistically in the running for Champions League so in some ways not having to play in a lesser European competition will improve our chances of qualifying for Champions League this season. To call these transfer windows not fit for purpose is wrong. Our turn around from whipping boys to dynamic top 8 competitors was remarkably quick. As I said on the back of this we've been able to legitimately turn around our commercial outcomes which will do more to fuel further purchases than trying to buy young talent from a wider pool and onsell it within a season or two (which is what Mitchell is impying is required). It's in fact exactly what we did with Minteh, buying him from a Danish side, farming him out to a strong European team in a technical competition that suits his ability and then onselling him for a massive profit. That we needed to do that to satisfy PSR is a sign that we've not been able to sell.pther players that we've been stuck with from poor transfer dealing prior to the takeover. The only feasible alternative would have been buying fewer players. Say for example not getting Barnes or Gordon. Recognising that we now must look to evolve our transfer strategies is not an acknowledgement that our previous transfer strategies were not fit for purpose. The positive writing is on the wall for those; we accelerated our transformation beyond any reasonable expectation given the financial constrainsts in which we were operating through recruiting a quality manager and staff and a series of players who vastly improved our playing roster and who not only fit in but also helped to establish a new and improved culture at the club. It's inexplicable that he called them not fit for purpose, there's no evidence of it. Sure we frustratingly had to lose two very promising young players, but Minteh hadn't player a single minute for us and Anderson, despite looking super promising hasn't shown significant end product in his many opportunities and was down the pecking order so not likely to get big minutes. Mitchell's attempts at buying Guehi don't bode well but Parish was clearly playing silly buggers there so we'll let that slide. Sporting Director is not someone we need to hear from, we will judge based on our overall operation, coaching, training and transfer dealings.

Exactly what page is that?

I'm a svelte millennial, ye old cunts.

You've made a bigger thing of this than anyone and you're wrong but your pride defies you. Mitchell spoke out of turn to deflect from the failings in the window, he could have done it with some validity by talking about the legacy of Ashley impacting sales. This could not have offended anyone currently at the club. Instead he called our transfer dealings under our new owners "not fit for purpose". There'a no hiding from that. As well as being wrong what he said was childish. Which club frequently buys players and then resells them for a profit in a year or two? We did with Minteh, but such sales are outliers, even at clubs who sell a lot of players. Finally, Mitchell sanctioned splashing the cash for Guehi (£65m+) in this window, but ended up looking the fool.

We flew a bit close to the sun and came close to having a PSR problem. We begrudgingly sold two players who weren't likely to get a lot of time on the pitch this season and we don't have a potential PSR problem anymore. We do have many players who we could sell for a profit, but we don't want to. In fact it's mostly financially irresponsible to, because they still have years to run and we won't make the most of their transfer fees if we don't spread it across more seasons. So the signings from the last two and half years of successful transfer windows have increased in value AND have brought us results on the pitch. Fit for purpose. It's the years prior to that that were not fit for purpose. Mitchell could have rightfully talked about those impacting our window (through lack of sales) but he didn't. Instead what he said was demonstrably wrong. And don't worry, no offense taken. That's as close to admitting that you're wrong as you're capable of. Thanks.