Summer Transfer Thread and Gustavo Cisneros Type Rumours.

[Sexual Ealing]

Someone refresh my memory, when did the position of sweeper disappear?

It died alongside the backpass.

Good riddance to both.

[chrisw1]

He made a sarcastic post saying I had nothing positive to say, when I had already said the midfield did well, so he was clearly ignoring or being selective.

The way the midfield, full backs and team as a whole played was a product of the formation.  I simply disagree with your analysis that it wasn't.

I personally don't like 3/5 at the back.  I want us to play swashbuckling wingers like Bailey, Buendi and Traore.  But I'm not churlish enough to slag off a performance that was clearly a level above how we have played for some time just because I don't like the system.   And yes 'but the result....'  it was down to individual errors and poor finishing, not a poor formation.  Anybody can see that.

[cdbearsfan]

Individual errors by our three centre-halves, agreed.

Anyway, like I said, we'll see. Hopefully they don't try that formation against Everton. Picking three centre halves to deal with Everton's second choice centre forward at home would be U2 levels of shit.

[eamonn]

Well, two of 'em. 

Ezri is always good as gold.

[cdbearsfan]

Well, two of 'em. 

Ezri is always good as gold.

Agreed. I confess I've already forgotten the third goal so can't remember if it was anyone's fault. I'll blame Priti Patel.

[chrisw1]

Individual errors by our three centre-halves, agreed.

Anyway, like I said, we'll see. Hopefully they don't try that formation against Everton. Picking three centre halves to deal with Everton's second choice centre forward at home would be U2 levels of shit.

Depends if you include missing a hatful of chances and misplacing final passes as 'errors'  Personally I think Watkins was also culpable and Ings was just generally poor.

[cdbearsfan]

Watkins didn't look fully fit to me, but don't disagree with your assessment. I would leave the three midfielders who played well and put two wingers either side of them (with just four defenders, as you may have guessed). It means the manager has a tough choice to make as to who you start up front, Ings or Watkins, but we've wanted competition for places, haven't we?

[chrisw1]

Watkins didn't look fully fit to me, but don't disagree with your assessment. I would leave the three midfielders who played well and put two wingers either side of them (with just four defenders, as you may have guessed). It means the manager has a tough choice to make as to who you start up front, Ings or Watkins, but we've wanted competition for places, haven't we?

So would I CD.  I don't think we need to shoe horn in two up front and I'd prefer 4-3-3.  I'd start with Watkins and possibly push him wide when bringing Ings on around 60 mins.

[paul_e]

I don't think it's fair or accurate to try to suggest the improvements at the weekend were related to the the formation, there's just nothing to prove it either way. In the first 3 games the biggest problem, in my opinion, was a lack of match fitness because of the mess of a pre-season we had with the copa america, euros, olympics and covid all combining to disrupt most clubs and then Ratboy, ROK and JT all moving on and a sizable injury list adding on top.

I think we'll see steady improvement over the next month as things settle, it's just a shame the easier fixtures came so early, swap our august and september fixtures around and I reckon we'd have beaten Watford and Brentford.

[OCD]

Same happened in our first year back in the Premier League. All the winnable games at the start when we hadn't adapted to the league and then some shit fixtures.

Against Watford, some of the team selection and tactics were wrong. Against Brentford, we had a Covid outbreak beforehand and had to put out a bit of a patched up team.

[Dave]

More realistically, I'm expecting 1, maybe 2 names that I've heard of before (to replace Barkley and possibly upgrade Nakamba), and maybe 3 or 4 players that I'm mostly/completely unaware of at the moment.  As others have said, no point spending loads of money on beefing up a recruitment team to buy players that Tony Cascarino could point out to you.

If Jack Grealish stays, then I think Berge from Sheffield United and David Brooks from Bournemouth (depending on the medical) would do enough to improve us in terms of the starting XI, we would then just need some better squad options than we currently have in certain positions. 

It's a no to Brooks for me, if he was 18-19 I'd be more willing to look at him but he's a 23 year old who hasn't stood out in the championship. Olise is the attacking championship player I'd be looking at and he'd be my 2nd signing behind someone with more top level experience. Last year I'd have loved us to sign Eze but I thought he'd be too much of a gamble given we needed our signings to 'land' to make sure we weren't in another relegation battle. This summer is very different and we can afford to pick up a couple of players with an eye on them pushing into the team over 12months so I'll be pretty upset if we miss out on him.

It was more those type of players than the actual players themselves.  David Brooks primarily plays on the right, but can play across the attacking midfield line which is the kind of player I think we need really.   He’s had some bad luck with injuries, but hopefully he can remain fit and feature in the Euros.

Now diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin Lymphoma. Best of luck to the guy.

[Risso]

Shit, that's awful news. Hope he recovers fully soon.