Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo (AKA Monchi)

[Smithy]

I still think the fact that he's been here three years, has turned us from relegation candidates to regular European contenders, including a Champions League campaign, and has done all that on a transfer net-spend of effectively zero, is frankly incredible.

If any of the clubs famed for their ability to unearth gems and use the transfer market well had done that, the press would be raving about it.  If Brighton had done it, they'd be writing a Moneyball-style movie about it.

Imagine if he'd actually been allowed to spend the money our owners would have liked to spend...

[eamonn]

The caveat is that our wage bill has been/is high and four months of Rashford and Asensio helped drag us up the table.

[paul_e]

True but they weren't signed to fill gaps in the squad but rather because Bailey's form had fallen off a cliff and Buendia couldn't get fit so we decided to add a couple of extra players with the money we got in from Duran.

[Sexual Ealing]

I can't say I'm surprised.

[itbrvilla]

Definitely no coincidence that the form post Monchi has been incredible compared to when he was here.  I'd love to know what was going on.

[aj2k77]

Well the only thing we know for sure is that all his summer signings that he managed to acquire, mostly at the last minute, have contributed very very little. For that alone I'd expect him moved aside.

[dave shelley]

Tin hat on.  Just a favourable word for the referee.  After Buendia's  winner he read the situation perfectly by which I  mean is he was extremely tolerant in allowing the length of time he did allowing the players to celebrate a near heart stopping couple of seconds. He couldn't have broken it up anyway.  🙂 Fair play  to him.

[TCFKAE2]

I liked the fact he blew up immediately on restart rather than adding 30 secs+ in respect of the goal which would have given Arsenal the chance to launch a final attack.

[Somniloquism]

We scored two seconds after the indicated time anyway. He would have blown as soon as they cleared the ball (which they didn't do) so I suspect there was nothing to add on.