McCreadie

He is working much harder these days. However, when we have the ball he is either: a) moving towards our player with the ball, to the point where he ends up getting so close, he is in the way. or, b) spending a lot of time with an opposition player between him and the ball, where he can never get it. Its frustrating, because, as you point out, he looks very good with the ball and has learned to retain posession very well.

I actually think he has grown in confidence since the Palace loan and WC (with good reason), but he still looks a bit tentative on the pitch. In a way, I can understand his issues, because I can't really think of another player that he is like. I'm still a bit confused as to what is he supposed to be? If he were to sit and watch umpteen dvds of one player, who would it be? He doesnt seem to be an AM, a CM or a 10. Without fitting one of those square holes properly, he is always going to struggle to nail down a place in the 11. Unless he is one of those Italian/Spanish-made-up-names for a midfielder with an "-ista" on the end? Cloggerista

RLC is a conundrum isn't he? He has all the strength and the pace and the technical ability, but the tactical side, as Sarri referred to a couple of weeks back, is quite concerning. He was clearly trying to get involved on Saturday and that is very important for his game, but I find his positional sense is very strange for a professional footballer at this level. Whenever I see him play (Chelsea, England and Palace included), I get the sense that he still isn't quite sure where he is supposed to be, when he doesnt actually have the ball. With the ball, he is generally very good. I'm not quite sure how these 2 factors can co-exist, given he has been coached at the highest level for about 12 years? Dont mean this to sound too harsh, he is clearly still improving, I'm just keen for him to succeed.

I think you are missing the main point that nearly all wingers have pace, some more than others. That's not changing the opposition's natural game. It is their natural game. There is no getting away from it, I love Alonso for what he brings to our game in attack, but he is relatively slow and will be exposed at fb because of it.

Eduardo, Green, Jorginho.

Think I would prefer Bats looking terrible scoring 12 goals this season than Tammy looking great scoring 4. I think we are going to need all the goals we can get...

TBH I'm not bothered how much we spend on anyone, as long as they are the right players and we start repairing the damage and massively improving on some of the truly terrible buys we have made in the last few windows.

£72m is a lot of money, but I'm not sure you can put a price on how much it will mean to us to get that terrible attitude out of the dressing room.

I know it seems like we have only signed Jorginho and Green, but everyones forgetting all about Eduardo, the 48 year old Portugese stopper who we re-signed after his contract expired and we immediately loaned to Vitesse. So its not like Marina hasnt been busy after all. Just think, if we manage to squeak out a replacement for Courtois in time, we can end the transfer window having signed 3 keepers and a DM. Bosh. Chew on that, Pep!

That depends very much on whether there is the will, or indeed the competence to actually go where we want to be. That’s what I’m struggling to believe right now. That list of the last 29 players is truly shocking. It’s abysmal. A chimp with a buzzer could have used those funds in a much more efficient way. There are just 2 “great” signings in there and only 5 players that have contributed meaningfully to the 1st team. As I see it, a total of 9 “decent or better” signings and 20 fails out of 29.

Good post

He’s had a bad attitude from day 1. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near the reserves or the first team. He can train on his own if he wants.

What on earth did we think was going to happen when we bought a striker with an awful goal scoring record (apart from one season where he scored a lot of goals against crap teams)? How we managed to ship Costa out and get Morata in as a replacement is bordering on criminal, certainly negligent.

I don’t believe she can

Less than 6 days. My expectation is that we are signing approximately no-one. Not a sausage. Not even a Bibblybobbly or a Hectorman.