Brest (Friendly)

[Mick]

[GhostfaceKillah]

Thought we played okay for the first 25-30 minutes but then faded towards the end of the first half, and pretty much camped in our own half for most of the second.

The contrast between the two starting 11's boiled down to Isak and Joelinton against Girona, vs Harrison and Osula against Brest. Not a dig at Harrison, who looked out of his depth having likely never played opposition of that quality, or Osula, who has been bought for his potential rather than his ability, as well as only been in the door 5 minutes, but it's a reminder that we are still fragile in key positions.

Thought we were excellent against Girona yesterday, and defended well today, giving a lot of promise once you combine the two 11's, as well as adding Tonali into the mix, for the season ahead, providing we don't face another injury crisis.

Worryingly still a pretty poor window so far, you could argue keeping Bruno and not letting PSR incompetence cost us with Gordon (as of now) being let go, adds up to more than signing two new players. However, if we have any aspirations to get back in the top 4, I think we are a centre back and a right winger short, and injuries in one or two positions are going to leave us really struggling to break teams down. We have kept Bruno, Gordon and Isak this window, but if we are not knocking on the door and arguably qualifying for Champions League football by the end of the coming season, we will be starting the summer window needing to replace before we even contemplate strengthening.

I get we can't just spend willy nilly, this isn't Football Manager, and all the other tropes, as well as being a realist, but we have needed a right winger for over 3 summer transfer windows now, I don't get the blind spot here with recruitment, and I also don't buy into the fact the right player hasn't become available. If after 3 years you can't find an upgrade for Almiron or Murphy, then you probably shouldn't be recruiting for a Premier League football club. I'd also add to this, to be chasing a centre back going into the week of the first game of the season, when we have needed one all summer, is more evidence that things have been poorly organised behind the scenes, if we really wanted Guehi, and didn't want to derail his Euros, why not put a bid in the day after the final and get it tied up then?!

Obviously I will be stoked if we can get Guehi this week, but I thought the days of last minute deals for key players were over, hopefully the club can regain some composure off the pitch and we can have a season to rival our Champions League qualifying one, lots of positives from pre-season, just a super disappointing window so far which is dampening my expectations a little.

[Mick]

We know there is strengthening needed at centre back and the right side of the attack, and I think we’ll see that put right soon.

Have to say though, the squad looks canny - particularly with some cracking young players starting to come through ?

The long-term plan is working, keep the faith!

[Eeeeen]

Given the difficulty that Howe seems to have dropping players who are playing poorly from the team, I have to wonder how much influence his, probably even greater, difficulty in actually allowing any of them to leave the club, has had on the lack of movement out of the club.  Combine that with his close relationship with Amanda and perhaps we can see how we arrived in such a perilous situation with regards to PSR and, perhaps, why Amanda and Mehrdad 'left' the club when they did.  I'm glad that Howe is with us for this coming season, however, because I think we will find out if he really is the manager to take us forward or if he is, in fact, shite.  I'm hoping for the former but certainly not discounting the latter.

[GhostfaceKillah]

Whilst disappointing to see Amanda leave, her off the field and well publicised financial battle with Victor Restis cost her massively, she had already relinquished shares because she didn't have the capital to put money into the club, it was just a matter of time before she had to leave because to put in bluntly, she understandably isn't in the same financial league as the Reuben's or the PIF Group. If the timing was a shock to her then clearly there were discussions going on that she wasn't privy to, but from an outsider looking in, I don't know how she ever going to compete. Kieran Maguire who looked into the Companies House information also suggested that she had borrowed her original 10% buy in from the Reuben's, so unless she was hoping to curry favour by being a great figure head for the club (which she was), it was always going to be on the cards she would depart at some stage, maybe the PSR shambles sped that up a little, we might get to know in a future book of some sorts.

There has clearly been a shit storm behind the scenes, you don't stare the start of the season in the face with one free transfer centre back, one loan player converted to a permanent signing and two goalkeepers who we didn't need, one evidently bought to get around PSR in some way, without it going about as bad as could expected on the recruitment front. The club gambled on Bruno going to settle the PSR issue in my opinion, and I am sure they also thought Almiron, Dubravka, Trippier and Wilson would be gone, giving them the wiggle room to buy the players they had ear marked. Instead, all of these players are still here, we have 5 goalkeepers, only one good enough, two right wingers who are not good enough for where we are wanting to go, as well as a frightening lack of cover at centre back. We are an Isak injury away from a 21 year old unproven striker, with a terrible goal scoring record, being our centre forward, and we are now embroiled in a stupid public battle to sign Marc Guehi, listening to hideous wankers like Steve Parish going public on our offers, for a player who if we had really wanted all summer, why the fuck did we leave it until the 11th hour to start trying to sign him?!

The sad thing is, keeping the key part of the squad together, with Tonali coming back, meant we only really needed to get two genuine first team quality player in and we would have been all set. We managed to hang onto our best players, but then have failed miserably to shift players on, and have also failed miserably to buy the targets we idenitifed, Tosin, Olise and now Guehi.

Having said alllllllllll of this, a largely negative assessment, IF (a big if) we keep everyone fit, we still have a decent team that can compete for European places. It has been a mess of a summer though, and this doesn't even touch on the Howe interview regarding the England job, which was a big red flag if ever you wanted reassurance that things were ticking along nicely in the background.