I'd still prefer that we prioritised Sancho. Greenwood is young and can't play every game. Sancho can play in any of the attaching positions. At the minute, if Greenwood doesn't play, James starts and that's a massive drop off in ability and threat

Depends who we have in mind or is a valuable really? For me a new DM is essential, while Matic has been doing well and is really the only player in our squad who offers what we need in that role, we need better and ideally someone long term.

Sancho is a special talent and even though our offensive players are doing well Sancho is arguably better than all of them so if we can get him then we really should, it’s a great opportunity.

I’d get a top quality DM or CB over Grealish this summer, although I doubt we could get either for the price we are supposedly getting Grealish for (who I think would be a useful player for the squad but convinced he’s worth the price).

See it’s a tough one because I agree completely that Sancho is a great opportunity to get a player of that quality.
I also agree we need someone to do what Matic does incase he got injured as I feel with Fred or McT in there, we’d be vulnerable at the back by playing both Bruno + Pogba without Matic.

But I don’t trust our back 4 really apart from AWB and most of the time, Maguire...

Maybe Grealish and Sancho are the right choices because Grealish should be cheap, and Sancho is a player we can’t afford to pass up on

I don’t think we should think that we can realistically challenge for the title next season so I dont think it’s essential that we fix all our issues this summer. Sancho is available and an incredible talent, it’s a fantastic opportunity for us. Hopefully the club have been in the process of identifying players for other areas that we need fixing because there is still a lot that can be improved upon (both in the starting XI and squad places).

Regarding our defence, I’ve been really impressed with Shaw since lockdown. Seems to have a manager that doesn’t wanna bully him and injuries haven’t been an issue. He might not have a great cross on him but he still works well with those around him in creating things.

Like Pool, your best signing was VAR

Two CBs preferably and GK. Everything else is taking shape nicely.

RW is light but with the emergence of Greenwood we're fine for now but it would be risky pinning our hopes on someone so inexperienced. To avoid burn out Greenwood will be managed and eased in. We do need experience and top quality there.

Defence over RW? After seeing the debacle yesterday and over the season too I would prioritise defence. Many would point out our decent defensive record but the team was set up to be difficult break down, now with the hand brake off we are more exposed, we are seeing the limitations of the likes of Maguire far more than before. It does not help when individuals are making more unenforced errors due to lack of concentration.

comment by ● Billy The Yidd ● 2020* (U3924)
posted 2 minutes ago
Like Pool, your best signing was VAR
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The best thing for the league was Levy placing blind faith on Jose Mourinho.

So satisfying to see Spurs fans - some of the most smug for no reason - reduced to tears at the sight of their new playing style!

Long may Jose linger at your club!

A winger remains important, followed by a striker even.

I believe, while matic is doing well, someone better defensively would improve the defence more than spending on central defenders. I'll still like to see mctominay get a long run there.

World class CBs are like strikers nowadays, they're very few and far between.

The one in my mind who's of that calibre or close to it is David Alaba who might be open to leaving Bayern if they can't come to an agreement regarding an extension. His contract is up next summer and they won't let him leave for free.

He'd also give us options because although he wants to play at CB now, he can play at LB or in front of the defence if needs be.

What we need at CB is the finished article or as close to it as possible. Somebody so good it's almost impossible for them to fail. This is what we should've been aiming for last summer instead of signing Maguire who still just doesn't convince me.

We've also gone down the route of bringing in young CBs with potential but it's not proven very fruitful for us.

Also regardless of Greenwood, Sancho should still be our priority because if one our front three get injured, we're relying on Dan James and Ighalo who might not be with us beyond January anyway.

The right wing has been a huge issue for us going back years and I moan about it every summer. We also have a free run at one of the world's best young attacking talents who's played a lot in that position. This may be our only chance at signing him.

Part of this is based on my view that Greenwood will eventually play through the middle as well.

comment by ● Billy The Yidd ● 2020* (U3924)
posted 25 minutes ago
Like Pool, your best signing was VAR
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With the likes of Billy, Liquid, and Kallman, this place is looking more like a forum for the mentally disturbed, rather than a football forum. 😂

Regarding our defence, I’ve been really impressed with Shaw since lockdown. Seems to have a manager that doesn’t wanna bully him and injuries haven’t been an issue. He might not have a great cross on him but he still works well with those around him in creating things.

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I've been impressed by his higher positioning and added willingness to get into threatening areas. That side of his game has been better since the restart.

We need a RW/RWF, a DM, a back up to Bruno, a CB as our main two lack pace and the other two are always injured (and I'm not including Phil Jones as an option here).

Hopefully we sign 3 players and have players step up and/or stay fit.

If we could rely on having all three of Martial, Rashford and Greenwood staying fit all season then sure, it's not a problem area. But it would be nice to have a top class player who can come in when someone in the front three isn't available or isn't quite firing.

I think a quality attacker, DCM, LB and CB are all important, for various reasons.

Sancho should still be the priority. Greenwood’s emergence has been fantastic but we still need more quality and depth in the attack.

If we can get Grealish as well we’d have one of the best group of attackers in the league. The defence isn’t amazing, but it’s competent enough. We’d probably concede fewer goals if we could kill teams off earlier, more regularly.

comment by Imran The King Khan (U10026)
posted 5 minutes ago
Sancho should still be the priority. Greenwood’s emergence has been fantastic but we still need more quality and depth in the attack.

If we can get Grealish as well we’d have one of the best group of attackers in the league. The defence isn’t amazing, but it’s competent enough. We’d probably concede fewer goals if we could kill teams off earlier, more regularly.
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If teams are terrified of our attack, that takes more pressure off our defence than an uograded defender

RR, yep definitely. There’s also been times when we’ve got a bit desperate when trying to get a goal and left ourselves a bit open and out of shape by committing men forward. With a better quality and depth hopefully this shouldn’t need to be the case.

I personally think people obsess over our defence too much, and have done for years. There’s been loads of teams over the years that have won league titles that concede goals at a similar rate to what we have. Few win them with such a low amount of goals scored.

In an ideal world we would buy a rw, magic replacement and a CB but I just don't see us signing all 3 this summer window. Don't think there is a CB who is top quality and available anyway so we may have to make do.

The guy from Leipzig seems highly rated and young but rumours for him seem to have gone quiet. We may bring one in this summer but can't see it being or 4 coming in that we would need to really close that gap

comment by Imran The King Khan (U10026)
posted 1 minute ago

I personally think people obsess over our defence too much, and have done for years. There’s been loads of teams over the years that have won league titles that concede goals at a similar rate to what we have. Few win them with such a low amount of goals scored.

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All very well having a free scoring team but some games will be tight, that's where you need a defence to keep things tight, helps by not having individual brain fart moments like Maguire and Lindelof seem to have more than other defences of the top 4.

I knew about Maguire's lack of pace but he was a decent defender, an organiser, good on the ball and a leader to a degree but you can't forgive basic errors we've seen in recent games.

De Gea is not helping either, his nervousness and errors are contagious. It's spreading.

All very well having a free scoring team but some games will be tight, that's where you need a defence to keep things tight, helps by not having individual brain fart moments like Maguire and Lindelof seem to have more than other defences of the top 4.
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Chelsea and City are even worse for this.

We don’t have a free scoring attack anyway. But it would be better if we did.

I’m trying to add a bit of perspective to the obsession with our defence. We’ve had leakier defences that have won titles because we had a good attack.

And I’ve given some reasons as to why I think we’ll concede fewer goals with a better attack.

Imran,

They also hold on to the ball better. Their emphasis is on ball retention and when not in possession they hunt in packs to win it back

It's not an obsession to ask your GK and defenders to do the basics and not always look to feck up the good work the attacking side of the team are doing.

It's a double edged sword. If the team know they have a solid foundation they are likely to take more risks, especially against top sides. It was only Bournemouth yesterday, against top sides it may have been worse

However, there's also validity in asserting attack is a better form of defence. Half of the psychological battle is won before the kick off simply by having the likes of Sancho, for example, in the line up.

But they concede more goals than we do, and it’s because of their dodgy defence and in Chelsea’s case a weak keeper. So it’s not true to say we have more individual brain fart moments than these sides when we don’t. Liverpool are the only side in the league that don’t.

Our defence hasn’t been a problem against top sides really either. We have the best record in the division after Liverpool.

It’s an obsession when people continually complain about it despite the attack clearly being inferior, and the rate at which we concede goals is comparable with most of our rivals and even title winning teams of the past.

It can be improved, of course, and needs to be. But it’s not as big an issue as sorting the attack. The stats have backed this up pretty much every year.