c1982

We paid £35m plus add ons for Richarlison. Young exciting Brazilian attackers with Premier League experience are usually pretty expensive and now he’s full international, he’s probably worth double. Doucoure, as good as he may be, is and never was worth £50m - yes, he’s priceless to us but Richarlison is the more economically valuable asset.

Silva did want Doucoure but Watford were asking £50m - Moshiri backs managers but he’s also seemingly learned his lessons after a steep learning curve with Walsh as his DoF paying well over the odds.

Every club is a selling club if the price is right; it’s all relative.

It’s the Norwich model where they’re happy for their players to progress elsewhere as long as it works financially for them. They have one of the best academies and their recruitment in general isn’t too bad either - selling Madison to Leicester stopped them from going into administration a few years ago. Norwich are a well run club now - they know, they’re very much between Prem/Championship but they stick to a positive playing style. Norwich aren’t a team with an illustrious history and they don’t have a particularly big fan base/ draw via location and their owners aren’t particularly rich compared to other clubs so it’s not a bad model in my opinion.

Sometimes a deal just makes perfect sense - I remember thinking the same when we signed a lot of players under Moyes e.g. Baines, Jags, Yakubu - at the time, each were the exact player we needed - this seems the same.

Cantwell - 2022 https://www.canaries.co.uk/News/2019/july/todd-cantwell-signs-new-contract-at-norwich-city/

Actually - 2024... https://www.canaries.co.uk/News/2019/july/max-aarons-signs-new-five-year-contract-with-norwich-city/

Aarons - ‘On 10 October, he extended his contract at the club until June 2023.’ 2yrs left.

MOTM performance tonight, on his birthday, in a 0-0 draw. Looked quality - just lacking the finish but hopefully that will come. Came across really well in post match interview.

Lennon gone - hopefully gives JonJoe a chance to impress the new manager before the end of the season.

Just when you thought you’d seen it all... Speechless!

Doucoure still put in a good shift - standard - but he was sloppy and looked nervous at times. Tom though, wow - such a complete and mature performance. Carlo et al have worked wonders here.

Talking of Thiago - ‘best playa in the werld!!!’ He’s made them worse! Stick to your idea balls - James will keep assisting!

Just noticed that he just stands with his hands on his hips after the assist he plays through to Richy as he finishes it off - beautiful!

Good lad Oumar!

MAGICIAN!

Pickford - he’s not my favourite player by any means but he was perfect tonight. Hats off to him - he was calm, commanding and looked so confident - I just hope he can have a consistent run now and prove why he’s no.1 for club and country. Davies - wow, what a mature performance - he’s looking so worthy now. Holgate - he did an incredible job on Mane. Keane/Godfrey - solid. Richarlison looking his old self too. Coleman as a right winger - excellent. Great performance - absolutely buzzing!!! COYB!!!!!!

We may not see it tomorrow (as we will probably be awful again as in most other derbies - sorry!) but a returning Allan alongside Doucoure and hopefully Davies is going to give James so much more protection and more importantly possession. We’ve been playing on the back foot without Allan - we simply don’t have the depth in midfield to cope with his absence. We’ve covered this by going with the 4 centre backs but that’s come at a cost in an attacking sense. Allan is key (it’s not a pun) to so many aspects of this team - no one more so than James. Central midfield may not seem a priority this summer to many but I bet Carlo knows he needs more ‘fit for purpose’ competition.

I remember this nonsense after we’d lost a few games after the last derby - James was still producing but we weren’t finishing the chances. He’s class - he’ll look even better when Allan and Doucoure are back together and helping us to dominate games again.

This is what winds me up! Even on a good day, there’s every chance we lose to City... get the job done professionally against Fulham then worry about City and Liverpool - I just think we got it so so wrong in so many ways at the weekend!

Hate to be pedantic but shouldn’t the glass have the blue tint?

I do think we need another central midfield player - a better fit - but I think we’d need to sell at least 2 (I’d personally sell all 3) of Delph, Gomes, Sigurdsson. Getting Gbamin match fit would be a massive bonus but he’s very much a unknown entity. Regardless, I think we need at least 1 centre mid to go with a new keeper, right back, winger and back-up striker. Once again, we’ll need to sell well - something we’ve struggled to do.

I think he can only start a game if Allan and Doucoure are in midfield. It seems more positive to have him and Digne as full-backs but watch tonight and against Newcastle - probably other examples too - we can’t play with the attacking full-backs unless we’ve got the organisation of Allan AND legs of Doucoure in midfield. I think we can get away with Coleman or Digne without this protection and it simply must be Digne. Tonight was so similar to the Newcastle defeat - which makes it so so hard to take as it shows that we didn’t learn from that performance.

What I will say is Ancelotti got it horribly wrong tonight. Our lack of mobility made us so easy to be dominated. Iwobi and King on the wings and Richarlison/Rodriguez through the3 middle... maybe we’d have given them something to think about. Shocking!

Close this quickly!