Who can stop the Clarets machine

[Tackler49]

Having watched the Championship highlights some of the defending is poor to say the least that includes ours as well but when the Boss finds his best side I wonder who the hell is going to stop us i know it’s only two games in but we seem superior to all the other teams in every department that includes the bench so if the Board don’t sell all our assets we should walk this league. Am I DREAMING or does anyone think the same ? UTC

[MT03ALG]

If you wrote this at half-time today, you were definitely dreaming.....

[Clive 1960]

sign of a decent team is they can find a way to win when not getting out of first gear ..

[fatboy47]

If Cardiff had got the breaks in that first half they could easily have gone in 2 or 3 goals up. They played us off the park and won just about every physical battle...we'd then have been chasing the game for the last 45 and god knows how it would have panned out.

Its too early for all this hyperbole.

My main takeaway is a medium sized bet on Cardiff for a top 6 place.

[rincon]

If Cardiff had got the breaks in that first half they could easily have gone in 2 or 3 goals up. They played us off the park and won just about every physical battle...we'd then have been chasing the game for the last 45 and god knows how it would have panned out.

Its too early for all this hyperbole.

My main takeaway is a medium sized bet on Cardiff for a top 6 place.

I agree with the top six prediction. no way Cardiff will finish bottom they wil come good. We got lucky yesterday but it bodes well when we haven't yet clicked and are finding a way to score 5 goals

[Goalposts]

To early we haven’t finished selling yet…

Vitinho . Berge , O’Shea , wout , amdouni , Trafford , McNally , Tresor , benson ,

All likely to go , Welll know better 1st of sept as to our real strength

[Burnley1989]

To early we haven’t finished selling yet…

Vitinho . Berge , O’Shea , wout , amdouni , Trafford , McNally , Tresor , benson ,

All likely to go , Welll know better 1st of sept as to our real strength

All likely to go... ffs, people dont half over react. There's about £100m of players there, there's not a chance we sell 9 players this week

[EarbyClaret]

To early we haven’t finished selling yet…

Vitinho . Berge , O’Shea , wout , amdouni , Trafford , McNally , Tresor , benson ,

All likely to go , Welll know better 1st of sept as to our real strength

Vitinho - unless there are personal reasons why he wants to return to Brazil seems unlikely
Berge - will probably go we seem to be planning for that with the emergence of Messango
O'Shea - hopefully the sales of others mean we can keep him - Brentford interest seems to have cooled
Weghorst - expect him to go - despite Parker commendably bringing him back into the fold he's not an integral part of the squad
Amdouni - a move seems less likely now Odobert has gone - could have a real impact this season
Trafford - expect to go to Newcastle - I assumed we had signed Hladky as first choice
McNally - can't sell unless at least one of Al-Dakhil, Beyer or Ekdal is close to fitness
Tresor - is either ill and/or injured - going nowhere
Benson - will probably go - if we are going to sell now is the time his value won't be increased by another season of occasional cameos

As well as inevitable outgoings there will be incomings too in areas Parker has identified where we need depth/strengthening

[beeholeclaret]

There are some interesting comments on here. Overall I was delighted with the result and particularly enjoyed the second half performance. After last season days like this make the match day an enjoyable experience.

To be fair we were gifted an early goal and were then out fought in most areas of the pitch and Cardiff’s approach play was impressive at times. If they had a more potent strike force we would’ve conceded a least 2 goals. A fellow spectator said “do you get the feeling it might just be our day”. That was after the disallowed goal and the other shot hitting one post and managing to spin out of play after just missing the other post.

Glad to see SP tweaking things at HT and more aggression and pressing in midfield areas. Brownhill and Cullen were struggling in first half but pulled the strings in second. I was willing Foster / Jay to get a goal but most of the chances are falling to others.

Referee was poor and bought into Cardiff players dropping to the floor at slightest touch (no doubt led by arch diver Aaron Ramsey) but at least we didn’t have VAR to contend with.

I wonder if we will lose a few more players before the Rovers match. Trafford could go if he and Burnley want a fresh start and he should fetch a decent fee? Weghorst seems likely to go and I’m Surprised he has featured this week (although I’d like him to stay). O’Shea and Amdouni should be influential at this level but their ambition (plus agents) could generate more transfer activity.

Glad to see and hear a happy buzz from supporters as we left the ground and walked into town. Here’s to many more days like this.

UTC

[Goalposts]

All likely to go... ffs, people dont half over react. There's about £100m of players there, there's not a chance we sell 9 players this week

We have nearly 80m of debt , and circa 50m of loans - we will be selling close to a 100m of players

[Stayingup]

Having had time to refelect I think we didn't perform that well in yesterdays game, which was far from a classic. Cardiff were the better side in the first half and were physically stronger. I kept wondering how we won 5-0 but we did score two real gems of goals which was great to see. The Cardiff defence opened up like the Red Sea at times. Our defence too I have to say was dodgy in first half. Esteve and Pires didnt seem to know each other in first half. Still work to do but 6 points is brilliant.

[Spijed]

We have nearly 80m of debt , and circa 50m of loans - we will be selling close to a 100m of players

And yet promotion would help all that pretty quickly.

Are we now in a position where we might have to sacrifice promotion by weakening the squad to also-rans?

[BigGaz]

In all seriousness it's the Transfer Window(s) that will make or break us.

Only Pace and Co will know the true extent of how much we need to sell but it's essential that the balance of getting our money yet maintaining a squad that can compete at the top end.

It's a fools errand selling everyone valuable to service our debt, which would then potentially kneecap us.

Luckily for us, the owners come from a background where a) they don't necessarily view debt as a bad thing and b) they are happy to speculate.

[Zom Zom]

I was absolutely buzzing this morning. Top of the league. Worldie goals. 5-0 win…

And then I clicked on this thread. Just… wow. Can’t we just enjoy the moment?

[mdd2]

I think it is what can stop the Clarets machine?
The answer is the next 44 league games.

[California Colner]

Early doors
Long long way to go

[Rileybobs]

If Cardiff had got the breaks in that first half they could easily have gone in 2 or 3 goals up. They played us off the park and won just about every physical battle...we'd then have been chasing the game for the last 45 and god knows how it would have panned out.

Its too early for all this hyperbole.

My main takeaway is a medium sized bet on Cardiff for a top 6 place.

Agree. I was really impressed with Cardiff in the first half. They kept the ball with ease and completely bullied us off the ball. I thought their Meite and Kanga were a handful.

We’ll need to play much better than that if we want to win promotion, but this should come with time. My takeaway is that it’s much easier to score in the Championship.

[agreenwood]

Agree. I was really impressed with Cardiff in the first half. They kept the ball with ease and completely bullied us off the ball. I thought their Meite and Kanga were a handful.

We’ll need to play much better than that if we want to win promotion, but this should come with time. My takeaway is that it’s much easier to score in the Championship.

Agreed. There was a lack of control of the game in the first half and I thought we looked disjointed and were attacking in small numbers. Both goals were against the run of play.

The third goal was well worked and killed Cardiff. From there we exerted the kind of control I was hoping to see from a squad with this much talent.

What was interesting was that Cardiff City wanted the ball, played a high line and didn’t want to sit in. It meant that our possession was mainly in our defensive third and we were rarely camped in their half. I wonder if that’s going to be more of the pattern this season to try and stop us dominating the ball in dangerous areas.

That’s two games in a row where we’ve had less than 50% possession. Early days, but I’m not sure if it’s Parker’s approach or if more sides are going to be unwilling to cede the ball to us for long spells.

[claretskeith]

I agree with a lot of the above.
The 5-0 certainly flattered us but it did seem that Cardiff went 100% flat out to try and get a lead and that was their downfall. They didn't get the goal and by half-time they looked shattered. That allowed us to control the game for the majority of the second half.

I was also thinking that Cardiff would be more likely to be a top-half side than a bottom 3. They will be cause the same problems that they caused us, for other teams.

[wilks_bfc]

Having had time to refelect I think we didn't perform that well in yesterdays game, which was far from a classic. Cardiff were the better side in the first half and were physically stronger. I kept wondering how we won 5-0 but we did score two real gems of goals which was great to see. The Cardiff defence opened up like the Red Sea at times. Our defence too I have to say was dodgy in first half. Esteve and Pires didnt seem to know each other in first half. Still work to do but 6 points is brilliant.

Personally I think all 4 of “our” goals were gems

Zeki & JBG are obvious for their actual execution of them, but the build up play for the Luca & Brownhill goals were something we’ve not seen for a long time

[kentonclaret]

In view of a few of the comments on this thread re Cardiff I just did a quick check and Cardiff are being quoted at 12/1 for a top 6 finish (William Hill, Sky Bet).
Give some interest through the season and a decent return.

[International class]

With reference to current debt.
Aren’t we expecting £47.6 million in first year parachute payment to somewhat mitigate any forced player sales?

[houseboy]

People seem to be forgetting when criticising our first half that old saying ‘the sign of a great side is playing badly and winning’. Playing badly and winning 5-0 is nothing short of incredible.
As far as percentage possession goes I’ve never subscribed to that. It’s goals that count as in the time we beat Liverpool2-0 with about 20% possession or less. And all the possession we had last season that did us no good at all.

[morninbob]

With reference to current debt.
Aren’t we expecting £47.6 million in first year parachute payment to somewhat mitigate any forced player sales?

Our wage bill will be higher than that.

[Lambo]

I’d hope even with more player sales to come we’d still have enough to finish top 2…the problem is, if you cash in on Berge for example and then achieve promotion you have to then replace him at potentially higher cost…in the Championship Brownhill and Cullen are more than adequate but Berge gives us that added ability….the ones to get shut of are Weghorst (simply because he doesn’t fit into our fast attacking style) and Benson (as he’s shown previously he’s only a 30 min cameo man)….we can also loan out 1 or 2 defenders depending how close to fitness Beyer, Ester and Al Dakhil are…promotion back to the Premier League is easily achievable with the squad we would still have

[Spike]

I really and I mean really don’t like the loans and how we have been saddled with the most debt in our history
I’ve never liked us selling our best players and especially for leverage reasons

But we are going to win this league with 120 points

[Goalposts]

All likely to go... ffs, people dont half over react. There's about £100m of players there, there's not a chance we sell 9 players this week

Berge - O’Shea - JBG - Massenogo - Vitinho - al dakhil - Trafford - wout - benson - McNally - delcroix


Looks like we were both wrong likely to be 10 or more if you take in loans . But it’s still only midday tuesday yet so give it sometime.

[kentonclaret]

Berge - O’Shea - JBG - Massenogo - Vitinho - al dakhil - Trafford - wout - benson - McNally - delcroix


Looks like we were both wrong likely to be 10 or more if you take in loans . But it’s still only midday tuesday yet so give it sometime.

And a fair few of those turned out in the first 2 fixtures some of them scoring.

[Claret53]

From what I have seen so far, I think that we will be scoring lots of goals in the last 20 minutes. The effort expended in trying to close us down is not sustainable over 90 plus minutes. If you look at the best teams, they often score late goals for that very reason.

[dibraidio]

If we sell all the players who have been linked with a move away then we could clearly stop ourselves :-/

Personally I'd be really disappointed if we lose Vitinho, O'Shea or Zaroury.
I can see no logic in letting Massengo go unless Berge stays.
I'm resigned to seeing Trafford, Weghorst and Tresor leaving and I don't think we'll miss them.
Sad to see McNally, Amdouni or Benson go but you can understand it if they feel they need to move on.

If we can keep most of the squad together we've got a great chance of challenging for Automatic.
If we carried on at the current pace we'd end up on 138 points and score 207 goals. We know that's not realistic but this could be an even better season than our last promotion season when it took months for the team to click.

[Shaggy]

Alan pace. He can stop the clarets machine by selling players………





Better add the smiley before people take it too seriously