Haaland

Can't wait to see him in Saudi.

have the saudis tempted anyone good under 30 yet?

It’s whether they still want it enough after winning the lot. As a lot of the players are academy and/or boyhood fans of the club it may not be a problem.

But don’t forget that arsenal have spent £250 mill on top of having the highest net spend in world football over the last 7 years.

Mancheater United (who have recently been found guilty of breaching the financial fair play rules they wrote) have spent another 230 mill on their squad, which we know already has the highest wage bill.

Livarpool will be tapering up this season and have the new added time rule being brought in for them.

Can he qualify to play for England under residency rules? No idea, just asking.

Its probably the only way he can add World and European Cup winners medals to that collection.

rice, timber and havertz. i'm not sure this is game changing for the gooners.

maybe chelsea can do something with a good manager and no european football

Havertz always looks malnourished. He needs to beef up the rig if he wants to succeed.

Rice is the real deal though, he would improve any team.

A few weeks training with Davos should do the trick for Havertz.

arsenal have strengthened but glaring weakness is a top quality centre forward. Jesus/Nketiah are not that.

Poch will sort chelski out and with the quality/quantity of players they have and no distraction of Europe m, they can’t be discounted.

The 6th-9th bracket of clubs look more dangerous than ever before- Brighton/villa.

Can see it being a very open season and 85-88 points will see a club there or thereabouts.

Tough to challenge a team with such blatant disregard for FFP.

'I've got a list of charges here longer than a fooking Leonard Cohen song'

If you assemble a premier league 11, City don't quite dominate in the way I'd probably imagined.

Alisson (Liv)

James (Che), Ruben (City), Van Dijk (Liv), Robertson (Liv)

Salah (Liv), KDB (City), Bruno/Son/Odegaard/Foden (Utd/Spurs/Ars/City), Saka (Ars)

Haaland (City), Kane (Spurs)

No-one comes close to having City's depth however.

Yeah Abu Dhabi are by far the favourites and given Dubai's massive spending and both clubs control of Fa, Uefa etc, I can see those two going top two

The plucky lads from the united academy will give it a good shot though

And true, working class Manchester lads, like me, will be there every game, lager drunk and loving it

Heh @ that prem XI

Foden 🤣

Son 😹

Robertson 🤡

Were you in a coma for all of last season?

There’s no way Godri doesn’t start in any prem best xi hth

Heh @ Son/Robertson after their worst seasons ever. Even Bruno.

And tbf, what Linorder said re: Rodri. Absolute Rolls Royce of a CM.

It is boring. Leicester and Arsenal running a close second papering over the cracks, but the reality is financial doping has been the dictator of the PL champion since Jack Walker came into the picture.

The only way it will change is with an enforced salary cap and player spend limit.

I think if the Saudis were clever they would look to launch a new Champions League with ME teams in it. If they copy the LIV playbook and offer the teams triple for competing I doubt there's anything UEFA can do to stop it unless the leagues come to their rescue and threaten to boot the clubs out (not sure how that would work). Then Mbappe etc. have no reason not to play in SA, UAE etc. as they couldn't GAF about their domestic leagues anyway.

@ RR and Sex Bee, I'm not judging based on one season. Otherwise I'd have to start thinking players like Mitoma or Schar. It's subjective of course.

Foden is probably my favourite English player after Saka. Great to watch either.

Son is undeniably brilliant but played for a struggling Spurs side.

I'll take the point on Bruno - possibly included that a little to keep the Utd fans happy.

Robertson did not get bad overnight. Doubt there are many better left backs in prem history (that's not the same as saying he is the best for clarity!)

do you think there is much of a chance the saudis will actually try and set up a rival comp to the CL?

they saw what happened with the european super league

If the European Super League clubs had had the massive financial backing of MBS/PIF behind them their little spat with Uefa would have worked out a bit differently. I reckon.

‘Arsenal running a close second papering over the cracks‘

arsenal have got the highest net spend in world football since 2016, higher even than Mancheater United (who have recently been found guilty of breaching the financial fair play rules they wrote and have spent another 230 mill on their squad, which we know already has the highest wage bill).

Incredible achievement as Leicester winning the prem was, breached ffp to get promoted from the championship.

If we're going off past performances rather than whether they'd make the starting XI now then Ronaldo has to be in there (included as he played in the Prem last season)

Ashley Cole over Robbo all day if it's on past performance.

Not sure I'd have Robertson ahead of Ake and Zinchenko

Rodri obviously one of the first names on the team sheet.

Think the XI would be:

Ederson

James Ruben Lisandro Zinchenko

Rodri KDB

Bernardo Silva Gundogan Saka

Wieghorst

Or replace Gundogan with KDB and put Casemiro in

Or John Stones

Wout up front is a no-brainer, tbf.

City have won the league 3 out of the last 4 years and finished 2nd the other time.

if you don't have 5 or 6 of their team (allowing for some own team bias) then you must have been watching football blindfolded and with the sound off

Almost didn't pick up on the bias.

City have won the league because they've got great players and the best depth by far. That does not make it true that every City player is the best in the league. Don't like Foden? Bring in Mahrez. Don't like Mahrez? Bring in Gundogan/Grealish/Silva. No-one comes close to that of level rotation.

Alisson / Ederson is probs a toss-up.

There appears to be consensus on James (even if he was injured virtually all last season)

Consensus on Ruben. I don't think I can put Lisandro above Van Dijk but predict that Gvardiol will be better than both. Zinchenko is a great player that nearly cost City the title but isn't Cancelo back this year? If Cancelo is back to top form, I'd put him above Robbo.

Midfield is a cauldron of talent but KDB and Saka get in everyone's team.

Front two are obvious.

Van Dick was vvank last year. Bin him off and Robertson. Salah was average too.

Luke Shaw probably the best left back in the prem now.

Man City’s first team squad is very small. They’re ‘depth’ from training players to play mutliplE positions and the situational genius of their manager (consider Silva playing LB against Arsenal last year). They will miss the G/A output of Mahrez and the edge Gundogan brings them in the last 10 games of the season and the jury is out on their replacements

What penguin said. Wow. Nice to have another sensible poster who actually knows about football rather than parroting Sly Sports, TalkScouse narratives.

Gundo’s goals will also be missed. Should have been the summer for a splurge tbh but looks like we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.

Kovacic is massively underrated and could easily play in the position Gundogan did.

His close control, ability to beat the press and keep the ball in tight areas is ideally suited to playing for Pep

Might not score as many though, that is true

Will be tragic if the war-oil barons spend their way to another title.

People like chinorder can overlook the human rights record of the owners as long as they get 30 seconds of endorphins when their plastic team wins another trophy.

@linorder - Arsenal's net spend isn't the whole story. Their wage bill is "£150m to a £170m less than Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City."

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12913913/arsenals-big-tra…

Chelsea charged with FFP breaches I see.

the situational genius of their manager (consider Silva playing LB against Arsenal last year).

hehsquared. That was a terrible decision, as evidenced by Pep changing things at half-time. Saka had the better of him every time they met and really ought to have capitalized upon it.

Net spend debates are an instant sign of loser talk. Rafa Beneathus overw@nked this idea to extinction many years ago.

Heh. Salty from the usual suspects. Cry more.

’@linorder - Arsenal's net spend isn't the whole story. Their wage bill is "£150m to a £170m less than Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City."‘

yep it’s a fair comment. UTD wage bill is shocking considering their output.

In other news, Paul Merson thinks United would win the league if they signed Kane.

Proper Roy of the Rovers stuff that if one player could cover all our squad inadequacies.

Onana, to Kane at centre half, passes to Kane at right back, inside to Kane in centre midfield who switches play to Kane on the left wing, what a beautiful cross on to the head of Kane in the box. 1 nil.