duke313

The great thing about Emery is that in our hunt for European football, as most fans on here and elsewhere are getting completely carried away with talk of catching Newcastle and Spurs. In all his interviews he is downplaying the possibility of European football, that it will be extremely difficult.

The complete opposite of Chelsea who are just a collection of quality players.

If we qualify for Europe a bigger squad is needed. And even if we don't get Europe this season, we should be pushing for CL next season so maybe need 2-3 quality additions.

Yep, La Liga is where we'll be shopping. A lot of technically gifted players able to pass under pressure, quickly in tight spaces. We should be able to poach a lot of talent from there outside Real/Barca.

I think that's why we've been linked to mostly La Liga players. Spanish players very good playing in tight spaces with quick tiki taka like passes, it's how they're trained in Spain. And it's players like that we need to break the low block. The better we get, the more teams will sit back against us, we need those kinds of players. Think we'll see Unai mainly target that league to try and poach players, that and the fact he knows the league inside out.

Interesting development. Didn’t he turn us down because he wanted to stay in or close to Basque region? Might have a change of heart now after this. Get on it Unai.

Imagine telling yourself after the Newcastle defeat before Emery came in, that our manager for the rest of the season could possibly break the 60-point barrier. Madness.

32 points from 16 games under Emery, based on that we are on course for 18 points from remaining 9 games. Which means we could end up on 62 points, last season that would have been enough for 6th place.

I think that is probably why Emery is playing him so regularly, to make absolutely sure he's not good enough. He has until the end of the season I reckon. And if he doesn't improve, we'll sign a starter in his position, and he'll be demoted to back up or sold.

How do you upgrade a World Cup winning keeper and World Goalkeeper of the Year? Or do you mean upgrade the backup keeper?

It really did look like a handball before his pass to Watkins, even on the replay. I was certain it was going to be ruled out by VAR.

I'm not talking about finishing 11th, if we finish 8th and get no Europa Conference instead of 7th, it will not affect who we sign in the summer. No player who would improve us cares about the Europa Conference. Or certainly cares enough that it would impact their decision to not come here.

Battle for European spots is so tight this season.

You think someone like Nico Williams for instance is going to turn us down if we fail to qualify for the Europa Conference?

If we still had Gerrard we'd be bottom lol.

Agree in principle, but I don't think our summer recruitment is going to be affected by the prestige of playing in the Europa Conference. The players we get will come here regardless if we get 7th or not, the only European football that really attracts players is the CL.

Probably the main advantage, especially the Europa Conference. Don't know what the prize money is for EC, but can't imagine it's that good. And don't think we would suddenly attract CL calibre players because of the prestige of playing in the EC. Be very good for those youth players, will get them used to Emery system while not sacrificing game time in league for more important matches.

Whilst I'm delighted for Bert, and was a great finish and winner, he is very inconsistent as well. 1 good game 4 bad kind of player. I would keep him as an impact sub if he's happy to stay. Regards Bailey, I think we need to cut our losses with him, don't know if he needs more time with Emery or he's simply just not good enough. I trust Emery to make the right decision. Imagine instead of Bailey last night on the left, we had a player the calibre of Nico Williams, he would have had a field day. Emery will upgrade I think, so Bailey may leave or he might stay and fight for his place, but he shouldn't be a starter.

Nope. 1st-4th = CL 5th = EL 6th = EL (If FA Cup is won by team already qualified) 7th = EC (If League Cup is won by team already qualified)

Arsenal will destroy them if they play the same as they did last night. Only thing is they have Leeds, Forest West Ham in their 3 games after that, they could easily get 9 points from those.

Great he’s still going at his age. But can he keep It up? Barnes gave him a tough time, they were defo targeting that side, and had it not been for the red card, they might have had more luck down that side. Im curious as to why KKH isn’t on the bench even, surely he could come on and do a job for 10-15 mins? He looked fine when he played for Swindon in that City cup game.

The post match thread on the Leicester forum is a depressing read, reminds me of our relegation season. Kind of feel sorry for them.

He’s waiting for Klopp to resign.

Cooper likely to be sacked before we play them. Another risk of playing a team with a new manager bounce.

Friendly reminder that if Emery had been with us since start of season we’d have 58 points.