Not saying that. Just wondered how we'd set up. Guess ayew could play wide right, Townsend isn't looking great....

..and Joel Ward still occupy the right back spot!!! Wonder for how long?

Ward is probably the player I respect most in the squad, but his passing has never been up to scratch and he is never a match for quick wingers.
Nothing better if he proves me totally wrong and deserves to start every game, but when it comes to PL opposition - not sure!

If we can't get a striker then perhaps signing a goal-scoring right-midfielder/winger might be an alternative. Eze has goals in him and having Andros and Schlupp as options from the bench would give us options. Bright repeatedly talked in his commentary about getting more goals from our midfield and how hard it is to get a goal-scoring striker, so perhaps this could be our focus?

When you look at the dribbling ability of Zaha, Ayew and Eze, if you throw in another player that can do similar on the right and we could be a nightmare for defenders and win lots of free-kicks and possibly penalties. Riedewald's passing range is also looking very good, if he gets to keep his place (which I bloody hope he does after his preseason performances), which could help to unlock defences and help us to counter quickly. On the defensive front we can't really afford to sign more defenders unless we get rid of one and unfortunately it may just be a case of patience while everyone works to get fit again.

The positives at the moment are:

- we finally signed a new right-back
- we finally signed a creative midfielder
- Riedewald is finally starting to look like the player we hoped he could be (so almost like a new signing in itself)
- based on preseason Wilf looks like he's ready to put last season behind him and get back to terrorising defences

I'm sure there are other positives too. I'm feeling mush better about this season than I did last summer and if we could just sign one more creative player or a striker then I would be happy.

I find this quite funny as I watched every pre-season game and thought we looked okay in patches but overall my opinion would be that we were poor. All our opposition was sh1t, they often played trialists and fringe players. However, we struggled to break them down, got caught up in arguments and basically failed to turn up as a squad. We should have steam rollered the teams we played but we ended up making us and them look around League One standard, which, in all fairness was what the other teams all were. We don't look like a Premier League side. We look unfit, slow, unable to pass, unable to press, unable to counter, unable to defend set-pieces, unable to deliver set pieces, unable to decide on the positions of players even. And we did our usual missing the simplest of chances by over-elaborating or taking the opposite of the correct choice.
The biggest thing for me, however, and you can all see it, is our lack of team ethic and determination. There are a couple of players who bust their balls - Ayew the prime example. But there are plenty waving arms or jogging around. Our lack of movement makes plate tectonics look like jet propulsion. It was only a few years ago that I thought we could win games by sheer bloody-mindedness, not anymore.
The only reason we won't go down, will be the other total dross that's around.
Three worse teams.

Red and Blue Army!

Until Brondby our defence had barely anything to do all preseason, so it is hard to judge although they did look stretched by Brondby's range of passing, which was a bit worrying. In the midfield, as I said, Riedewald has shone and he hit a few great passes yesterday which put Ayew and Wilf on their way. Schlupp always looks like he's jogging back from the pub and McArthur had a poor game, followed by Luka who lacks match sharpness. Andros is looking pretty average preseason. I'll say it again though, Wilf is looking like the player that can win a game on his own again, which if Eze is back quickly bodes well, especially with the work ethic of Ayew. As Bright said though, preseason often seems to give little indication of how things will go once the season kicks off.

We're unlikely to be top 8, but I disagree about how we're shaping up and I think we could crack the top 10 if we can just make one or two more quality signings. I didn't see any arguing or petulance during the games and we did play some good stuff at times, albeit still lacking in goals. Schlupp should have had at least two, Meyer somehow fired straight at the keeper and Ayew seemingly did everything right before clipping it just wide. That was a world away from last season when we were creating very little. Whether this will translate to the PL time will only tell.