Tosin OK but Raul?????

[Southcoastffc]

So it seems we're saying goodbye to Tosin but Raul Jiminez wasn't in the squad yesterday. Might he be off too? I recall a rumour a few weeks ago that he's interested in returning to Mexico.

[KentFulham]

Dont really see much point in keeping the following:

Raul
Broja
Tosin
Vini
Diop

We need to sign a decent striker with experience, likely Muniz will be number 2, but I would like to see more often 2 strikers on the pitch, with Stansfield coming back as the squad player.

Diop again yesterday showed why he is not for this team, guy just goes backwards and looks like bambi on ice most of the time. Bring in a decent CB to partner Bassey.

Vini/Raul - Cant cut it in the Prem, time to offload

[Willham]

Dont really see much point in keeping the following:

Raul
Broja
Tosin
Vini
Diop

We need to sign a decent striker with experience, likely Muniz will be number 2, but I would like to see more often 2 strikers on the pitch, with Stansfield coming back as the squad player.

Diop again yesterday showed why he is not for this team, guy just goes backwards and looks like bambi on ice most of the time. Bring in a decent CB to partner Bassey.

Vini/Raul - Cant cut it in the Prem, time to offload

Kind of agree with this, Diop could be kept as back up as ream is better cover for bassey, I'd like us to find an assured cover defender along with bassey, bassey is strong and likes to step forward and engage, hangeland and Hughes was like this, hangeland would step forward and engage and Hughes picked up anything that got past, I feel bassey and Hughes would be similar.

[Bill2]

Thought Broja did well with the short time he was on. While not saying anything bad about Muniz it would be interesting to see him.

[Deeping_white]

Dont really see much point in keeping the following:

Raul
Broja
Tosin
Vini
Diop

We need to sign a decent striker with experience, likely Muniz will be number 2, but I would like to see more often 2 strikers on the pitch, with Stansfield coming back as the squad player.

Diop again yesterday showed why he is not for this team, guy just goes backwards and looks like bambi on ice most of the time. Bring in a decent CB to partner Bassey.

Vini/Raul - Cant cut it in the Prem, time to offload

So having seen Muniz score 9 goals since Feb you'd want to demote him to being second choice? Realistically to find someone better than him it's gong to cost £20m+ which is a waste of money.

Also don't get the bashing of Diop, if you'd watched yesterdays game it was clear that Palace went with a deliberately aggressive press and the defence had nobody to pass to since Reed and Pereira spent more time hiding behind palace players than showing for the ball so there was never an option other than to recycle across the back line. Diop is a good PL defender, yes his passing isn't brilliant but as a pure defender he's more than competent at this level

[Angus Telford]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season, so he's clearly PL quality. With Tosin leaving and Ream another year older, it would be absolute madness not to keep hold of Diop.

[Somerset Fulham]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season, so he's clearly PL quality. With Tosin leaving and Ream another year older, it would be absolute madness not to keep hold of Diop.

It would be very difficult to find a reason to disagree with this, even if I wanted to.

Which I don't.

[Lighthouse]

I don't know about Raul. If he goes then we need a replacement. But is Broja a too expensive possibility as he wouldn't be first choice. Will we need to look elsewhere.

Diop has to be a part of the set up with Tosin off. If there is a better choice out there then fine. However at the moment Diop and Bassey make a good partnership. A more than in form Palace found holes in our defence but in the end needed a spectacular last minute goal which was more done to odd subs timing than anything else.

After last season feeling we were progressing to then have the fiasco of the Mitro saga. It is hard to work out what will be needed. Improvement in depth and replacing players that will be off.

[hovewhite]

Not sure About replacing Diop he's a solid defender,so he makes the occasional mistake,but the last handful of games Tosin has made a few.
As for who comes in would like a back up striker a RCB an midfield enforcer and a
Creative midfielder.and a left and right back cover.

[copthornemike]

Apparently we are one of the top 8 sides for clean sheets this season(includes Everton surprisingly as well) in the EPL.
Says something about our defence overall.
Silva mentioned that one reason for Diop not being in some recent match day squads was his religious fasting!
Also some rustiness could be anticipated after not playing for some time.

[Chi_FFC]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season

To be more precise, our goalkeeping was better last season. A lot better. If you dig into the stats, you'll see that the defense in front of the keeper this season has actually been better than last. We've allowed fewer shots on target per match this season and the shots that we've allowed have been of lower quality (and the numbers are even better when we've deployed our best back four, Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

And to be fair to him, Leno hasn't been poor this season, it's just that he was absolutely outstanding last year (one of the two best keepers in the league). Sometimes I think folks don't appreciate just how good he was and how he papered over some real issues with our defense (in particular, I thought our CB play was one of our biggest weaknesses last season).

[WindyCity]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season, so he's clearly PL quality. With Tosin leaving and Ream another year older, it would be absolute madness not to keep hold of Diop.

Agreed!!

[WindyCity]

I like Jimenez, and his comeback story is a great one.  But I just don't think he ever really figured in as a FFC contributor.  If he is gone, I don't really see that as problematic.  The fringe player I hope we retain is Traore.  Hasn't really been given much of a run out, and the few cameos he's been given he looked good.  I can see Jimenez, Willian, Adarabioyo, Ballo-Toure, Ream, Palhinha, and possibly Tete and Robinson all being gone for next season.  Huge challenge this summer to keep FFC competitive in this league.  Personally, I hope we can retain Traore, Diop, Tete, and, of course, Palhinha and Robinson.  Players like Reed, BDR and even Cairney are getting a bit long in the tooth and could be areas to upgrade?

[Angus Telford]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season

To be more precise, our goalkeeping was better last season. A lot better. If you dig into the stats, you'll see that the defense in front of the keeper this season has actually been better than last. We've allowed fewer shots on target per match this season and the shots that we've allowed have been of lower quality (and the numbers are even better when we've deployed our best back four, Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

And to be fair to him, Leno hasn't been poor this season, it's just that he was absolutely outstanding last year (one of the two best keepers in the league). Sometimes I think folks don't appreciate just how good he was and how he papered over some real issues with our defense (in particular, I thought our CB play was one of our biggest weaknesses last season).

A fair point, although just glancing at xGA stats it looks like we conceded 71 xGA last season and are on course to concede 66 xGA over 38 games this year, the difference is marginal, and you also can factor in defenders' influence on that stat (not every shot that doesn't go it is saved by Leno; some will have been blocked by defenders or missed because a defender is putting the attacker under pressure). So perhaps saying we were defensively better last year was an overstatement but I don't think you can say (with any confidence) that we were worse.

[Chi_FFC]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season

To be more precise, our goalkeeping was better last season. A lot better. If you dig into the stats, you'll see that the defense in front of the keeper this season has actually been better than last. We've allowed fewer shots on target per match this season and the shots that we've allowed have been of lower quality (and the numbers are even better when we've deployed our best back four, Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

And to be fair to him, Leno hasn't been poor this season, it's just that he was absolutely outstanding last year (one of the two best keepers in the league). Sometimes I think folks don't appreciate just how good he was and how he papered over some real issues with our defense (in particular, I thought our CB play was one of our biggest weaknesses last season).

A fair point, although just glancing at xGA stats it looks like we conceded 71 xGA last season and are on course to concede 66 xGA over 38 games this year, the difference is marginal

Couple that with the difference in SoTA (5.16 per match last season v 4.94 this) and PSxG (60.1 last season v. on pace for ~53.5) and yeah, I feel pretty comfortable saying the defense in front of Leno has been meaningfully better this season (and as I noted above, all those stats (SoTA, xGA and PSxG) were considerably better when we've deployed Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

[Angus Telford]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season

To be more precise, our goalkeeping was better last season. A lot better. If you dig into the stats, you'll see that the defense in front of the keeper this season has actually been better than last. We've allowed fewer shots on target per match this season and the shots that we've allowed have been of lower quality (and the numbers are even better when we've deployed our best back four, Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

And to be fair to him, Leno hasn't been poor this season, it's just that he was absolutely outstanding last year (one of the two best keepers in the league). Sometimes I think folks don't appreciate just how good he was and how he papered over some real issues with our defense (in particular, I thought our CB play was one of our biggest weaknesses last season).

A fair point, although just glancing at xGA stats it looks like we conceded 71 xGA last season and are on course to concede 66 xGA over 38 games this year, the difference is marginal

Couple that with the difference in SoTA (5.16 per match last season v 4.94 this) and PSxG (60.1 last season v. on pace for ~53.5) and yeah, I feel pretty comfortable saying the defense in front of Leno has been meaningfully better this season (and as I noted above, all those stats (SoTA, xGA and PSxG) were considerably better when we've deployed Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

Ok so on all those metrics you're talking about differences of 5-10% season-on-season and none of them are anywhere near 100% attributable to Leno, so i guess we disagree in our own respective interpretations of the expression "meaningfully better". I'll leave it at that.

[Chi_FFC]

Diop was a first choice CB last season and we were better then defensively than we have been this season

To be more precise, our goalkeeping was better last season. A lot better. If you dig into the stats, you'll see that the defense in front of the keeper this season has actually been better than last. We've allowed fewer shots on target per match this season and the shots that we've allowed have been of lower quality (and the numbers are even better when we've deployed our best back four, Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

And to be fair to him, Leno hasn't been poor this season, it's just that he was absolutely outstanding last year (one of the two best keepers in the league). Sometimes I think folks don't appreciate just how good he was and how he papered over some real issues with our defense (in particular, I thought our CB play was one of our biggest weaknesses last season).

A fair point, although just glancing at xGA stats it looks like we conceded 71 xGA last season and are on course to concede 66 xGA over 38 games this year, the difference is marginal

Couple that with the difference in SoTA (5.16 per match last season v 4.94 this) and PSxG (60.1 last season v. on pace for ~53.5) and yeah, I feel pretty comfortable saying the defense in front of Leno has been meaningfully better this season (and as I noted above, all those stats (SoTA, xGA and PSxG) were considerably better when we've deployed Castagne/Tosin/Bassey/Robinson).

Ok so on all those metrics you're talking about differences of 5-10% season-on-season and none of them are anywhere near 100% attributable to Leno, so i guess we disagree in our own respective interpretations of the expression "meaningfully better". I'll leave it at that.

re Leno, last season he allowed 9 fewer goals than expected based on the quality of shots he faced (only Allison was slightly better). This season, he's allowed ~2 goals more than expected. That's a huge difference. Again, the stats pretty clearly show the defense in front of the GK has been better this season while the goalkeeping has been quite a bit worse.   

[Angus Telford]

I acknowledged at the outset that Leno was better last season and that may well explain why we conceded less. I just don't think the xG variations etc are big enough, or accurate enough, to say the back 4 was worse. I mean, you could make an equally strong argument that the reason we conceded less last season was because Palhinha was better - which he clearly was - but then that completely blows the xG numbers into irrelevance.

[Chi_FFC]

I mean, you could make an equally strong argument that the reason we conceded less last season was because Palhinha was better - which he clearly was -

He was?? How do you figure???

[Thames Bank 1]

Add BDR to the list, against Liverpool and yesterday did not contribute at all