Well, a few wins will be required in April too.

We only lost 3 games in 2007/08, but the spate of draws we accumulated in the immediate aftermath of Eduardo's injury at Birmingham properly killed us.

    RocktheCasbah that's the bonus in not relying on a single goal scorer like we were with Adebayor though. Our 3 top scorers are all evenly distributed, and we've got 3 more now coming into the side in Jesus, Trossard and ESR who all have decent goal scoring pedigree too.

        goon Oh, absolutely - no arguments there. I was just making the (obvious) point that it's not enough to not lose our games in April. With 18 points for grabs, if we could somehow manage to take all 18, we would be almost home and hosed. 6 draws and the world will look very different indeed.

          QuincyAbeyie bloody Aliadiere! Thanks for the reminder, he scored the opening goal for Boro in a 1-1 draw at our place too...

            5 days later

            ā€œHonestly, I love him. Iā€™d just love it if he was my child,ā€ Luke Shaw said during Euro 2020 ā€” and somehow it didnā€™t sound weird.

            šŸ˜‚ It is weird, but I think I said "If I had a daughter, I'd like him to marry her" the other day so I've got your back this once, Luke.

            9 days later

            Nice round-up from The Athletic about how Saka is world class, at what stage of his career a gaggle of sports writers figured that out with some good little memories, and about how he's England's favourite son.

            https://archive.md/PEIvP

              no issue with the salary being bandied about. it will probably seem like a bargain in a couple of years.

              im finally seeing rival supporters accept that the hype is real (apart from the mancs, who are salty that hes better than their wingers and getting picked for england ahead of them). his talent was always more subtle than the typical English wide player. he the feel for space and time between the lines of an attackind mid, but also can morph into one of the most dangerous one-on-one dribbling wingers around. add his physical robustness and workrate, and his skillset puts him well ahead of guys like grealish, rashford and sancho

                the salary mentioned includes bonuses. Typical journos trying to inflate stuff.

                Anything like Ā£250,000 per week plus performance clauses would be ideal for Saka at this stage, it'd constrain our wage bill if anything.

                Quite hard for an incoming star to say he should earn more than Saka, and his influence is clearly beyond that of some in the squad as it stands who would want similar money. Be good too if he could sign this right as he is anointed "world class" by the press.

                We've certainly paid worse players more to do less than Saka likely will on these sorts of terms.

                Qwiss He deserves it since he's the best player at the club.

                    Gazza M his talent was always more subtle than the typical English wide player. he the feel for space and time between the lines of an attackind mid, but also can morph into one of the most dangerous one-on-one dribbling wingers around. add his physical robustness and workrate, and his skillset puts him well ahead of guys like grealish, rashford and sancho

                    This is all true. Plus Saka's highly tactically sophisticated, and along with Ƙdegaard has been the main player responsible for patiently picking apart packed defences for us all season.

                    Could become our best since Henry if he were to find one more level over the course of his next contract. And he could be holding up the league trophy in a few weeks at 21. What a player.

                      Need to offer a competitive salary and when you see what the top wide players in the world are on.

                      His salary is probably like Ā£200k + bonuses. Hopefully we structure our contracts like that, keep the base as low as can and then heavily incentivise it.