Meet the Manager #16 – Tarek Balbaa

Between Kun and Salah for me.

Mane is going to stake a better claim than some of the entries imo

quite like those salah odds to be honest especially with pens in his locker..also surprised that no mane in that list?

You’d have to think Salah is a good bet - penalties, nailed to bejayzus and playing in an attack pretty much as good as city’s

Rotation/injury to bite Kun
Carthorseness/injury/spursness to bite Kane
Salah to sail off into the sunset with the golden boot?

It will be Salah.

It'll go to the guy who'll play every minute bar injured in PL + On Pens + Selfish (+ dives nicely too 😛 )
King Mo !!

If I had a free bet on it, I would probably go for Auba as his odds seem quite attractive. He won (jointly I know) last year and with Pepe and Ceballos, Arsenal will potentially be more potent in attack. No CL to worry about so should get lots of PL minutes, but never know for sure with Emery.

If Lacazette has a long-term injury then Aubameyang for me.

Kane or Salah

Aguero if he stays fit. Salah if not.

If he stays fit all season, definitely Kane. He might not always look 100%, but he's a goal scorer and they all count. Can see him matching his 29 goals he managed the 2 seasons before last.

Everyone saying Salah. Nobody backing Sterling @ 6/1 ? I think this ear he is in with a good shout.

Vardy is the top scorer since Rodgers took over. By far the best value bet out of those imo.

Kane. Usually after the first international break Spurs improve. He's scored three in what is usually his worst month of the season. December to January are his most prolific months and the fixtures in those months are fairly good.

Kane, Vardy and Salah will battle it out until the end, with Sterling, Mané and Aubameyang a bit behind. My reasoning:

• Aguero will be injured/rotated
• For obvious reasons, Barnes and Pukki will not challenge for 25+ goals
• James - lol
• Abraham - Chelsea
• Haller- never been the main goalscorer for a team in a top league, wary of his ability to put through that many goals
• City will share goals too much for Sterling to win it
• Aubameyang isn't bad on the wrong but his goalscoring is not as prolific as through the middle, not expecting a crazy output from him
• Mané scored 18 non penalty goals last year, seeing as the Golden boot numbers will probably go back up to a more usual 25+ this year, can't see Mané improving last year's output enough.

•Kane, Vardy, and Salah all have penalties, they're all nailed and all their team's major source of goals
• Vardy is top scorer in the league since Rodgers joined
• Salah is Salah
• Once Spurs get their shite together, Kane will be a scoring beast again in all likelihood

Started with Perez and fell into a, hopefully temporary, Kane trap as well. Can't believe Barkley has already been a trap again Pogba will turn out to be one if he ever has a couple of good games and people jump on.

Penalty takers on basis of var

I don't think Tammy will be as much of a trap as you're predicting. He is our first choice striker now, but of course not at the Drogba levels.

I'm personally not jumping on him as he's still only scored against "Championship" sides (despite thinking he's on a mini-run right now), but also UCL as you say. You'd think Giroud etc may start the UCL games, but it's no guarantee; Tammy starting some games there could become a problem.

Having said that, if you have him now wouldn't drop of course.

Agree on Abraham and Perez. True, Lanzini doesn’t shoot enough, but has been playing really well since early pre season and is stationed behind Haller ( not on the wing as in the past)

Hurricane
Pepe
Rashford

Pukki - think he will regress to a one in three game striker

Pukki this season's Mitrovic 😉

Wan Bissaka- doesn’t really do attacking returns and Man Utd don’t keep clean sheets. Easy trap

I have Kun but I feel like he could be a very subtle trap, in that he does well enough that you're always fearful of selling him, but overall you end up with less points than if you had a cheaper striker and KDB instead of Kun, Salah, Sterling.

As a hammers fan I've got high hopes for lanzini this year. He was practical missing the entire last year due to injury, his first year was his first year and we had payet pulling the strings, second year payet's strop, bilic out and Moyes didn't help the team at all. Now he finds himself in a team of more attacking mids, a forward who likes to link play and assist others, a manger who encourages open attacking football, on free kicks and corners. He's 27 ish and just signed a bumper contract extension and been reintroduced to the Argentine squad. He's recapturing the form that made him a poor man's coutinho. If this ain't his breakthrough year, then it'll never happen.

id push the boat out and say Haller. See too much of Giroud in him so far in the games I've watched, standing outside the box and being the link up man. Only will get chances/goals if the ball goes wide and the full backs can get crosses in, and against decent sides they wont have the chance to push up.

The guy in the Racing Post tipped Firmino to win the Golden Boot last season. He cited a few reasons including his European form but of course it never near happened. I'm definitely not saying he's going to scoop it this season but he's started well and I can see him comfortably beating his previous best tally (15).

Man United players in general, Dunk, Pieters and Ayew.

I recall Morata looking enticing a couple of years ago, went through a brief barren period and then wasn’t nailed anymore. I can see this happening again

Lanzini and Tammy agree with those 2, not sure who else yet, maybe Mount as well.
God you can tell im a Spurs fan I guess

Got into the Wally trap, yeh

Lanzini won´t be a trap imo. But he is more like a steady point source, 5-6-7, than hauls imo. His injury record is not good, so taking it into consideration he could be after all

Perez, i think he wil have some purple patches so could be one to hang onto in those periods. But wait til late april perhaps?

Abraham wil be more clearer after CL, if that is Giroud, then he is PL starter, in a team that scores as heavily. No trap, but wait and see for that rotation i guess

Trap: triple City as usual, blanks galore incoming

I am not sure any cheap striker can be viewed as a trap? If they don’t score points you move them on. The only way they can become a trap is if you buy them after their purple patch of 4 or 5 goals, such as Pukki, Tammy, James etc and they never score again for a long time but you still hold them blindly.

I can’t really see that for the players mentioned above, but you never know.

I think the biggest trap are cheap OOP defenders that play in midfield or OOP mids that are playing up front - we buy and start them just because they are OOP, even though they are rubbish

Mitro certainly

Agree on Abraham. Both of his goals against Sheff Utd, for example, were completely down to woeful defensive mistakes. Without those, he might be considered 'struggling'.

Barkley Abraham perez james

Perez agree (and I fell for it). Lanzini is a bit unfair in that there's not a huge bandwagon just yet but I concur that there's too much creative firepower in the West Ham midfield (COYI !) to have it all come from him. Anderson is looking really good as well and we will see more of Pablo Fornals as he adjusts to the PL.

I think Wolves as a team are a trap - at least until they exit Europa League. They look great midweek and I think they'll do well there but then they are knackered by the weekend and looking just like Burnley and Everton and the other recent mid-table Europa League qualifiers who suffered poor Premier League seasons as a result. Sadly I fell for that trap too and wish I had more free transfers to get rid of Jota!

Ceballos for sure

Sigurdsson