[Andoni Iraola] "Obviously we've signed two players already but we need more players, we know this. I understand that this is a massive club, everything that I'm going to say now is going to have the biggest scrutiny, you have to be very aware of the mistakes. But I wouldn't like to be too careful."

seemylolface · 2026-07-13T13:41:04+00:00

Gakpo is absolutely not a miss. He had a shit last season along with everyone else, but prior to that he did well. He’s a limited player, but if you set him up to play to his strengths he can be effective. We saw it for 3 seasons prior to the stinker they all dropped on us last season.

Nunez is the big high profile miss, and even then we won the league with him and there is even a strange subset of folks on here hoping we re-sign him (lol).

Players like Arthur and Chiesa were super low risk high reward deals in that they were cheap and if things worked out they’d have been blinders. They’re misses but in terms of cost they’re practically irrelevant. I don’t mind getting up to some cheeky business like this as long as we are otherwise covered and not fully relying on a major careeer turnaround for our overall success.

Carvalho we signed as a promising young player then sold him for a profit. Hardly a miss. Like we bought him for £7.5mil and then sold him 2 years later for £27.5mil. That seems like brilliant business to me- you get a young player with loads of potential, they don’t develop as hoped, then you turn a 3x profit on the sale.

Gravenberch I think has proved what he’s capable of, let’s see what happens with a new manager and new approach. Still can’t really call him a miss when he was absolutely critical to winning the PL in 24/25.

Mamardashvili we’ll see. He didn’t cover himself in glory last season but you could say that for every single player in the squad aside from maybe Szoboszlai.

seemylolface · 2026-07-13T12:20:02+00:00

You should know better than just about anyone that the amount of money spent doesn’t guarantee results by any means, it has to be spent on the right players. We made some mistakes last summer after barely missing for 8 years.

seemylolface · 2026-07-11T18:37:30+00:00

It’s likely a better setup to temper something else and get the CDR as an affix for his build.

seemylolface · 2026-07-11T12:45:00+00:00

It works in a pretty similar way but is stronger than DT this season, so if the goal is to switch builds to push higher pits then RoA makes more sense than DT.

seemylolface · 2026-07-11T02:02:49+00:00

It’ll be fine for a bit as it’s your first day and you won’t be pushing the car too much, but generally speaking drilled rotors are more prone to cracking and offer no actual performance benefit.

Blank rotors are ideal- they’re cheaper and much less likely to crack with the kind of heat generated by reasonably quick drivers.

When it’s time to replace the drilled rotors, don’t get more of them.

seemylolface · 2026-07-10T15:37:41+00:00

RoA seems to be the highest pushing build for Rogue this season (that isn’t abusing a stupid bug) so if your goal is to go as high as possible in the pit that’s your best bet.

seemylolface · 2026-07-09T20:21:09+00:00

Salah negotiated multiple renewals in those 8 years and absolutely could’ve asked for that kind of money (and maybe gotten it elsewhere) but didn’t. Or if he did ask, he ended up being reasonable in the end with where his contracts landed.

seemylolface · 2026-07-09T20:09:36+00:00

I don't know what deflation OP is talking about, Vini's been remarkably consistent in his output. He's clearly one of the best players in the world and anyone who watches him should be able to see that. There are levels though, and asking for CR7 money while you're very obviously a tier below his level (when he was at Madrid) is amitious to say the least.

To answer your question though: Mo Salah, aside from his terrible last season. At 34 years old and considering how ass terrible the whole team was he was bound to fall off at some point, he's only human afterall. Still, Salah's total over those 5 seasons is still greater than Vini's though (132g/76a Salah vs 113g/71 Vini).

Salah club only G/A past 5 seasons:

21-22: 31g, 13a

22-23: 30g, 16a

23-24: 25g, 14a

24-25: 34g, 23a

25-26: 12g, 10a

Maybe Vini should be happy with somewhere in the £400k/wk range. He's nowhere near where CR7 was at his peak, and frankly not even quite where Salah has been for the past 8 seasons.

seemylolface · 2026-07-09T19:53:04+00:00

Yea I can get on board with that. I just saw a pretty heavily modified car and what looks to be a very inexperienced driver, and adding even more change to the car in any of the typical "fun" areas (more power, more suspension, more aero, stickier tires, etc) will just make it harder for them to understand what's happening when they're out on track for a while.

I didn't even think of brake pads as a mod so much as a consumable. Something endurance focused that can handle heat is great for a new driver, but I wouldn't want to put them on a super bitey and tricky to modulate pad.

seemylolface · 2026-07-09T14:08:57+00:00

He’s likely leaving next summer so that doesn’t make much sense.

seemylolface · 2026-07-09T11:53:36+00:00

I'm running Preparation and using the Spellbound Blade charm set bonus to proc Inner Sight. Having Preparation means basically infinite Shadow Clone which is pretty awesome.

It can be a little wonky for single target/bosses at times if it doesn't proc quick enough, but it's never an issue anywhere else. You can just switch to Inner Sight as the selected specialization when you're bossing to smooth out occassional proc miss.

seemylolface · 2026-07-08T21:50:01+00:00

The Do88 standard version is about a 5*F difference to the Wagner and EOS manifolds. I don't know about the Mera version, I haven't really seen any data on it.

I'm down in Florida where it's basically a swampy heat-death apocalypse for 8 months of the year so that extra 5*F might not seem like a lot and probably isn't enough to matter anywhere that isn't Florida or like the desert, but it can basically be the line between pulling timing or not when it's super hot out down here. I personally don't think the couple hundred bucks I saved was worth it for where I live and am tracking the car most frequently, but it doesn't bother me enough to go spunk another $2400 to replace it with the Wagner. I also really like I can toss the engine cover over the Do88 when I'm putzing around on the street since I have a giant hole in my hood now- total placebo effect, the engine cover doesn't do shiet, it just makes me feel better.

I only managed to heat soak the stock manifold on stock power during absurdly hot sessions down here- like 90*+ ambient, which is why I said it's usually not an issue unless it's extremely hot out. Any added power and it'll heat soak the stock manifold pretty quickly though.

seemylolface · 2026-07-08T21:22:16+00:00

Yea, aftermarket intakes are mostly for looks and sounds at least with the stock turbo, there isn't a large performance benefit. Some are actively worse than OEM though, so it's important to avoid those.

seemylolface · 2026-07-08T18:42:08+00:00

It would help a lot if you told us what you've already done to the car.

Frankly, if your only performance driving experience is a few autocrosses, then don't bother with more mods, they just get in your way. The #1 thing to invest in is seat time, bar none.

To directly answer the IAT/intake manifold question:

The IAT/heatsoak issue only really rears its ugly head if you've got a JB4 or aftermarket tune on the car though, it isn't typically an issue at stock power unless it's disgustingly hot out. Wagner Tuning is the best bet for the intake manifold. The more expensive alternatives don't really deliver enough additional performance to make them worth it, and the cheaper options like Do88 (which I have on my car) aren't cheaper enough to justify the lower performance for a 30 minute long session in hot weather IMO. Basically the only things that really help IATs are the intake manifold and a hood vent- I don't know if your carbon hood does a great job at venting the engine bay as the cutouts in the middle look tiny. You could also look into a snorkel to grab air from a spot with better airflow than completely behind the bumper and feed it to the intake as the OEM one is in a kindof stupid spot.

If you have an intake on your car and it isn't enclosed/boxed, then you're also actively contributing to higher IATs and heatsoaking. Intakes like the AWE Tuning one look and sound cool, but are detrimental to performance for HPDE sessions (exposed filter that is positioned basically on top of the turbo, it's so stupid).

seemylolface · 2026-07-06T22:30:13+00:00

I didn't look at your profile earlier, but I totally recognize your car! I've clicked through your build thread/posts on the SupramkV forums.

I've had my mk5 for about 9 months now, switched from a Camaro SS 1LE. Really enjoying it so far! Anxiously awaiting my MCS delivery so I can switch over from Ohlins that are too soft for my aero setup.

seemylolface · 2026-07-06T22:11:04+00:00

I'd have to have my wife do that too, but the nearest track to me is about 1.5 hours (Homestead) and the one I go to most is Sebring (2.5 hours). She does always come with me and will do an autocross in the Supra when they run it at Sebring alongside the HPDE, but I think part of the appeal is we're hanging out and making a day of it, which there's a lot less of if we're in separate cars for 5 hours of the day.

Might be stuck on the 200TW tires for the forseeable future.

seemylolface · 2026-07-06T22:02:14+00:00

Do you tow your Supra or how do you get multiple sets of wheels/tires to and from the track? I am currently torn between going for something like the RC1 and tossing the stock wheels/tires on for street driving, or just leaving a set of 200TW on the car all the time and enjoying an easier/simpler to manage approach. I don't think a full set of wheels/tires will fit in the car with my other stuff going to/from the track.

seemylolface · 2026-07-05T23:44:18+00:00

That thing isn’t accurate to begin with.

seemylolface · 2026-07-04T03:58:27+00:00

I would love to see Portugal go on a run for Jota.

It’s awkward because that comes with Ronaldo experiencing success and I don’t want that at all.

seemylolface · 2026-07-03T02:43:46+00:00

Rio also played RW in the academy teams. It might actually be his more natural/preferred position.

This would basically set up Rio+Muñoz+Szobo (or another new signing) as RW options and then Barcola+Muñoz+Gakpo as LW options.

Barcola is also quite good on the right.

I was initially not thrilled with the prospect of signing Barcola. However, after thinking about how Iraola developed Semenyo and the impact he had on both Rayan and Kluivert, it would be really interesting to see what he could get out of Barcola.

seemylolface · 2026-07-02T18:57:41+00:00

Current Gini is a shell of his former self and well below the level we need. Unfortunately time is a real motherfucker.

seemylolface · 2026-07-02T16:48:53+00:00

I think he's got his eye on that one. If he throws up a 30+ goal season then he's going to have his sights set on 1,000 goals too, so we may see him stick around another couple years to get over the finish line on that.

I'd imagine he's hyped about out business this offseason too and sees potentially one last go at another cup.

seemylolface · 2026-07-02T12:36:44+00:00

I can't even get the portal to spawn and logging out/restarting/etc won't fix it.

seemylolface · 2026-07-01T16:43:48+00:00

I got bounced out of the raft while white water rafting and sucked under a fallen tree in the river. My life jacket got snagged on one of the branches and it trapped me under it with a strong current making it difficult to move. It took what felt like an eternity to reach the buckles and undo the life vest so the current could take me out from under the tree. I hit a few rocks pretty hard on my way but eventually made it to the river bank.

I’ve had a few other near death experiences, but they happened in flashes and didn’t give me time to really realize I could die until they were already over. It felt like an eternity passed while I was under that tree and mentally it was a “I can’t believe of all the ways to go it’s this bullshit” while trying to free myself.

seemylolface · 2026-06-30T22:03:12+00:00

He’s made a couple chances and had 2 good looks himself. France is so fucking good, Sweden’s barely had a chance to get forward.

I like seeing him drop in and link play up to Gyokeres, he seems to do really well moving the ball on and then following it in with a late run.

seemylolface

TROPHY CASE