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He’s actually a perfect wing back rather than a traditional left back.

What’s wrong with saying 11 defeats in 18 is a poor return? It’s a fact - got nothing to do with us finishing 4th - in those 11 defeats, which matches can we say we were unlucky not to get anything?

If there's one thing I know for certain, it's that we are not controlling any games with Longstaff playing the way he has been in midfield. Especially when we also have had to use the inexperienced Anderson/Miley in there so much too. Apparently this is surprising to some people though. And they think some revolutionary tactic should sort it out. The truth is though, most other managers would most likely have us looking far worse than we have with these options.

Talking about defending - my gripe with him is he’s not a defender but a midfielder that was moved to left back. He looks so much better going forward yet so much this season we’ve played longstaff week in week out whilst hall is sat on the bench. Surely he could have been given a chance.

Would be really interested to see how that looked. Did he find he couldn't do the drills? Was he not fit enough? Did he not look interested or concentrate enough?

Because there will be games scheduled on the 27th and 28th, no doubt. The 29th is a Thursday.

It sounds quite a Gordon-esque arc. I’m hoping Hall, Tino, Barnes and Sandro all have an uninterrupted pre-season with Eddie and get into the structure, fitness and pace he demands.

Think I’ve given up on this now after last night. Can only see another poor away performance at the weekend. Our only hope is Brighton do something but I wouldn’t put it past that jammy as fuck Man Utd team to get a point and finish above us yet again. It might be good for us to focus on the league next season but we need to establish ourselves as a regular team in Europe from now on. This is the last season where it’s acceptable to not qualify for anything if it ends up that way.

Hard to control games with no consistency and a third string back five

Somebody posted yesterday evening how we don’t seem to control games any more and to me it feels like we have moved from a team that could score and hold on to a 1-0 comfortably to getting pulled in to games of end to end football on a constant basis. We have suffered badly with injuries but it is our away form that has hurt us and will continue to hurt us unless we can dictate the play and tempo better.

See you soon king

Europa League gone now - no way Chelsea aren’t getting at least a point at home to Bournemouth

He's past his use by date for us, i think if we can get any sort of fee for him we can move him on.

Again, he’s admitted himself in an interview he wasn’t training well enough/struggling in training.

I mentioned earlier that we get affected in the big moments at OT regardless of the quality of the 2 sets of players. I was fully expecting Isak to turn back inside, Amrabat was fully committed to Isak shooting. Isak doesn’t shoot if that’d been Amrabat playing for say Forest at The City Ground. It has to stop; I’m even more annoyed at losing this morning.

At one point last night it felt like Bruno and Hall were the only ones on the same wavelength footballing wise. For a 19 year old he doesn't look like he knows how to give the ball away, or at least he's heading in the direction which suggests he's going to be that "press proof" type. His passing, shooting, crossing technique is outstanding. He's nowhere near polished defensively, positionally etc but I'm already at the stage where I can take that.. to an extent, because of what his all around game gives to the rest of the team... and of course he can improve on the job. I hope Howe and his team do everything on their power to convince Hall of the sacrifices he needs to make, that's my only worry. He seems quite a relaxed character, who perhaps doesn't like the hard side of training. Not a critique, just different. If he can go into this summer with the same attitude Gordon had last season, he could be in the England team by next season.

Our midfield is also a core part of the problem and with Tonali, Willock and Big Joe fit we would have so much more energy and drive in the group. The three lads we are left with look exhausted (longstaff always does) and at the moment they are neither supporting defence or attack

He still not been online, then? Sensible. Sensible.

The simple fact is we have to kick on. This season has been a write off but it didn’t need to be. Performances against Palace, Brighton and Man Utd haven’t been good enough. We got away with it against Fulham as well. First half against Sheffield United too. It’s been piss poor for weeks and if it continues into next season Howe is in trouble. I love the man but this can’t continue, it’s not even about us fans it’s the owners who won’t accept it.

It's unacceptable in your view because of your arrogance. You think we have a right to get a result in these games just because we came 4th last season. This isn't a video game. You can keep dismissing the injury situation all you want, but at the end of the day, most of this season we've ended up playing Bruno in midfield (the most impactful part of the pitch) with some combination from Longstaff, Anderson and Miley. And you really think this is no big deal and 'tactics' can simply sort this out, so we can go to these away games and just beat these teams, because it's just that easy, and everyone else is doing it. It's this kind of thinking that means I cannot take you guys that 'keep it real' seriously.

1, he won’t improve. 2, history of dislocated shoulders. 3, poor with his feet.

Just watched the goals back, he should be doing better for goal two and definitely for goal three. Any decent championship keeper wouldn’t be letting in goal three, but he’s definitely got a problem with those low shots to his right.

If it was the other way around, they would use all the time in the world to find the foul, not just check that casemiro got the ball

Why shift Pope? He’d more than good enough for a few more years. Dubs on the other hand… I have my doubts….

We came back after Howe’s first pre season with a completely different style of play. I’m confident after this upcoming one we will come back again a better side and sort out the away issues.