Zero

compensation

So he isn’t a striker and, already scored 9 goals just 4 months after joining a new team? Wow, WTH

1. Nick looks a lot sharper and quicker now, which is nice to see. He doesn’t need to panic - just continue to train, build up his fitness and understanding with his teammates. He has a crucial summer coming up. 2. He can now closely observe and learn from Wissa. Just like what the above said, there were two excellent runs by Nick near the end of the game which weren’t picked up by his teammates. It’s also a sign that Nick is starting to “get it”. Nick is a special talent. I think he has the potential to be a genuinely complete modern striker. Give him time.

Quite a lot tbh

It really depends on your POV as a fan or as a management analyst. I perfectly understand why fans want the club to always take the best shot to challenge trophies. Just a simple question: why not? It’s FOOTBALL. on the other hand, in another perspective, especially in financial budgeting, there is another simple question: would you take assumptions that the club can win the league / cup and include the additional money earned? Of course not. It’s BUSINESS. Once you got the equation wrong you would have a disastrous period upcoming. The Anderson case. We should all know this. You both are talking sense imo. It’s just the original position taken that raise the argument.

I said before - he wanted to sell Joe that January before renewing the contract, which was banned by Howe / Staveley. And after he started the garden leave, NONE in the club act in that January to balance the book and hence the summer crisis. It’s perfectly fine to keep Joe since he won us the cup. The gamble paid off. That doesn’t mean Ashworth didn’t know how to play the PSR game.

I know a lot of people here dislike the old rat Ashworth but imo he is the only one that is playing the PSR game correctly

Ironically it’s exactly the league cup form that makes me wonder if Eddie is in fact more suitable to cup games rather than league games.

people thought we can buy a much better winger (no matter right or left) with that amount of money and make us stronger. I don’t agree with that btw. Look at Mbeumo and Semenyo where we have no chance to get, and the one (Elanga) we just bought….

Because his left foot has no striking power and he doesn’t have the cut-in option when playing at the right hand side, thus make his opponent a lot easier to contain him. Did you ever think about the possibilities that he even can’t knock and run when playing at the right?

The reason why Gordon has to play on the left is rather simple: Gordon is the only player in our club that can dribble past opponent and carry the ball to the final third. And unfortunately he can only do this on the left side where he has option to cut in.

I don’t think Gordon was that bad last night. May be that’s because I am comparing with his performance earlier.

I think that’s a very acceptable performance considering our away form.

The problem is if we are intended to change our style, then why buy Elanga and Ramsay last summer? Elanga is a pure press machine, who simply can’t play other style of football.

I do think this is not his best performance. Probably below average as well, but that’s already good enough to be our best player today.

I hope there’s no more Ramsdale over Pope shite here.

Right and left back is top priority imo. Howe needs at least one side back who is decent in attack. Hall is our only lifeline atm.

Surely we won’t throw this away right?

I think another attacking mind RB would be much more useful than a back up ST at this moment.

No matter what, unless we drop to the relegation zone, no way we should change the manager before the end of the season. I even can’t name one manager that is available and could be better than Howe at this moment

Success for me.

Strange quote. If home and away is not an issue then why we always played like begging for a draw for those away games?

What concerns me most is the Elanga deal. I mean, I can accept that recruitment is not Howe’s primary responsibility but I can’t accept the fact that Howe doesn’t know how to bring out the best of him. This is his top target since the 2024 summer. Elanga is also exactly the type of player that fit Howe’s requirements. I admit I got it totally wrong back in May when I said this is a certain success. in contrast, I also think Howe did exceptionally well re fitting in Nick, a player that does not fit Howe’s original requirement for a ST. which leads to my question: does Howe really know what players he (or the team) really need?

We need a win. I can’t imagine what would here be like if we lose this. Simply the beginning of WW3.

He deserves a full season to turn it around. That’s it. No one including himself would complain about being sacked if it’s still like that next June