The College Dropout

Btw I think we finished 10th to qualify for the Fairs Cup... which obviously some kind of pre-intertoto cup.

Aye it's the reworded intertoto. Not worth our time because we are perennial winners of major trophies.

AYe,

Summer overhaul never made any sense anyway. If the key problem is injuries - then we pad out what we have with quality.

I wouldn't. Winning the Conference League is an additional £20m in revenue (prize money & gates), bump in UEFA co-efficient, proves Howe can manage a European campaign and you know... would represent our biggest chance of winning silverware in my lifetime most likely. There's no feel-good factor finishing 9th-10th. The media will be running stories that he should be sacked.

Agreed. But if there's strong doubts. Let's leave them out.

I'm saying if we have nothing to play for. There's no need to rush lads back.

If it’s the injury from last year has he been playing with injections for a year?

Longstaff carrying the but playing every single minute is the only thing I don’t understand. Starting and going 70 sure. But 90 minutes game in game out. Ok man.

Im Not sure Howe views Hall as a serviceable player. And if he does I don’t think he views Hall as a CM option at all.

It’s understandable in Howe land where you must play 3 in midfield and if you can run - you should play. But genuinely - I can see where he’s coming from. Even if I disagree with it.

How big is that lead from Italy in real terms? They've got nowt in the CL but 2 in the Europa. 1 in Conference. I fancy Liverpool and Villa wining their comps to be the difference maker. West Ham going super deep would be tremendous too. Arsenal and City can gtfo the CL asap.

It's lazy. But hiring people is often about relationships.

Glad he's confirmed he's been playing with pain. He's never been the best. But he's been super bad recently and many of us expected something was at play and now Howe has confirmed.

Agreed. He doesn't even offer top-level athleticism either. I agree. But I can't see it happening. I think £10m is more realistic. I'd take that. In the Hull-Bruce, Stoke-Pulis, Wigan-Jewell era aye. But most Championship teams coming up try to play proper football and want footballers in their side. Like - he could go to a Luton but they would offer half what you're suggesting and think he'd be good value in the Champ. With everything we've seen this season, are you genuinely puzzled?

The end of April at that. Any issues and it's next season. I imagine Joelinton will be on similar timelines. Might be for the best if we are cut off the European race and out the FA Cup.

We cursed him when we were talking about "well at least he can stay fit".

When I think about an international squad, I always think about potential pen takers. We have: Kane Palmer Toney Saka -- al main PK takers fro their club. Gordon Foden Maguire (? seem to remember him scoring a few) Maddison Rashford All pretty lethal from the spot. Although I feel like Rashford takes the same penalty every time. He opens his body so wide to indicate he's going to his right, then he turns his foot sharply to aim for that unstoppable bottom left corner.

I agree with this. Also - that season West Ham was in the running for CL up until Jan/Feb iirc. Whenever the Europa got serious fell off but as you say, the top half was weak so it didn't really matter. Going out of Europe makes Brighton more competitive in the race for 7th. They don't have the squad for a deep European run. I'm not so worried for Spurs. You have the FFP headroom to get the 2-4 players you need to be able to better cope with CL football. It's just about Levy wanting to invest. A good run CL and some bad luck can reduce your points total 5-10 but that's always likely for how Levy runs the club/the finances. Similar to us, I thought if the top 6 got their act together, Villa do well and we fall off 5-10% due to injuries we could easily finish 8th or similar without much going wrong based on our squad. We've had bad injuries and a lot more has gone wrong than I expected so we've done even worse than I thought was likely. Still time to salvage it.

Howe saying they are targeting the end of April for Pope to return to first team action. Back on grass but "not necessarily diving". I assume he means - but not diving.

I like the Conference League. And yes any PL club in it has a great chance of winning it. For the likes of Villa and West Ham, it’s the only competition they are ever likely to be in where they will be favourites. Same for us - this decade at least. We’d have a bus parade if we won it. Of course it’s a serious cup.

Might have been super painful + swelling. I remember when Walcott did his ACL. He was smiling and joking as he went off the pitch (on a stretcher tbf but he was sitting up).

Think Cole was under rated. He’s much closer to shearer in the all time rankings when you exclude penalties. Pippo wasn’t an all rounder which is what I liked about him. Just a goal hanger.

That’s where the financial disparity is most stark. Below that elite level. I would assume Liverpool’s wage budget is 2x the size of the nearest non PL club remaining in the competition. West Ham would be top 4. Villa would be #1 by a crazy distance too.

Well aye but that was yonks ago. Simone Inzaghi did win a Serie A as a player and he’ll win Serie A as a manager. but as a player he wasn’t half the player Pippo was. They don’t make strikers like Pippo anymore.