The College Dropout

Maybe so. But we've built the squad pretty well. It has gaps but it has quality too. I think the management of the injuries (by management and medical staff, and a lack of nous around the Tonali transfer) is a big factor in our mess. I don't want to litigate it again but players have been run into the ground, brought back too early, overloaded, poorly assessed etc. I think we handled Joelinton terribly. He kept coming back, picking up injuries until he got a season ender. Isak & Wilson, Gordon, Schar have all played injured at points. Sometimes you make your own bad luck.

There are hard facts behind expectations. Our net spend is something like top 5 in Europe since the takeover. The squad cost is in the top 8 in the league. Our wage bill is top 8 in the league. It's not made up out of thin air. We are not a top team. That much is clear. But we've invested enough - smartly - to be a good team.

We don't man. We have a top 8-9 squad in the league. Not one that can handle European football mind. On ability alone we wouldn't swap squads with at least 11 in the division. Maybe 12 or 13.

Obviously different expectations.

Rather Villa went through. They will qualify for Europe regardless. Can’t have Chelsea taking a European spot.

IMO Saudi should host an invitational pre season tournament where entrants get £100m each. Could anyone stop that?

As far as I know there’s no fair market assessment for UEFA. But the PL aren’t discussing dropping that element. They are discussing the revenue to transfer/wages cost. So it would be worse x worse.

The Uefa cap is on revenue to transfer/wage activity. UEFA cap doesn’t stop your PSG or Newcastle’s. But it does stop your Aston Villa’s.

Aligning laws with UEFA does make sense. It's just that the UEFA laws are worse than the PLs.

2-4 at SJP to Luton is crazy in any era.

The lack of legs in midfield is a killer. But there's nowt he can do about that from a personnel perspective. Howe could try something different tactically to mitigate it... but he's not shifted shape in years.

Any Newcastle manager is going to get stick 2-4 down at home to Luton tbf.

Our setup is similar to that Ancelotti Milan side Pirlo Gattuso. Seedorf Pirlo is the deepest but he's not a DM. Gattuso & Seedorf were athletic and combative player that mitigated Pirlo's lack of athleticism. Similar happened at Juve with Pirlo, Marchiso, Vidal setup. Those teams played with a 10 and we don't but I think there are parallels.

Are they linked to a particular academy? They seem to have a particular hold on Ghana - CIV - Nigeria. They seem to pick up loads of those boys for pennies. They rarely lose money on the "flops" and the successes go for multipliers.

Agreed. There's no evidence for that being "the plan". When they played together, Bruno was the deepest CM, Tonali was RCM. Tonali's meant to be athletic and Bruno is not. It's fluid in the sense the player that is most often deepest (Bruno) has freedom to push forward, whether in the press or in possession. Someone is meant to fill in for him when that happens but this season that often hasn't been the case.

You need stadium and a productive academy to bridge the gap. With our Saudi links we can always get key sponsorships as big as the cartel will allow. We need semi regular CL football to justify higher sponsorships and that brings in mega bucks. If we can qualify for the CL at the end of next season we start to edge our way there. Fully fit I think our squad is v. strong. Enough to be in the top 5 conversation if we aren’t in the CL. We just need to land it. Not getting CL in one of those 2 Brendan Rodgers seasons done them in. If they had gotten both their history would be completely different. The game is setup for it to always be close for someone trying to break in. Top 5 does change that a bit.

Roman built a club that worked. And Boehly has destroyed it in 2 years.

This is the thing with Eddie. He acts after the fact. I didn’t watch the Villa game but you said he acted fast - it was still after we conceded a goal. He’s a - the same horses for all courses type manager. And he’s reactive with subs. I think we are close to Burn not being the main LB horse. I would like for Howe to pick players depending on opposition but that’s not his style.

Luton lost their nerve at 4-2 by trying to sit in and protect their lead. Like a boxer that thinks they just need to stay on their feet in the last 3 rounds to win. They got knocked down twice and reverted back to the attitude and tactics that got them the lead and they saw it out comfortably. Agter the Murphy chance we all hoped for an onslaught but it never came. Games like this with your Willock’s, Tonali’s, Isak’s, Joelinton we win. People made excuses for Luton. The tired excuse is gone and we had a few options off the bench. Also losing 1-0 away in the PL to a relegation battle team is bad but it happens. But conceding 4 goals at home to said team is crazy. I find this chat so interesting. For me this was a ‘chickens coming home to roost’ moment. Everything that happened has happened before or has looked like coming. IEdwards deserves a lot of credit. He played to our weaknesses and exploited us. They looked like landing a punch on us at will whenever they wanted.

Played some delicious passes yesterday.

Yes. Lots of pacey wingers give him serious trouble. He had many awful 45 minutes. Previously he would recover some after the break and I think a lot of that is down to protection from Willock and Joelinton who have great work rate and recovery pace. Without them holding his hand he’s badly exposed. It’s been a weakness for a long time. This season he’s getting targeted because it’s a known weakness but it did happen before. Same thing with the gap between defence and midfield. It was a weakness last season. It’s just being exploited more this season. Lots of us called this out at the time. The likes of you would try to shut it down. Some people wanted Ben upgraded for an offensive winger. But I’ve always wanted him upgraded so we can be better defensively. I like Burns profile as a LB he’s just too poor 1v1.

Would rather he didn’t play very much next season. He’s not ready imo. Needs to develop physically. When he’s 19/20 he’ll be ready for serious minutes.

We still need another passer in the team. All our passing is from Tripps, Schar and Bruno. Nobody else does anything penetrative or cute. We normally have at least 1 dribbley CM which we’ve missed

Throw in Joelinton, Willock and Tonali and we are a much stronger, faster, powerful and athletic team. A fit Joelinton and we win that game.

Agreed. He’s been here 2 years now and it feels like I know 99% of his moves. You can name his lineup 11/11 for any game. Doesn’t matter the opponent too much. If we are winning you can name the subs and the minutes. And you can bet your bottom dollar he won’t make a proactive sub if we are winning. There’s been many 45 minutes Burn hasn’t deserved to come out and played again but it’s happened so often under Howe that you actually expect him to be a little better after half time. But if he’s not better - he’s going to stay on until we’ve paid for it.