The College Dropout

But what is he? To me he’s just filler. He’s never going to be a cornerstone player for a top 8 club. Good rotation player in a few positions. Will give you 6/7 out of 10 with the odd 8. Emery and Howe have him just right. It’s just not worth the money we’ve paid.

Agreed. He’s a talented footballer. But he doesn’t do enough. For the money we needed an authoritative player. Ramsey is like Jermaine Jenas. Talented but a nothing player at the same time.

Aye. Let’s at least try and play some football. I thought this was the plan from the jump. 2 up top or one behind. And it’s basically never happened. Not only was it not the plan, it seems to not even be any type of plan b or c. He just spent £100m+ on strikers and wanted to rotate them. Thats insane. I thought he wanted to evolve the teams style a bit. Or he needed too. Nope. Not on the cards at all.

This is insightful thanks for sharing. A lot of the goals we are conceding are just down to not tracking runners, seemingly low effort from the team. Thats low confidence aye maybe tiredness but certainly a team that lacks motivation. Is it the same ideas and voice no longer working.

I’ve given Eddie a pass for the summer because no manager should have to do what he did at this level. But it does speak a lot to how he sees the game. I felt we were desperate for 2 technicians. We were over reliant on Bruno’s ability on the ball. tactically, coaching and with transfers he’s made zero progress on this. He doesn’t prioritise it at all. It’s turgid. The team has now stopped running for him. There’s nothing else to his tactical management.

He’d get shot of Woltemade on day one. Not a Mourinho player at all.

The sort of player Berbatov was - is a highly gifted technical player that played in a laid back manner. Without the highly gifted technical part - there’s just a laid back player.

He’s not near Berbatov’s level

I don’t think he’s lost them as if they’ve turned against him. But it’s difficult to get beat 7 something and play those ideas with full confidence week in week out again

They also finished 6th on 66 points when they were in the CL. Villa have a more even squad and are less dependent on ‘purples’ than us. They’ve been way more proactive than us in a number of ways off the pitch. Lots of wheeling and dealing in transfers and PSR hacks. Their owner actually wants to win and does what they can to make it happen.

There’s definite delayed decision making. As the point has been made - they don’t even know what they want to do with the stadium. Thats bad. Drift. Drift. Drift.

Awful news. Stay strong Elliot.

Villa have sold players on their own terms. Since Emery has joined they only star players sold have been Douglas Luiz and Duran. 1 was always going to implode and the other was effectively replaced. Under Klopp Liverpool only sold Coutinho against their will. Salah, Trent, VVD, Mane all stayed as long as Liverpool wanted. Palace, Brighton and Brentford are all midtable teams staying midtable. Now let’s look at Dortmund. Back to back Bundesliga - sold their best players - never won it again. Leicester - champions to European contenders to relegation. We’ve already sold Isak. Losing Tino, Sandro and Gordon in one summer would be so difficult to replace effectively. And the people tasked with replacing them are unproven.

These are mid table teams continuing to be mid table. Talk about CL teams that get raided. They fall back a level.

Most teams get worse when they sell their best players. I don’t k ow why people think otherwise

They are all the same level.

I’d be happy with anyone but Arsenal. I fancy PSG and Atletico to beat Arsenal more than Bayern so that’s who I want to progress. I think the weakness of the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 has become an advantage to Bayern/PSG. They get to April/May way fresher than PL even La Liga.

Ah. Then it's harsh. He throws the ball back rather than away. Ref was so card happy he didn't even take a second to think.

Martins, Bassong, Beye, Geremi, Owen, Ciduka were our best players. If we had a decent offer for Colo he would’ve gone. All we had left was players nobody else wanted enough. The same will be true for Spurs. You might have 2 or 3 that stay just because nobody else will pay their wage. I find it hard to believe a player like Archie Gray would stay if a top 8-10 club wants him.

In the prem that’s an easy yellow right? Yeh ref forgot. He turned away. For a long time they were the only team I liked that won anything. Not anymore Kane is 5x the player Woltemade is man.

Weird selection of players to hate. 2 of these are the best players in the world. Both Mbappe and Yamal were a pleasure to watch these past 2 nights. Im anti Barca but Yamal is so much fun to watch

Btw Jude needs to start for England.

Camavinga’s Real career is over. He’s regressed so much.

Late burn that one. Spotting to steal it at the death

Neuer is looking 40 years old.