The College Dropout

Longstaff's comments about training with the ball have haunted me ever since. Btw he said at Leeds they train a lot more with the ball than he has in his previous experience. A lot more possession-based, movements etc. he enjoyed it. You can tell we don't do a crazy amount of possession work. So often players get on the ball and don't know what to do with it. Our team is highly dependent on natural partnerships on the ball. Joe and Joe. Murphy to Isak. Schar to Joelinton. Bruno playmaking. Bruno, Trippier, Almron (2 passers and a mover). I can accept Howe's limitations but it's that one that irks me.

Good player. If Spurs go down it's a no-brainer to me. Is someone going to get him in the PL though and match his wages?

Didn’t deserve to lose to us. Man remember that game? what a difference Bruno G makes.

When you get relegated - it’s the players that are good and other teams actually want that go. Gray is going. Bergvall is going. Kudus is going. Would get £150m or more for the 3. It’s the Bissouma’s, Richarlison’s that are hard to shift. Late 20’s, big wages, low fees these are the ones that end up staying. Like whatever we get for Livramento, we throw that on Spence.

Bruno F to Casemiro is gold

If they can’t make a success of NUFC they won’t find success sorry Man U. Wouldn’t care what they do if they sold us. I don’t fear life after them at all.

You’re talking about replacing Tonali with a 20 year old. I can’t take you seriously. I think Miley could go on to great things but if he replaces Tonali that makes us a weaker team. Miley might be better than Tonali ever was (and that is unlikely) but he won’t be that player next season. As a team we have taken a step back this season. I don’t think you and most others are ready for us to be worse again in many ways next season (maybe not points wise with a lack of Europe). And that’s what will most likely happen if we sell 2-3 of our best players. This is a club management with zero track record too.

As someone that grew up playing CM/FM the whole giddiness to sell your best players feels FM-tastic. You sell your best player at 25 and get in a 19 yo regen that’s better in every way. In real life you sell Laurent Robert then sign Damien fucking Duff. We signed Gordon almost 4 years ago. We’ve not signed a better attacker than him (can maybe argue 1) than him in the last 4 years. Why does the idea of selling him give ppl boners? We’ve just spent £200m on worse attackers. I’ve never rated Gordon as highly as most here but I’m in no rush to sell him. Zero.

That back 5 needs 2 new leaders. Think Trafford would be great but that’s a fragile spirited back 5 imo. We need 2 ball players to go into the front 6. The types every team in the top 8 would want and need. And we’ll probably need to replace some midfield power and legs soon too.

Ashworth giving Isak a new contract and selling Joelinton would’ve helped us so much in the modern term alone. In the Isak fall out there was talk of a big vacuum in the club when Ashworth and then Staveley left. Even if Isak still wanted to leave we would’ve had people running the club much closer to him and able to manage the situation better. — the difference in the project with Staveley and then Ashworth to now is night and day. We’ve managed 1 significant contract renewal since they’ve left. Of our top 5 most valuable players only Gordon has a post-Staveley contract. I don’t expect any of them to re-sign. That’s where the project is.

Always felt this way. It was the perfect time. But also we need conviction from management. If we did sell him that summer. Would we have put Anderson I his place? I’m not so sure.

If you want to fantasise about selling your best players fine. The thing is.. Miley hasn’t. I’ve never seen a Newcastle midfield dominate at Old Trafford until Tonali rocked up. And there’s nothing in our history to suggest we can replace 2 of the midfielders involved and then do it again.

Comfortably better than Cabaye, Speed for me. Tonali would run Cabaye ragged. I think Rice has his limitations on the ball, better than Tonali but he’s limited too. Similar with Casemiro. Casemiro can makes things happen but he’s also not the greatest on the ball. We’ve never had a midfielder as physically dominant, stamina and at his best just a smart operator. He’s dominated many a game with his IQ and physicality. Again, he’s never meant to be a playmaker. He’s never had that skill set.

If he’s to be sold so be it. As a fan, I don’t understand the drive to dream up price points for selling your best players. The fact he’s been pap for sometime is my issue with him.

One thing that grinds me is going into a players thread like a Bruno or Gordon or Tonali. Some of our very best players. And several posters keen to sell them at X price point and talking like selling them is going to help make us a better team. With elite scouting and great pull, sometimes a team can sell one or two of their best players - replace them with better and improve. But that is rare. The finances of the game are what they are. But some look forward to it. Gordon is at worst our second best winger. Tonali same for CM. I’m in no rush to see them leave. And I’ve never been as high as most here on either.

The second best CM in my lifetime. Not going to disparage him. He is a bit of a deluxe Scott Parker under Roeder at the moment. He needs a system that works. He doesn’t have the ability to do the Bruno/Stevie G thing or give me the ball and I will get us playing. Our attacking play has always looked off the cuff to me. Thats why when Schar and Joelinton don’t play, that RCB to LCM moving up and running across the defensive line move doesn’t happen. Or that right sided combo - that was natural. Tonali, Osula, Murphy/Elanga, Tino, Joelinton, Miley (fresh off injury mind) - there’s not enough football in that. That group needs a lot of coaching on the ball and I don’t think Howe does that. Throw in a Bruno G and a prime Trippier and it’s a lot easier to make that side work. That elevates the others game. Tonali has great character as a footballer and I think that’s rare. I always thought Sissoko was similar. Another great athlete but limited on the ball. In a shit team where they are the best players, they get a lot of stick because they get on the ball a lot and don’t have the ability to do much with it.

Asset managers won’t succeed as Owners of NUFC if being #1 is their aim. Hopkinson has come in and repeated the party line. He has no power. Clearlake will never succeed at Chelsea as football club. They don’t know or respect the game. Football is unique.

Agreed. Yep. Someone needs keys and authority. Their initial presence and spending what they have has been great. I’ve not seen much genuine acumen as owners from them. Staveley and co brought them to the table, set the vision and project up and largely run it. Since they’ve left there’s been a power vacuum. The whole Isak stuff shows the gap. The CEO is just an employee. Does that CEO have actual power? Can he drive through a stadium vision with the owners? Can he make them open up the wallets - when he has too? One of my lasting memories of the Barca game was seeing Laporta in the stands. Everyone at the club knows who the emperor is. I’ve said this so much - whose baby is the club? Nasser is an employee but he has the power. He moves with the power of Qatar behind him. Staveley was a bit of that. Hopkinson does not have that. If he did he wouldn’t have come out with that 2030 nonsense. That’s the same PIF party line that has no real world implication.

I’ll admit - loads of Eddie’s issues I’ve long been over with. For example - He always largely makes subs based on timing and scores. When we are good we somehow hold on or get goals to kill teams hopes. When it doesn’t - it doesn’t. The positive is we don’t substitute our way to defeat. I’ve seen Emery do this - subs ruin the team and the game goes. The negative is he’ll watch the same thing unfold 6 times and do nothing until the other team scores. That is what it is. The bigger concern is the lack of football. I don’t expect revolution but it’s been clear to me for over 12 months we need to sign a ball player and we need to play a bit more. Theres been zero progress on this. So I don’t like where Eddie’s head is tbh. But don’t trust the regime. Sign some proper players first.

Also swap out a decent Nick Pope for Ramsdale. It's a lot of presence and command - gone. Previously - while not perfect we landed a lot of our higher options like a Tonali who does bring that leadership. We've not built on that since, that was 3 years ago. It's the same for quality. We lacked quality on the ball last season... still lack it this season.

Yep - that type of character is few and far. Sometimes it comes with age but Thiaw & Botman dont' have hat extra bit of character which we've lost from the Schar x Burn partnership. The GK issue is also massive. We lost the derby in-part because of how bad Barca was imo. What was the mood like in training of Thurs? It had to have been different. It's the type of matahc and result that would have players questioning the manager.

Agreed. We need to end strongly. Latter day Wenger would finish strongly or win a cup. To show there's still life in the project.

I always thought the 2-6 was the end of the SBR reign. We never recovered mentally from that. Barca result could have been similar. It's like when a boxer suddenly gets a real beating. They are often never the same. On the flip side - the team that one the League Cup was the strongest team of characters we've had. The star man left, the stalwarts at the back have aged another year. It's tough.

Leadership and character was one of the big positives of signing Guehi imo. It's also the big part of signig Tonali at the time too but we've failed to build on it since that summer. For the fees - I liked Norgaard and Xhaka last summer. I thought we needed that. We need that blend, any PL team does. All that purely focussing on youngsters stuff can turn you into Spurs.

Last summer was a total mess. Because we seemed to sign depth options rather than real class.. and we still lacked depth. The fullback thing was a shocker from day one. We started the season with 3 first-team fullbacks, 1 being 35. Then we let the RB/LB hybrid play an U21 tournament in the summer - a 50+ game, no break season into this season. And people are mocking him for picking up injuries this season. Thiaw and Elanga aside - the profiles of all the signings were weird imo. The quality of nearly all the transfers is questionable. All time horror show.