The College Dropout

I was very confident after Brentford. By the time we played Spurs i was extremely confident we would smash them and we did. The run-in wasn't difficult. We had the entire bottom 4 + West Ham (14th) and Chelsea (12th). + Villa (a), Arsenal and Brighton (h). We would have had to choke it imo.

It's not just on here. If Howe was foreign he would've gotten a bigger opportunity sooner than he did. He was even the second choice with us. Looking at his thread - he wasn't high up on many people's list here either. People were disappointed we didn't land Emery or others (some like Wullie and Klaus believed from day 1 tbf to them). Gallagher is not a cast-off. My favourite post:

A 3-peat is a massive achievement tbf.

Cucurella has looked legit awful

Gallagher has only had Boehly-era Chelsea. Can't judge him too harshly for that. MGW is the same age as Gallagher and has shown similar ability.

Funny seeing people doing mental Parkour in this thread

Likewise, across football, Brazilian players are over-rated by clubs and fans alike.

Grealish & Rice are/were routinely good to great though. And have had good games against us too. No doubt if they were Spanish they would be higher rated. Same as Nick Pope. Routinely great for Burnley.

I may have been guilty of that when we were linked with Gordon and spoke about his previous record at Bournemouth. But I legit watched a fair amount of Gordon (and have been right about him so far). I only watch PL & CL. So I only talk about players in this division in detail.

It's definite anti-British sentiment among football fans. It extends to players and coaches. It's not alone.

Most people here under-rated Nick Pope too. A lot of "he's no better than Dubs" when he's streaks ahead.

Mount would be a great signing for Howe. Shame the wages are too high.

It doesn't make sense economically to sell him. His underlying stats are great but his G/A output is low. Historically he's been a fit lad but he's coming off his worst season injury-wise. He's at a low point in his value despite having 3 years left on his contract. All he has to do is stay fit and have others finish the chances he's created and he'll be worth £20m more than whatever we sell him for.

Richarlison is like a striker version of Joelinton. You would love him in your team. A bit limited technically but a real fighter with good physical attributes and can play.

Anderson simply was not a serious option to Howe. ASM had at least 7 matches where he didn't start but got 10+ minutes off the bench. Anderson only got 10+ minutes off the bench 5 times.. The vast majority of his minutes were less than 10 minutes. He's not going to develop a bunch doing that. It's not hindsight. Many of us said all season long he needed to go on loan for his development. We only kept him because we refused to sign stop gaps and ended up gambling on light midfield options.

If they thought he was ready for proper first-team football...they would've given him more first-team football this season. He was a distant last option in midfield and often in attack. It's like suggesting Targett will play a lot next season. No.. he's not that fancied and is likely to be upgraded and sold. This is an assumption based on the links in the media

40 games, 20 G/A at age 20, is Mason Mount numbers. That would suggest he's ready for regular Premier League football and would come in as one of the 2 CMs we seem to need. He would be a proper member of the first-team. Now, he's on the fringes and likely to be even more on the fringes next season if we recruit the numbers we expect. It also proves he's likely to be a proper player and is at least a top-end Championship player ATM and likely a decent PL player in the future at a minimum.

I expect us to have European competition next calendar year. Unless the draw is very unkind, finishing bottom of the group would be a failure imo.

The ACL did in his athleticism tbf. He had a bit more dynamism and hunger to his game prior to that.

No it's not. IMO. If we sign 2x CM he'll be loaned out anyway.

Apparently he's on about £110k and Madrid want him to take a paycut to stay. He's had his best season in years - no coincidence it's happened in the year his contract is up for renewal IMO. It feels like another Coutinho situation in terms of hunger for Villa IMO. He's playing at his peak because he wants to stay at the biggest club in the world. If he joins Villa I expect his performances will drop.

If we sign 2 CM's - would you want him to stay as 7th choice CM? Is that good for his development? Garnacho is simply higher in the pecking order at Man U than Anderson is here. Garnacho got significantly more game time than Anderson in the PL despite missing a number of games through injury. And Anderon is due to drop even further in the pecking order. Anderson is set to play even less PL minutes next season.

For a total of 7 full 90 minutes. That's doing next to nothing for his development. Garnacho is 2 years younger and got twice the game time. Anderson needs serious game time to develop. He needs to go out on loan. I think the season has stalled his development. By reports - we are looking to sign 2 CMs so we'll be replacing his role in the squad anyway, so it's not like he's used the season to cement himself in the squad/role. He started the season 6th choice CM and maybe 3rd choice LW. We expect next season he'll be 7th choice CM.

Lascelles has barely played in 2 seasons. I doubt anyone will be in for him unless we actively shop him around.

Both he and Willock have a lot to learn about the 8 position off the ball.