The College Dropout

Mitchell was here for a year. And I think we made 1 significant contract renewal in that time - Gordon right? No to Isak, Botman, improved terms for Tonali, Livra - nada. Awful guy but maybe an indication of what's to come.

In hindsight - that was an awful decision. Even if his team is influential - the club need a neutral-ish figure to make sensible decisions. It became apparent early, that it was a shitshow. I still don't think we have the people in power to convince top players to join. I'm a tired voice on this but it sounds like Staveley was great at selling the project. Managed to sign several players with high reputations that might have waited it out. We are now getting beat to transfers by Paris FC. I thought Mitchell made some valid comments but he went about things tgeh wrong way. He pissed off Eddie. He pissed off Isak. Reports he pissed off a lot of people. It was an awful appointment. To go from the Staveley era to that in one go is crazy and maybe an indication of PIF's thinking? Maybe PIF thought she was too close to the players. Takes some balls to tell your best player to do one for a year on a contract they 100% deserve - maybe he was empowered above? Also - probably just a prick. But yeh - Mr. Wilson let's see.

He also might not understand our triggers yet or whatever. Both he and Elanga don't look like they know what to do in terms of pressing. Pretty much none of our wingers hit the ground running. So maybe there is something there *clutching*

Arteta, Chelsea manager, Pep, Slot, Spurs manager, Brighton Manager, Brentford manager, Emery - none of these managers and coaches have the responsibility of picking their signings as Howe did. There’s a good reason for that.

You need good options. We have 3 fullbacks in the squad. The drop off from our best 3 midfielders is crazy. He's rotating the centrebacks, wingers and strikers who are closer in ability. Most of which are not playing well anyway.

The Invisible Player. This guy has football ability for sure. But he's giving Invisible Man Jermaine Jenas energy. Zero impact game after game. I'll take the fact he can play some but the invisible act at 24 is one difficult to stop.

Silver lining of this season and the poor transfer window - given this guy a path to really kick-on. I still standby the view is that if we made more/better summer acquisitions (another fullback, a better CM signing) he doesn't get many minutes. As such - he's taken his opportunity and pushed his way right up the pecking order.

Statistically not a real thing from what i recall. And until his last couple weeks - Enzo was doing well too. Is he also a top coach?

Agreed. He's shown he can press well but often it's so bad and looks half-arsed. I'll keep saying it - you watch football with your eyes. This lad doesn't look a player at all. He can find himself in decent positions which is a positive but shown zero composure or technical fluidity. I do expect him to improve. Find his shooting boots. But this is never a £55m attacker. People keep talking about his record. It's 1 great season, 1 decent one. But players are still scouted by people and there's lots of data points as such. I struggle to believe trustworthy scouts and sophisticated data models said this lad is worth £55m. But I do expect him to improve. Maybe he needs a good finish or two and the composure will come into his game. He showed some decent finishes at Brentford and ability to be in the right space at the right time. But tbh - all Brentford attackers seem to do that. I think maybe our style requires more from a striker. Wood was good before joining us and excellent after.

You can look at the thread and each players early pages on their thread. Most were meh on most signings. I didn't think - yeh this is a squad that can play in the CL, go deep in domestic cups and challenge for top 5 again. We finished 5th with the second best striker in the league and what will be at least 10 high-level games less. I didn't thinik Jacob Ramsey, Thiaw, Woltemade & Wissa would be enough to close that gap at all. I thought we could finish 8th with no complaints.

The archetype that has worked well under Howe is a pacey forward. A beast in transition and a penalty box fox. Woltemade is neither. If we don't plan on playing him and Wissa uptop at the same time, I do fear for both of them. Neither are currently playing well enough to play what is a difficult role.

You lot are barmy. Liam Rosenior is doing well enough - he must be excellent at coaching a side in European competition. OR Chelsea have a quality squad which allows him to rotate better. Yesterday was clear as day - this squad lacks quality to play as many games as we have in the competitions we are in. Eddie doesn't have the squad. It's not good enough.

There’s not a single PL club where the manager is so involved in player recruitment as Howe. I’m never using that as a reason to knock him. Even if I think the transfers were underwhelming.

Stopped reading at Tino is never fit.

Great goal. He’s never a baller mind. Look at him just now.

Elanga fucking beautiful take a bow son

Not a single baller in this team for us. Not one.

Wissa lad that’s awful

Trafford is better than Ramsdale right?

Evidently he had nothing to share regarding positive developments. The purpose was to reassure the fans of PIF’s ambition. Concrete plans but no update on developments. Didn’t indicate any were close either.

White: 10 years time - Newcastle will have won the PL and CL - are we talking about that? Hopkinson: we are but I think 10 years is too long. We have high ambition here. We have a concrete plan. It’s a 5 year plan. It has benchmarks along the way. —- He answered it in a straight forward manner when he was given space to be more vague. He said the same thing that was said last year almost verbatim. 5 years to 2030 to be the real deal. He gave zero about how he intended to create those conditions mind. Absolutely zero. The important message here was to restate the owners ambition. That happened in 2025 and it’s happened in 2026. Little else of note was said that hasn’t been said before. If that reassures you - great.

Is Wilson going to make the PL 100 club? 93 now, 5 goals this season. I think he'll get another year in the PL and make it.

@timeEd32 that's not what he said though. Jim asked a plain question.

So as I said all but 1 of the eventual PL winners were teams building towards it. Spurs didn’t even finish second the Leicester year. That 3rd place finish built the foundation for finishing 2nd with a 80-something points the next season mind. Arsenal have the 3rd or 4th highest wage bill in the league. They’ve built towards this title.

Agreed. Personally, the most I could get from an interview is managing my expectations short/medium term and talking about concrete plans for the long term of big ambition. He did nothing of that really. Kept expectations super high. No details whatsoever about some of the pieces that will help get us there.