The College Dropout

Sesko so poor there at the end. Man U will finish top 5/6 like a squad of that quality without European football should.

You're not the messenger, you said it.

Doesn't that point to a lot more about PIF, football and us?

You answered your own question. It literally serves no other purpose apart from appeasing the fans and keeping up public image. This is hard to convey. But bullshitting isn't the same as lying. The club may have a plan to win the PL by 2030 but it is almost certainly - not realistic (unless they have a madness planned). As Jordan said - where are we planning to get the recurring £200m/£250m revenue from to get in touching distance of Spurs? If we plan to win the league in 4/5 years, we have to be active in windows even if we are just signing players to sell.

Gordon starts, Bruno and Miley out.

6 points against these last season btw. 63 points might not get you Europa League football, definitely not CL. So 3 away wins doesn't do it. We'll do very well to get 60 points total.

We have 3 legit fullbacks. 1 is 35. Howe plays a team to win in every competition. A proper DOF doesn't let that entire situation happen.

Letting him go to that tournament and having 3 proper first-team fullbacks and intending to win/compete in 4 competitions was a terrible decision. Tino is still first choice RB and second choice LB. It was obvious he was about to play crazy minutes this season. Pretty certain every single outright first-choice player in our squad has picked up at least 1 injury this year. Close will be true for every other CL team. If we intended to sign a LB that would be ahead of him, I would've been happier with him going. I made the argument at the time. Tino was the only player for England at that U21 who was expecting to play a 50+ game CL campaign the next season with a legitimate shot at the World Cup. Definitely not a fucking fullback either.

I think he might not know what to do tbh. But against man City there were times others were pressing with a lot more intensity than he was and it's happened before. But against PSV it was tremendous. It might be tactical as you say. Woltemade is worse at it but he looks physically incapable of it mostly. Both definitely have room for improvement.

It's a borderline racist trope as it is and one a cursory google into him would be immediately invalidated

He looks lazy in his pressing often.

What's with the supposedly?

Agree with Jordan. Let's see some action please.

Aye I felt like Hopkinson was bullshitting in that TalkSport interview. The purpose was to restate ambition without any details to realise it.

The writing has been on the wall for this team for awhile now.

Look at the state of this

I’ve said all year I support Eddie 100%. I’m not frustrated with his coaching decisions. He just needs a DOF and staff to shoulder 80% of transfer decisions. I’m frustrated with PIF.

Which 2 have turned out very well? The job of a DoF in transfer market (not blaming Howe) is to sign players. Not identity good players - but actually get deals done. So the transfer committee of 2 scouts and a coach all agreed they liked a number of PL targets as first choice plus 2 other players we’ve been interested in for years and a 6-month wonder. Job is to get great deals done. If Ashworth or Mitchell led last summer I would want them sacked. As such we had people leading it at short notice without the experience or the skill to make it a success.

Aye he's no Dimitar Berbatov technically. Or in his movement. He's shown a nice touch and some great finishes in places.

Match thread - during the game - is the place for kneejerk excitement one way or the other imo. And the next day on every player/manager thread too tbf. It's all heat of the moment stuff.

I'm not blaming Howe btw. He had too much responsibility and influence.

The model is outperforming your wage budget by several places. That's the impressive part. If you can do that consistently with the 7th/8th highest wage budget, you're a European mainstay. Increasing revenues so you can move up that list. That's the name of the game for us. Outperforming our spend in fees and wages. If we can do that 4 years in a row by 3-4 places, it's a different ball game. Most of you will be disappointed if we finish in-line with our budget.

Yes, you are. The point is Howe had near-unparalleled influence over transfers at this level of football. You will struggle to find several elite clubs or top clubs in England with no DOF or a manager with as much influence/control over transfers as Howe did. Even Howe won't have the same level of influence over transfers in the future. It is well-reported. But you are choosing to be dumb. *I forgot Monchi left Villa

You're being dumb pal.

I think we'll finish 7th or 8th. Our last 7-8 games we'll be out of the cups most likely and they are favourable. Worst we'll do is 9th save for more major injuries or going deep into the cups. You can't fall 2-3 places down the league, play 12 extra games and expect to maintain performance level mind. By definition we would have dropped performance level in the PL.