The College Dropout

You go into a fixture run like that - you probably have too. I expect at least one of those fixtures Howe will rotate the team and leave out key players against a stronger side or in a Cup.

The last 5 being: Villa (H) Wolves (A) Leeds (H) Palace (H) Burnley (A) You would hope to get 15 points from those. 11 being solid. We got 10. Not terrible. But it was definitely a run you would expect to make hay in. Fixtures often make form. We would look at 10 points from the next 5 as excellent. Rightfully so. Aye you would want 6 points as a minimum. A win at WHL is always an excellent result no matter what Spurs are like.

Sunk cost fallacy that. Howe will pick the team he thinks can win games. What he's paid for players doesn't matter at this point and is a good thing.

The next 5 being.. Liverpool (A) Brentford (H) Spurs (A) City (A) Everton (H) 9 points would be excellent. 7 solid. 6 bare minimum. Could easily get 4 points. Wouldn't expect to climb the table with anything less than 8 points.

Because the manager wants to win football matches right now.

We’ve had a relatively easy run the last 12 games. We’ll almost certainly get less points over the next 12 just due tougher fixtures. In the last 12 we played 3 promoted teams - 2 at home. Wolves, Palace, Chelsea and Spurs at home. In the next 12 we face Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea, Spurs away. Last year we got 3 points from those? The season we finished 4th - 5?

I think the whole transfer window approach was a car crash. It’s not isolated to last summer alone. The Guehu saga the previous year is evidence that we’ve struggled to identify and sign high reputation players since Staveley left. When Staveley was here we routinely signed players frequently linked to bigger clubs but we’ve lost some ability to persuade imo. And the profiling hasn’t been right (the big PL experience one in particular). We’ve stopped buying high ceiling youngsters in the Gordon, Tino and Hall mould. The window necessitated a good league finish this year. And it’s unlikely to happen. The bad thing is I think that was somewhat obvious in September. We didn’t get the quality or the numbers needed. The last time we qualified for the CL, I thought we got good quality but we didn’t have the numbers. Knowing what we know now PSR was the reason for that. I also think Howe wanted more trusted entities from that window.

Palace losing Mateta just because they don't want to pay him?

Wissa is good at pressing no? I thought he was a more composed finisher than we've seen. Not seen any composed finishes from memory.

If there's one thing that has become obvious this season - is that we don't work extensively on attacking patterns. Barnes & Gordon don't try and do the same things on the left wing. Which is ok and largely how football has been coached throughout history. Players strike up their own relationships and working patterns. I've said it before but Gordon doesn't have great relationships with any teammates. He largely does his own thing. Barnes & Tino had a good thing going on, the move for the winner in the League Cup was common. Barnes & Tino combine with the aim of Tino getting close to the byline and chipping one in on his left or Barnes to get a right footed shot off or cross but genuinely both an option.

Hall often overlaps and is routinely ignored by Gordon - who will get to a point and then pass it square.

We did have a good fixture run. Where draws were bad results. ---- It's unlikely to be a problem next season and if the draw was different it may be a stupid thing to say. But I do think when we are in the CL (or Europe in general) we should dial-in one of the domestic cups with kids. We'll likely not have a squad capable of challenging for League Cup, FA Cup, CL & League for some years but Howe genuinely tries to win them all

Didn't rate the transfer business at all. Mentioned elsewhere i thought the squad could easily finish 8th and I would have no issues. Thiaw is the only player that is better than I thought he was. Ramsey and Elanga have been worse. Didn't know what to expect from Woltemade and Wissa has been injured a lot so maybe too early to judge. Assumed the both of them wouldn't be able to cover for Isak and that's been true. In retrospect, I would've gambled on another young striker rather than get Wissa. I think that's the route when you sell a star player. Sign a few younger players and hope one of them develops to be as good or close. Carroll was a flop but Liverpool bought Suarez with the same Torres money.

He gives us massive clues as to what he thinks every single week.

Quick look at their last couple of games. PSG still have the French wonderkid regen hack. Mbaye whow was great in the AFCON (born and raised in French - funnily enough he's Senegalese & Morrocan heritage and won with Senegal), another lad called Masalu or similar. Zaire-Emery and Doue still bairns

PSG also rotate 9 and 10 players between league and CL - at least they did last season

Traditionally Man U have been good enough to win games and play shit youth. I do agree though when we are big goals up, youth could do with more minutes - just because. But I also get that Howe has a squad to keep happy.

When the quality is similar. I've seen dozens of top sides chasing multiple competitions - often when it gets serious there's little rotation. Klopp's best Liverpool side 1 midfielder would rotate, and Matip + Konate/Gomez would rotate. The rest played every game going when it was crunch time. There's no point saving legs for when we are totally out of European contention. We don't have the depth where the manager can rest 80% of our starters and expect to win in the PL. Jacob Ramsey is a big part of that problem - he's considered levels below by the manager. You're right in that Elanga & Ramsey in particular should be trusted to rotate and for us to lose little by their inclusion. But that's not the case at all.

He doesn’t have that dawg in him that’s needed as a 9 unless the player is magical.

The gap between the 2 in terms of points is going to be minimal again.

The Minteh sale would be always be circa £35m. It just meant we would get a player for £20m that might actually be worth it. Also shows we were going about the whole thing the wrong way. We sold Minteh for his Market value. But we’re looking to overspend in a swap deal. That’s dumb.

I love them both. But they did.

This we rotated earlier and didn't win. We really need to win now and so we are playing our best team. It makes sense. We don't have the squad quality. You can rotate a rested Trippier, Hall & Tino - they've all shown quality for us at their best. You can rotate Wissa & Woltemade. But we don't have many options. Full backs pick themselves. Wingers pick themselves. Midfielders pick themselves. If we actually seriously want to win. And it's an indictment of the Ramsey & Elanga transfers.

Buendia is in the Villa team just to try screamers

Yes