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That equaliser against Liverpool - another vital point on our way to the Champions' League

Yep, I'm biting my tongue, but there's definitely room for an interpretation of events where he's a snake who has spent a decent amount of time nearly ruining a lot of good at the club.

That's maybe a bit strong, but my belief - happy to be proven wrong - is that Eales is happiest running a generic, paint by numbers corporate operation and has generally tried to squash every part of us into that shape, on and off pitch. Individuality and distinctive talent is a threat to that kind of person.

Ultimately there's no substitute for being a good judge of character and talent. As things stand it's a great environment for people like Alan Johnson from Peep Show to thrive in.

It rubs me up the wrong way that Eddie doing well is seen as an obstacle to instituting this system. Unhealthy friction, you could call it.

Bingo I'm not saying it can't be done right, but the chances of it actually being the case in a given situation are low. A really important point is that each situation is essentially unique - it's not like DOF is a very standardised role which has identical responsibilities and required skillsets across clubs - so it's not very possible to straightforwardly judge one against another.

I've written pretty extensively on here about it, so won't do so right now, but yeah, I think the position tends to have very low accountability and is ripe for exploitation by verbally dextrous frauds. Re: the boardroom and it's appointments generally, I think there's a very strong argument we're extremely lucky to have appointed Howe and basically all the progress at the club, including off pitch, has hinged on him being here. I only really trust the decisions of him and Yasir among our upper echelons.

Can I add how happy I am to have him as our manager and not a cape-wearing Transylvanian. I saw Emery claimed they lost the champions league in the first half of the season. In December they were 5 points ahead of us. Eddie will never in his life have an impotent tantrum like that.

Almost like many of them are charlatans who get out before they're found out.

First time I've been in this thread since the match. First of all, unreal season in totality. Just amazing, and Eddie is the king. That took truly epic skills and guts to fight back from that first half of the season, including the Eales and Mitchell pre-season. Re: the bottle talk, I'm not hostile to it, but really when you look at it, the result was entirely consistent with how we've dealt with middle third teams this season. At home, we scored 2 goals and got 0 points against Everton, West Ham, Fulham, Brighton and Bournemouth, conceding 10. That looks more like a pattern than bottle - we're pretty awful against low ambition, high organisation teams. Thankfully we're brilliant at slaughtering poor teams and very respectable against the best. The way to fix our weakness is to invest in extra attacking talent, which I'm very optimistic we'll be doing this summer, so I'm not losing sleep over it. Happy days.

Been deleted? Not loading for me. Must have been good.

I don't feel humoured, roca. Gonna keep living in my dreamland for the time being. Eddie in his new role as Head Executive Sporting Director Coach Officer comes out and announces it's gonna be 80k (in honour of me), expandable to 100k.

Humour me - any chance part of what's caused the drag on announcements with all this is it's Yasir who wants to go big with a new stadium and Eales and co. who have been trying to talk him down to something more MBA-approved?

Aye, I've never really seen him being dug out for being unprofessional, just a bit mental. Interestingly, him and Willock appear pretty close, and as the older player it should really be Willock setting the example...

Yes, I think it's a mentality thing compounded by injuries - or vice versa. And yes, he's regularly mentioned as the most fined, latest player in the squad. It's a real shame as his April 23 self would've been vital for us in this run in. Thought it was very telling that Eddie put 3 CBs out yesterday rather than squeezing him in for a 'must win' game.