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At least we have some information we can scrutinise for accuracy Before now it's been total radio silence.

Well, at least we've got an actual quote to with with now. He's not fully up to speed with his defensive responsibilities. Fair enough

That's the thing, he's doing all he's doing from RB. I take the point about occasional ricks but unlike others, they get noticed with him because he operates from one of the most defensively vulnerable parts of the pitch - they can't just be swept up by Joelinton or Botman and forgotten. Guimaraes, and obviously I love him, does usually have one or two fuckups per match, it's just they don't immediately result in a cross whizzing past the face of our goal.

And Ryan Fraser before that, going back to last season. There's a common theme.

It's a tough one but I'd go with Willock for the elegance. You could harshly argue Isak was bullying tired children. But what a pair to choose from.

It's not a personal accusation, don't worry But he tends to be quite far down the list when people talk about players of the season etc. etc. It's regularly said, correctly, that Guimaraes is so good we hardly really mention his 7 or 8 out of 10 games, but we don't even mention that we don't mention Trippier's 7 or 8 out of 10 games..! When you look at his stats for this season, they're epic.

Somehow I think Trippier is underrated at our club. He's like a reverse Schar, the wider world gives him more credit than we do.

Agreed if Howe is genuinely open to starting him against Arsenal. Otherwise, I'd guess I'd rather just cut to the chase and do whatever is best for keeping Burn sharp for the rest of this season... I would say something but looks like I've been well and truly beaten to it by everyone else.

Hoping Joelinton can keep up his progress towards double figures. One of my little targets for the season, now.

In total agreement. For me, the Miggy Murphy swap was the key to our season picking up again. He's a lovely guy and I don't mind him staying with us, but I wouldn't be averse to him being a surprise sale for us this summer. Offensively, I think the team has to work to complement him, rather than him complementing the team. Given FFP and such, this is probably the last best chance to get good money for him given his age and the profile he generated in the first half of this season.

Bit of a mixed bag as others have said. Felt bad for him on the yellow. Showed some footballing talent that we've missed back there though, playing some smooth early balls forward. A bit of a leap of logic, but it's occurred to me: is it possible that he's not as committed to developing his game as Howe clearly likes, hence the lack of urgency to get him playing time? He seems a great lad but I could imagine him being happy just doing what's asked of him in training rather than arriving an hour early and leaving an hour late every day like a rabid dog. And that not quite being Eddie's cup of tea.

He's growing on me. Proving to be useful off the bench.

You have to make allowances for things like technology and sports science, but yeah I'd say this team is better than Robson's across a season. More methodical, less fragile.

Not cool.

Find a woman who loves you like KI loves Scousers

Player of the Season: So many, but Trippier. Half the other players depend on him. Flop of the Season: Ryan Fraser. Seems to have been a bad apple unfortunately. Used to be well ahead of Almiron and Murphy. Most Improved: Almiron. Wouldn't have believe this season 12 months ago. Unsung Hero: Longstaff among our fans, Schar in the wider world. Signing of the Season: Pope. Set the tone.

I've only seen that one reverse angle of the handball, but by my own personal, non legal interpretation of the rule, it wasn't a handball. I'm a ball to hand doesn't count guy, unless the silhouette is silly. By the actual rules, I've got no real clue if it was or wasn't and it seems like that's the intention.

That's the thing, it's pretty much like saying Liverpool always used to be a nothing club in 1992. Factually accurate but times change. We are where we are.

I did some reading and I believe it's the latter. They're talking about next season (23/24) being the last season of CL with the current number of teams i.e. more need to qualify next season to populate the new style CL the session after (24/25). So great news for us...

Re: the last bit, and winning the league, I think it's a game of fine margins. If we'd lost Trippier instead of Krafth with an ACL and say Bruno instead of Isak with his thigh, we could easily be bumping around 8th at the moment. Conversely, we could easily have an extra 10 points right now with our current squad (e.g. +3 points at Anfield, +4 points at home to Palace and Leeds etc. etc.). Which would put us 6 points behind Arsenal with a game in hand and them still to come here... So it's not about expectations for me, but amazing things can happen. Agree with your first paragraph. I definitely think next season will be a learning experience for Howe in a few different ways. Again, that's why I'm really just about enjoying the experience and making sure we get to enjoy the fruits of those lessons the season after. It'll be a learning experience for the players too, as they'll have to individually confront how far they can push their bodies and come up with different ways to win battles in unusual circumstances. We seemingly didn't manage that too well one we reached the business end of the League Cup this season and had a 3 month dip as a result. Going back to the Robson days, one of the tragedies for me about Partizan Belgrade is that our team had really matured nicely in 02-03 and were starting to look like seasoned European campaigners after our baptism of fire. But 12 months later all the progress and cultural growth we had made was shredded. I don't believe that'll happen this time thanks to our new owners, but I definitely want to guard against it and preserve as much of what we've gained so far as we can.

*Just been reminded that it's probably the top 5 who qualify for CL next season, which does change the conversation in our favour a bit...

I appreciate this post, I do think you're a good poster fwiw. But as I was saying in the post above, to me it's just about steadying the foundations of the club. I don't want to write off our European games but think we'll have to pick our battles to make sure we have more of them and win more of them in the future. I don't think there's such a thing as qualifying/getting promoted too soon for a club, but it definitely can mean it's more precarious for some than others. I mean, there are a ton of people who would far rather have won the League Cup than get Champion's League this year for the romance of it and the statement that we'd finally won something/anything. And now you're suggesting writing off that competition to have a better tilt at a few CL group stage games So really what I'm getting at is that one way or another - unless we buy 7+ first teamers - some people are going to get disappointed with our approach to certain games next season. And I'd rather try and do my bit to head off that conversation now because despite everything I can imagine the Eddie Howe thread getting flooded with posts about his naiveté if we rotate a few players and get pumped in Turin or somewhere. But ultimately he's more likely to lose his job, and we're more likely to lose a Botman et al, if a handful of games like Brentford away go a different way next season and we end up 7th rather than 4th and start the club on a new, worse, trajectory. Also, to finish off and be extra clear, I'm not talking about just aiming to hover in 4th. I think there's real room for us to become full title contenders in the not too distant future. We had a lot of winnable draws this season...

Of course not, that's why my post specifically said it's going to be a tricky balancing act in terms of morale and tactics. And the scenario I wrote involved two players being rested rather than eleven. Unless you see a 33 year old Trippier making 50-60 starts next season? But a quicker way of putting players off us ultimately is not being in the Champion's League/Europe the following season. We're making it in by the skin of our arse this season, and it's fantastic. And the ramifications are clearly massive in terms of new players we can attract and afford, and current players we can hold onto. That's why the next stage for our club is to try and make that a regular, expected occurrence while we build our strength for actually winning the competitions we enter. And it's why, given how rapidly we've risen, it's probably going to force us to make some difficult tradeoffs - our current second eleven couldn't even handle Sheffield Wednesday this season.

Cool that Rafa is still keeping in touch with him.