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Agreed. Not that I wanted him sold, or don't appreciate him - far from it - but logically once Longstaff is gone the next CM to be looking at improving upon would be him or Willock - and Willock is looking better with every minute he doesn't play...

This is my favourite vendetta on the forum, certainly since Nut retired from harrying Pope. Keep up the good work.

I agree with all those saying the captaincy move isn't such a big deal. Re: Bruno, I think it's just something for him to grow into, hopefully over years to come. He's a bit like the Lewis Hall of captains - tonnes of natural talent and potential, but needs the time and space to make mistakes and mature.

Bit surprised it hasn't already happened one or twice in the past.

I think that's exactly right. It's diminishing returns with him, as much as I like him. He has a role to play, but he's not a main man on the pitch.

Yeah that's what I'm expecting, which will delight the cup before everything people. I'm pretty relaxed about this situation. I think people are imagining he's more of a finished article than he is. He's more at the Minteh/Kuol end of the spectrum than the Hall/Livramento side. I think the plan has always been to give him time in the lowest risk situations, of which we've unfortunately not had any yet. Not denying I would've liked seeing him up front today with Gordon and Barnes on the wings, but I don't think he's being held back because he's underperforming expectations. It's going exactly to plan.

THIS is the kind of thing I would like to see our Sports Director get a firm grip of.

Football was a booming industry, like the internet in the same period. The sums were always going to explode, with some gambling and failing. I think there might even be an argument Abramovich helped propel that boom, even if I don't like it. The only real regulations that might have been good - which, surprise surprise, are still resisted - would've been around club owners having to take on the risk, rather than the clubs themselves. Money paid up front, no debt implied.

So it's great for a couple of state owned clubs and a very small clutch of clubs with extraordinarily wealthy private investors whose business models may well involve getting rid of promotion and relegation to lock in their investment and quintuple it's value. Villa's suggestion is nice enough and would work for us but I'm not really interested until a team like Derby or Norwich can plausibly win the league again. In the mean time, football should continue to be the meritocracy it always has been - invest well, be run well, or sink.

I don't think such things meaningfully exist. Outside of becoming more American/Socialist and letting Luton and Sheffield United draft Rodri and Haaland to have another crack this season.

Oh no, I hope football doesn't lose its virginity. It's so innocent and pure and well-functioning right now. A league where only 4 members of a 92 team competition can hope to win 'respectably' is already through the looking glass.

Don't totally disagree, but the more I've thought about it, the more I've thought he's looked like he did when he first came here and - somewhat unbeknownst to us - was way off the pace fitness wise. Not making speculative runs he ordinarily would, not tracking back as much to conserve energy etc. And I think he detests knowing he's not up to scratch which helps make him give off an attitude. This recent England call up plus increased fitness will hopefully have him back to himself in the next couple of weeks. Stability at the board level would probably contribute too...

Lengthier version of that interview up on the app. Decent watch but think there's plenty to read between the lines on Gordon's views about our and his ambitions. No real surprise.

Maybe Howe detected he was being lined up to be hung out to dry.

Would be quite an achievement to remove every major figurehead closely associated with the astonishing revival of the club in the spirit of making improvements (Eddie, Amanda, Mehrdad, Steve Nickson, probably Bruno and Gordon to fund a total overhaul of the squad makeup). We must have a lot of faith in Eales' vision.

Wait till we see both Tonali and Longstaff start, at Bruno's expense.

Watched the conference. God he's a consummate professional.

Still here when Freedman rejected. But supposedly their departure had been on the cards for a while, so it's plausible them going - or at least a lack of clarity on the board situation - fuelled his decision. There are a few things that can be reassessed from the last half year with their departure in mind.

...and it's already been mooted in the honeymoon period that Mitchell is seen as potentially being here for a relatively short amount of time (e.g. 3 years) rather than forever and ever.

We did have an exceptionally shit pre-takeover squad, mind. A perfect blend of the talentless, the overpaid, the elderly and the infirm. We'd have no problem selling Livramento tomorrow. I agree we should have been shopping him around but a) we can't make them take him, and b) do people want Eddie encroaching on the Sports Director's territory or not? I'm not disputing that I've wanted us to do a lot better at moving players on, but I am disputing that it's definitely Eddie's prominence that's responsible for us not doing so.

He's been consistently effusive about him, which is nice.

*Subject to that being confirmed as Eddie's fault. It could just be that all the buying clubs don't and didn't want to buy him for the same reasons we wanted to sell him. There have been consistent noises around him being available for a year now. I would hold it against Howe if he was the one resisting taking a decent fee for him in the past, but I'm not in a position to say that right now.

Cue Mitchell coming out and saying he went for a stroll with Howe in Rothbury just yesterday

Gutter that we never got a fee for him.

...This, though, reads like disloyal hysteria. It's what I've been getting at for the past couple of weeks. If in doubt, trust the people who've consistently delivered the goods and nurtured and protected the club with their every word and deed. If within two months, Eddie Howe has suddenly become a millstone around our neck who is putting his personal preferences ahead of footballing success, that tells me there's bullshit afoot, not that a whole new unambitious side to his personality has emerged. Doing a 180 and talking about getting rid of him this quickly is ridiculous and playing into the hands of arseholes.