80

Fair play, man of the match tonight. I thought he looked a lot happier in himself there, doing what he knows he's good at rather than having to put blood, sweat and tears into semi-humiliating himself at left back.

He was a major part of our play out from the back. Was nice to see us look so easy in possession there for a change. Satisfying performance, for me. Quite a few negatives that I could see Eddie being rightly bothered with - he wasn't exactly resolute defensively - but plenty of positives too and in the circumstances I think he deserves the chance to play himself into a more important, responsible role. Him being there helped other players, including Burn, play better.

Such a shame. One of our best performances in a while overall. I don't see a lot Eddie could've done better. White for Longstaff (who was dogshit) is a shout but I don't really know what he would offer so no blame from me. I would've liked to see us keep Bruno higher up the pitch, but that was easier said than done given the options available to us.

Yeah I raised my eyebrow at that. Still sticking to my policy of doubting any links I hear too much about. That piece read like an agent's brochure.

I think the gist from Milanista was Maldini was trying to keep the integrity of the club and grow it as a European force, while the owners just wanted to play moneyball and profiteer. But he seemed to soften on them further down the line.

As far as anyone can tell, yes. Ludicrous.

I think that's unfair, there is clear evidence of him learning and improving across time. There's no way I accept the idea that we lucked into having a good defence for 18 months, as I've heard some people float as an idea lately. But it's not only positive on that score, and he's shown an inflexibility, particularly over the past 2-4 months. I think at times he lets the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the phrase goes, as he's fixated on trying to achieve the ultimate performance - he's reluctant to experiment with something before it's been carefully thought out and thoroughly tested in training. Overall that's powerful, but it can entrench the bad as well as the good at time-critical moments.

I certainly don't think he rests on his laurels over the summer, far from it. But I'm not sure how much of that time is spent focusing on the hard realities of here and now - like new tactics for maximizing his players and finessing recovery periods between games - ahead of more abstract things affecting his fundamental approach to management - like to what extent should he seek to control all elements of a performance. He's certainly capable of that reflection, he's already done it, but it's easy to default into old habits when placed under duress too. Basically, what I'm saying is I could imagine him being what he is here already plus an extra 10% through standard hard work, but that there's scope for him to go up to another level as a manager if one or two things click in his mind. But there's a risk he might not give himself the time and space to let those things click if he's dutifully maximising the bread and butter issues all the time, and events (like our injury crisis) overtake him.

Was the same if not better last season as I recall.

Agree with the vast majority of your post. To throw a little grenade in, though, sometimes I wonder/worry that his next major period of growth will come after he leaves us i.e. as a consequence of the deep reflection he'd undergo during his first real period of downtime since he joined us. Personally, I suspect he'd conclude he needs to be slightly less rigourously methodical in his approach to allow more serendipity in. A sort of horrifically depressing catch 22 situation for us, basically Time will tell, obviously. My thinking may well be influenced by NUFC-related trauma! I would like to find ways to expose him to other ways of doing things though, as kind of inverted sabbaticals. I get the impression much of his working life is based around trying to personally invent things himself, and it takes a major disruption to break that habit e.g. leaving Bournemouth.

Didn't take it that way

Certainly agree on the Howe point. It's just that there are probably some exceptions to the default, but we're still working out what exactly they are I suppose.

There's a lot of truth in what you say, but this attitude is manna from heaven for the Pardews of the world and similar such charlatans, so has to be handled with extreme caution. Ironically, it's the same attitude that leads to people thinking our government is staffed with Very Substantial People grappling with Very Important Matters.

Seriously? Where did you hear that? Thought he was still busy with his hamstring. JFC if true...

Post match, it seems like there's been more talk about people criticising Howe and the game than there has been people actually criticising Howe and the game? Main thing I've noticed is the absence of happy people rather than an unusual number of critical people.

Oh my God.

Fair enough. I saw he was nearby at the start and was half a second delayed, but only saw the clipped highlight so can't comment too much in terms of how far to blame he is for that, although it seems off to me that he should be primarily responsible tracking runners during an attacking corner... As someone said above though, when you compare it to other players ambling back it still stands out though.

Hard to argue with at the minute.

I figured he was just skipping on the goalie...

In his position he should know better than to take his shirt off.

Your attempts at supporting him over the past few months have been very noble though.

Nice. Although reckon we'd concede a lot

Little thing, and ultimately futile, but loved his run in getting back to try and prevent their third goal. Fantastic desire.

Saying that, the last time he singled out a left back, Targett's career totally died

What did I say that couldn't be taken in from the last 10 minutes plus highlights? Make sure you let me know.