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In fairness, there were people screaming at the idea of moving him on last summer.

I respect people being interested/confused/pissed off with this situation, but it's got to the point of being pointless to talk about at this point. Either there's a master plan that involves him staying and being really important next season, a master plan that involves him leaving this summer, or it's a shitshow where he ends up being good at Chelsea or a forgotten man here for years to come. We're only going to find out around about October next season. The whole thing seems like a waste of time until then, nothing new happens.

As I know you know, that more of an Eddie issue though... We just have to hope that changes in time.

Judging by their signings over the past decade, I'm not so sure... They appear to be less sophisticated than Brentford and Aston Villa. The key point is they're way off the pace of the teams they're meant to be going toe to toe with i.e. Champions' League winners.

I'm sure it's better than ours was, but that's an astonishingly low bar. I wouldn't be surprised if our facilities (also talking about academy, scouting, women and such) are comparable now. Both clubs with massive room for improvement, in a way that isn't the case at many other big, ambitious clubs.

He was rapid last season too. Wouldn't be surprised if he's among the fittest in the squad. I'm happy he's staying on. As you say, the combination of quality, price (free plus not ridiculous wages) and psychology (seems good for squad atmosphere and mentally able to be reliable backup to backup) means he ticks the boxes for me.

As I understand it, all that infrastructural stuff at Man U is relatively shambolic nowadays having not really been invested in since the mid-2000s.

I think the answer is a bit of both. Dubravka is making us worse, and is even facing more shots due to him being less proactive in heading off danger early. But also, due to his weaknesses and differences to Pope, there is a strong argument for adjusting our approach to accommodate for them. As @Optimistic Nut said (paraphrasing) we've had worse/identical players playing in the past and achieved better results when playing in a different way, so it's worth examining whether we should be sticking with what we're now doing. Whether the result of the examination is that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and change up our style is another story, of course.

He's basically playing the Chris Wood role for us right now. Personally, I see that as valuable, giving us some shape in the offensive half - it's not intended as an insult, I respect his work rate and the aggro he brings to opponents. But he's not a really scary threat in his own right as a forward nowadays. There's a chance he turns it around and once again proves it's just fitness issues holding him back at the moment, but those fitness issues are a constant presence in his life, so it doesn't change all that much.

Yes, it's not a well oiled machine now. Interested to see how much of a difference Pope makes when he comes back. I predict it'll be a big one.

Trippier's played with Kane before, he knows how this story goes

Does he have less muscle mass or is it just me? Looks more slight. Does seem less dominant as a defender now since his injury, though I'm sure he'll get back to his best in time.

Honestly, what were they thinking? If I were Trippier I'd have been unimpressed with them.

He wasn't much cop in the first half on the left, to be fair. Very workmanlike and relatively indirect by his standards. Not a criticism of him personally as I'm a massive fan, by the way.

Could do with some of this training again. We seem to have gotten back into the habit of standing and watching teammates dribbling with the ball.

Looked absolutely shattered tonight. Glad he finally got taken off for his own sake.

He'd gotten himself excited thinking the fingers in ears was somehow a snub towards our fans. You could hear the disappointment in his voice when Bruno gave exactly the wrong answer

Heroic.

Apart from publicly available info and what I read you saying a little while back about being itk regarding Howe's responsibility for overworking our players earlier in the season, are there any other reasons for you cooling off on him? I'm interested.

He just needs love. You can see it in his eyes.

Yeah you're talking £25m+ for English starlets nowadays.

Schar as the forward he was born to be

I think that's key for me, in terms of how I feel about the match. The players didn't crumble, they stepped up. I'd have had a very sick feeling in my stomach if we hadn't shown that spirit. They clearly want to fight for their club, their manager and themselves, so we should let them fight on and show what they can do. Depending on exactly what you mean, though, I don't believe he's peaked yet. He's shown he's come on a lot from that spell out between us and Bournemouth little more than two years ago, so there's no reason to think he can't develop further, considering all the genuinely new stuff he's had to contend with this year through European involvement. I'm confident he'll have taken loads out of that. I think we're overblowing how much stick he's received here, particularly from match going fans. Overall our support has been resolutely behind him, and makes a point of singing his name whenever we've been losing.

He's just pointing out that great managers have often approached greatness by 46. They don't all suddenly explode into life in their 50s - in case anyone was under that impression. He's not disputing that Howe has scope to achieve big things. I mean, we want him to be compared to the great managers because we hope he'll be considered among them in the next few years, right?

Haven't got the time to do a more full response right now, but some would argue the things I wrote are anti-Semitism. As in, no interpretation required - speaking those words equates to emotional violence and stochastic terrorism. More importantly though, it's the 'actions meet consequences' angle I'm interested in. Is it the service provider's liberty to judge and discriminate among those who it deals with in all instances? Are there no downsides or risks attached to establishing a culture where that freedom is regularly exercised?