80

It's stuff like this that used to make me smug about stopping paying attention to football. What a soulless piece of shit the whole enterprise is nowadays. Might as well support crypto currencies and make money through your hobby.

Given the (lack of) season he's had so far, I'm not so sure. But yeah, if we could get that much for him it would have to be taken seriously. Unfortunately.

Totally. Although, as I've said before, we did have fantastic luck with injuries last season, also - they were always spread around the positions, avoiding vital players, with players timing their recoveries perfectly to cover others e.g. Wilson and Isak, Almiron and Murphy. That could've been a very different season too.

On your first point, it's fair comment about only talking about the defeats, but I think where we got our wins kind of proves my point - the Chelsea-PSG-Man U run came directly after an international break which had followed the capitulation at Bournemouth. Certainly, I was worried after the Man United match as I knew what they'd all given was epic. And in terms of resting against big teams, well, I got a fair bit of stick on here last season when I was arguing that we should be prepared to accept fielding reserves in the Champions' League in order to prioritise a tricky away game against Brentford or Brighton this season, on the grounds that the league sustains the club's future. So I have form on that. The exact details are up for debate, but it's fair to say I didn't expect to play the same eleven players over and over again this season when I was saying that, though.

Out of respect to my opponents, this is harsh

Playing the kids more as relatively early subs is a very fair shout. But I'm not convinced it would've made a significant difference once we were already in the bad run. I'm not a sports scientist but I doubt playing 25 minutes less in a game or two would make that much of a difference when you're stuck on a long term treadmill of a game every three days. Again, a big part of Eddie's explanation for how things have gone - which I agree with - is that the players have basically had no opportunity to do anything except rest between games, which I don't think substitutions would've done enough to alleviate.

It doesn't need to be that negative though, does it? As it is, they've been told "alright lads, you see those real players over there? The crippled ones getting smacked by Luton. They're still far far better than you. Please remain seated."

If we acknowledge that as a club, we've confirmed this season that we don't have a squad that can compete successfully on four fronts, we basically have two choices - try all four badly or prioritise the most important competition/s. The reason I'm talking about playing children is because, thanks to injuries, they are our second XI right now. I don't like it, but it's true. It wouldn't be so controversial if we were talking about Livramento for Trippier and Longstaff for Tonali, but that isn't the choice we've had. All the same, there are going to be matches - given our schedule - where we need to play our second XI to avoid burning out the first team. Brighton did it against us last season in our Champions' League (almost) clincher at SJP, to maximise their own chances of qualifying for Europe a few days later. We just didn't notice because a) we were too happy smashing them and b) they played their reserves rather than their reserve reserves. Another option is to drizzle in reserves a couple at a time e.g. Gordon for Godknows on Saturday, Almiron for Whodat on Wednesday. A problem with that is we weaken ourselves across multiple matches rather than ripping off the plaster. And probably miss out on the squad training that Eddie desperately wanted. Yet another alternative is to send out the first team, like we did, but change their instructions to play a low speed, low energy match. Just keep it respectable, lads. But Eddie won't countenance that and I don't blame him. It's bad for the psyche. Instead, we put out our best possible players and told them to invest their blood, sweat and tears. And they did, until they ran out. And then we kept asking for several more weeks. And we lost almost every game we played, and seemingly pushed some of them past their physical limits, harming the next several months of the season. Considering we could've given the whole first team all of December off and still be pretty much exactly where we are now, position and competition-wise, I can't see why giving the kids a match to disrupt the onslaught of games is such a shocking idea.

Personally, I'm pretty sure I posted here in early December that the whole month gonna be a write off, and I'm not known for being pessimistic. I thought it was blatantly obvious nothing would change - without a change in approach - given the nature of the injuries and density of the workload. I wasn't in the habit of shouting about it because you're right, I didn't have inside knowledge of Howe's mind and the training data we had. But as it happens, using the info I did have, I was right. I don't especially blame Howe or anyone for how things have turned out either. It was a shit situation, and it's pretty clear he'd have had some fans all over him had he tried anything other than to win every single game. All the same, if your car battery is flat, you don't generally want to turn the radio on and turn the engine over a few times just to make sure it won't start. Lush earlier pointed out we lost lots of games by a big margin with our first team. Well, exactly, so there wasn't much to lose through not fielding them, right? According to Howe, a bigger gap between games would've meant improved performances thanks to rest and proper training. I believe him. Instead we got multiple spankings and extra wear and tear which has possibly set us further back with the likes of Joelinton.

No no, I'm saying our proper first team would've won against, say, Luton if they hadn't been out on their feet and had fully prepared beforehand. I assume the kids would've lost their game, but it's a game we lost anyway, and it would've given players like Almiron, Isak, Gordon and Joelinton a breather, the chance to do some proper tactical training, and we would've had a stronger chance of coming out of a 2 game run with 3 points rather than none at all and additional injury risk. The same would apply to Eddie who I suspect is trying to cram his entire pre-match scouting and prep methodology into 3 days which, after a while, is going to become lower quality as a result. Maybe if he let Tindall or Jones handle 80% of everything for one match while he focused on the match after it'd work out better. Just an idea, but he says himself he struggles with delegation. In terms of specifically which games we ought to have rested key players, I'd have to have a look at the fixture list, but off the top of my head, Bournemouth, Everton, Tottenham and Luton stand out as possibilities. Games it quickly became obvious we were losing from the first whistle. I realise it's uber shit to halfway concede a game before it starts, but I think Eddie and the players had enough credit in the bank to do it and could've, as the others were saying, made a big stink about our predicament to create even more of a siege mentality. As the saying goes, a stitch in time might've saved nine. You're right about the defence being better rested by the way, so it wouldn't have had to have been an all novice team, which would've increased the chance of a cup win-style result or at least some lessons being learned about what certain kids could offer in a pinch. Basically, assume the worst, support them to the max and maybe get a nice surprise e.g. Hall taking on responsibility because he knows the result is on him as an important part of that eleven.

I think Eddie's approach to most of these issues is extremely admirable. He's pushing at an open door with me when it comes to things like blaming mental fatigue - something players can attempt to control - rather than physical exhaustion, which it's easier to excuse surrendering to, and lets defeatism creep through the door. But the problem is that attitude can be gamed by others when they're actively out to fuck you. Another problem with it is you're at risk of undermining your credibility when you refuse to acknowledge how badly things are stacked against you and insist maximising your approach to everything. To be clear, I don't think Howe has done that to himself with our players, which is the most important thing, but there is a risk of the dam breaking if it's not managed very carefully. Games like Bournemouth and Luton, I'm sure the players knew in themselves they just had no more to offer, but they apparently internalised that and took the blame themselves for it rather than blaming their manager or whatnot - which again, is extremely admirable and gold dust really, when it comes to building a team's mentality.

Putting aside the taking shots specifically at the board bit, I agree we should have played kids for one or two games in this run to give our main players the necessary recovery time. I'm sure we'd have come out with more points from Forest, Luton etc. Instead, the maximalist approach has exhausted everyone and we have no more to show for it.

Agree with all those, but also, you have to take into account that all our players have devolved lately, apparently due to exhaustion and associated lack of training time. So hopefully over the next few weeks and months he'll really start to see the benefits of working on the mental side - plus gaining extra strength to make him stronger in contests.

We'd definitely have heard something if Bruno was merrily abandoning his DM tactical instructions every match for the past year. Eddie's public criticisms of the team always revolve around the team not pushing forward enough, not being aggressive enough in the press - never that we've overcommitted in attack and left ourselves vulnerable.

I do find it more plausible than Bruno incidentally... I'm not sure we'd get a fee to justify it though, considering his incoming price, injuries and importance to our side. I'd be wanting £130m+ and I'm not sure anyone would pay that.

It's really dismal.

No not really, but we changed personnel. Murphy for Almiron was the big move and contributed to a big attacking switch up on the pitch and got us out of our low scoring rut. We dabbled with Isak and Wilson both sharing the same pitch too. But pretty quickly Isak moved into Gordon's left wing spot.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with how he managed the game last night. I'm very much on the Eddie train, and the last two months have gone exactly as I predicted due to forces (probably?) beyond our control - December awful, January steadily improving. I'm hoping for a mammoth run in from February onwards, ideally starting with Villa, and don't see this season as a write off. That quote just stuck out to me as an indication of mindset that I'd like him to get over. By definition, if a tactical move makes you more likely to win in the short, medium and long term, it's not a negative move. Whether bringing a defender on would've done that last night, I'm agnostic on. It's more the principle that I'm interested in, as it's been consistent for two years in every situation now. The game that probably most upset me was Liverpool at home last season - a game they needed to win far more than we did at the time. I think we can give ourselves a license to deliberately rope a dope opponents in let's say four matches a season. Maybe more in extenuating circumstances like a stonking injury crisis such as ours. To be the best, by definition you create opponents who will outwork you because they know they're competing against the best. That's the position we want to be in, and that's when we'll need something else. Unless we're planning on just owning the 25 hardest working players in the world, which seems implausible and, ironically, lazy.

I think you're right about him thinking of how the players see it, but he's allowed to educate them out of that. I think the "never take a step back" approach was good for the first 18 months or so to properly inculcate ambition and aggression in the squad, but I think it's fair to say we've got that now. We do have to be careful not to lose it, but to be truly great you have to be able to thread the needle in difficult situations rather than just being a flat track bully.

I've seen this said a lot. In fairness to him, there's absolutely no indication that he's breaking tactical instruction.

"If I bring a defender on it is seen as a negative substitution." It's really ok! Don't think of it as negativity, think of it as wiliness! Guile! Cunning!

Honestly, I'd be surprised if it was much above £3m. We got Kuol for about £100k didn't we? And things haven't been working out for him, unfortunately.

The irony is the perception of the summer window was that we'd chosen to double down on our current player types and add depth to the squad - to deal with a four competition campaign - rather than getting some alternative styles in and stretching a winning formula thin.

Sod all beyond a percentage of resale value, surely.

Definitely. We should be fighting like hell to avoid that. If he's happy to stay, which I'm sure he is, we should be looking at all alternatives first (including painful ones like Longstaff). The worrying thing is after this season's injuries and rocky path, even our star players are less valuable - the Joes, Isak, Schar, Botman, Wilson etc. - due to poor availability and/or age.