Rich

Thought it was a bit flat yesterday compared to some big games, not sure many believed we could actually beat them. Still canny overall, though.

What a fucking roar Fuck off.

https://archive.ph/0dk6N The full Torygraph article is basically word porn.

He’s rightfully fourth choice based on performances and reliability over the past two and a bit years. It’s genuinely insane how good our CB pool is for this to be the case.

If you don’t trust uncal Rich by now you mustn’t trust anyone.

Aye, old Big Daddy River already cracked the case a few weeks back and has since had it confirmed.

Sponsor’s gonna be Riyadh Air, innit?

It’s pretty much this, innit? KI saw it in the flesh and I know someone else who has that’s confirmed it. Not at all what FootyHeadlines have made .

Wew, Emil’s on there.

If Fab goes, I riot.

Ramsdale Thiaw Schär Botman Livramento Guimarães Tonali Hall Wissa Gordon Woltemade I’m getting horny for something like this, and I thought this was the best place to confess. 3-4-2-1, as we played under Rafa for his best spell, but with much stronger players in pretty much every position. Wissa should fit one of the positions behind Woltemade like a glove, as Perez did with Rondon, but I think Murphy and Elanga would struggle with those roles. You could look at Murphy as the backup RWB, as he’s been decent there in the past. Gets two quick players much more central/closer to Woltemade, rather than seeing Joelinton effectively playing as a lone 10 in a 4-2-3-1, which hasn’t really worked at all. Very harsh on Burn, but I just want to see our best footballers on the pitch as much as possible, and Botman/Schar both comfortably trump him there. There is an argument that Burn is a more natural LCB in a three than Botman, though. Also, I can’t stand seeing Schär out of the team any longer. He adds so much to our play.

I’ve learned my lesson from last season about questioning Howe, like, but I do understand why people are wavering based upon what we’ve seen this season. There’s so much negative context around why we’re underperforming, though, and you’d still back him to turn it around. The concern is that we don’t have the Tonali and Bruno switch card to play this season, so it’s probably going to take a greater overhaul of the system and approach to get a similar uptick. He won’t shy away from that at all, I don’t think, but we’re quite limited for changes with the current makeup of the squad.

Think the 4th best CB is bang-on, mind, but obviously the Lascelles bit is insanity

That’s because he has a huge amount of credit in the bank, surely? Whereas Big Sven had a good season, then was woeful/injured for ages, and is back now but hardly pulling up any trees.

Needs to be a full reset during this break, for me. Get Tino and Hall back in, put Schar with Thiaw, go with Ramsdale in nets. Fucked if I’ve got any solutions for how dump the lauded midfield three have been all season as a unit, mind. Maybe not just playing 4-3-3 every fucking game?

When all was going to shite around him this lad was class again.

As soon as Tonali goes off, the old midfield chasm appears again

We’ve had a fucking shocker here mind.

Why aren’t we making changes?

Stonewaller

What a bloke.

That's given me some serious Colback and Anita PTSD.

I know you jest, but the players gave the crowd very little to feed off. The atmosphere was really strong at the start.