Theregulars

I’m criticising Howe, who said that he agreed to let Shelvey go. I think it was an overly-emotional decision from Howe. He should have stood firm, and politely declined the request.

Firstly, stop saying he “begged”. It’s stupidly emotive. He politely asked and set out his case. Secondly, the fact he asked so late should support the argument that we should have said no. Too late to replace him. The manager himself has said it’s a big gamble and he’s not comfortable with it. Stop trying to excuse them - they’ve made a mistake and it’s plain as day. All parties involved have shown their inexperience.

Precisely! We’ve now a need for 2, not 1. Bad decision. Like I’ve said, you’re just not allowed to criticise Howe and the board without provoking an avalanche of accusations of entitlement, lacking perspective and overhyping shelvey (a PL regular for most of his 14 year career, by the way).

He hasn’t featured as much because he was injured. Howe repeatedly said that shelvey was a big player for us and that his return would help. Again, I understand the financial argument and the argument that Shelvey wanted to take the longer contract. However, we held the cards, and I think we should have stood firm. It’s not a huge forbearance on him to play for us instead of nottingham forest for a further 4/5 months. In theory it’s nice to grant his wishes, but I’d rather not be nice when it means weakening our chances this season. All in all, in my opinion it looks a bad decision.

I proposed we kept him until season’s end. If his automatic extension kicked in, so be it; we make it clear to him that he’s not getting many minutes and should look for a club during the summer. Howe was clearly prepared to trigger the extension, which suggests they weren’t that concerned about it. I don’t think Shelvey by himself would have got us into the top 4, of course not. But I think he could be a squad player in an upstart team that gets there before growing, yes.

I’ll give you a clue: well.

Yes; and the entire point I’m making is that we need a squad. So, to spell that out more clearly, we need to have substitutes who can come in and operate at a premier league level when our starters are injured or suspended. We now have 2 CM starters out, so having a roster of 4 for 3 places was not an intelligent gamble. We’ve not made big enough money on Shelvey to make it worthwhile in my view. People will now bleat “but FFP!” - fine, then recruit intelligently. Get a loan or find a young gem. The board and manager - who, again, have been brilliant in their tenures to date - have left us stupidly short.

How do you think he performed after Howe arrived last season?

Again, played yesterday.

Anderson isn’t good enough.

People continue to miss the point re: shelvey. The point is we need a squad, with options who we know can contribute at PL level. Shelvey was that, as recently as our great run last season. We’ve made a money move to get rid, fine; but it’s a gamble and now we have to pay for that gamble by relying on crap players. I therefore conclude it wasn’t an intelligent gamble in all the circumstances. It’s really simple.

How does it? The performance was poor, the performances in general are trending downwards and the transfer window was not particularly impressive. It’s a relatively bad patch performance and results wise (I don’t think draws are great, especially when it’s the only result you get), and we had a poor transfer window (which I think is going to cost us the very significant opportunity of CL football when multiple usual challengers are having a bad season). The board, manager and squad are being criticised, and rightly so. There’s absolutely bot all highly strung about saying so. I’d say, in fact, that the reactions to this viewpoint are highly strung; it’s almost like “dissent” isn’t allowed.

I’ve said over and over what I expected: don’t sell shelvey without a replacement. That’s fuck all to do with FFP. We’re now short on CMs and it looks so short-sighted. Don’t agree with you re: Britain; so many people bleat on about “it could be worse” when you want better for yourself and others. I don’t think you understand my point: I have no issue whatsoever with any of our results and performances; today’s performance was dross and it’s right to call it so, but doing so triggers this ludicrous “don’t be so entitled” backlash. There’s nothing entitled about saying today’s performance wasn’t good enough. Plainly, it wasn’t.

Well your point just plays into mine - the lack of squad depth was in plain sight before the transfer window, and we’ve come out with a shallower squad. The board and Howe have taken a brainless gamble and today exposed it. It’s highlighted their inexperience, hopefully they learn from it. They’ve had 3 windows. 2 have been good, 1 looks reckless. It was so predictable that going the rest of the season that light on strikers and central midfielders was a dumbass thing to do. But hey Ho, we got a bit of coin for shelvey, so all’s well. To make the post gammon-proof, I explicitly emphasise that this was their first mistake.

Needs a spell on the bench once Targett’s fit. Today was the worst in a line of worsening league performances. Wank song too.

Shit today. That’s why Wilson is first choice. Doesn’t look ready to start. Back to the bench and rightly so.

I disagree; some people on here have taken on a quasi-religious fervour about Howe, the board and the squad whereby any criticism makes you some kind of ungrateful heathen. We’ve been playing mediocre for about 6 weeks, and the performances are - by and large - getting worse. This boring “appreciate what you’ve got” attitude (a broader problem in Britain, I might add) will hold us back in my view. That’s the approach we took to the transfer window and we look worse for it. We’re so lacklustre at the minute and if we don’t shape up we’ll get comfortably put to the sword by a good side in the cup final. Howe has 2 weeks to figure something out - we shouldn’t be in this position, but we’ve landed ourselves in this position by taking a commercial approach to football in the transfer window.

But what is not valid about saying we played like shit today? That doesn’t mean we’re saying the season isn’t great! We’re saying today was bollocks.

Exactly this. If you make any criticism you’re fickle, or an arsehole, or a closet mackem, or entitled, or divorced from reality. It’s so fucking tiresome. The board deserve criticism for a mediocre window. The players deserve some today for being shit. This place is so fucking binary at times, it’s a real bore.

Fantastic post.

I did, yeh. Did you?

The idiot in the room is an idiot.

Nope, not arguing with myself at all. I’ve been consistent in my analysis: we were shit. My point is that the excuses you give don’t justify a performance that poor. I think they justify looking below par and a bit knackered; not being unable to pass the ball to your own teammates or having no identifiable offensive strategy.

Yes - I’m agreeing with you. My point is that the reasons and excuses are meh for me. We played poorly against a poor side.

All valid. We were still shit. That’s all I’m saying: today, we were shit. We are of course allowed some off days, but I’m allowed to call them such.