TRon

Which is fine as long as the club owners are prepared to write the season off without any repercussions. You can't expect short term results with a long term plan.

Can we loan another Chelsea player with Hall already on our books?

I'd argue that Barnes was a transformative signing. If only because him not being available has meant we've flogged Gordon to death, and that's robbed us of a very important player who is unable to play at 100%.

Anyone who thinks hiring a successful manager is a an exact science just needs to have a look at what is going on at Man U. Eddie had a hard time in his last season at Bournemouth but most of the fans there still love him. That must be quite instructive.

He'd be the hardest to replace IMO. We can look all we like at strikers like Osimhen, but he's not coming here. World class strikers are a rare commodity, every club is after them.

I'll be disappointed if we don't get 7th at the very least, not going to lie.

I think it was Wenger who argued offside should be decided by clear daylight between players rather than a fraction of someone's hand being considered enough to rule offside. I think that made a lot of sense.

Imagine you had to pin the arrogance tag on Mourinho or Howe and you decided Howe was the one who deserved it.

Mourinho did a pretty bad job at Man U and Spurs, he was given more than enough rope as well. Conte is a great manager until he gets in a huff, which happens quite often tbh. Careful what you wish for.

Ok. Poor guy hasn't had much of a break since his first season where he was outstanding.

What's happened to Matt Targett btw? Did he get injured again?

You can see exactly why Barcelona or Madrid would want him. I reckon he'd be a good fit for Man City too, but defensively he can be caught out in transition so I wonder if they would maybe decide against making a move.

That's the million dollar question no one will be prepared to answer.

Yeah I'm sure we'll do fine next season. It does feel like this one might be beyond rescue by the end of this month. Although if we can get a few returning from injury we could still challenge for Europa.

In that case we are basically writing this season off. Wouldn't be a massive shock tbh, FFP is what it is.

There will be a bit of that, it's not easy to switch styles of play mid-season, but I still thought we were trying to do the right things. Neville in the commentary box was lambasting us for trying to play our way out from the back, but that's how you break down teams that are pressing you. There's loads of space behind them if you can get the ball out. That's what Forest did to us with brilliant effect. They didn't punt the ball clear, they kept their cool and found the gaps. I just felt too many of our players weren't good enough to do the same against the Liverpool press. I'm not even sure it was fatigue, I look at players like Longstaff and I know he's going to panic when someone rushes him. Bruno's usually great at shielding the ball, but he's slow so if he gets caught in space then he's losing that battle.

I thought we did sit deeper yesterday though, we just didn't have the players who could cope with it. Liverpool swarmed us and we couldn't find a way out.

Being in Europe is very important for the club brand to grow globally.

I've never actually watched that much of Phillips from the bits that I've seen he used to be an all action type. If Pep wanted him at City then I would assume he's not that bad a player technically, but maybe not quite good enough for them, because they are light years ahead of us still. I think he could bring qualities that we are sorely lacking in both Longstaff and Bruno.

Pretty much sums it up tbh.

It sounds perfectly fair tbh. But I guess it comes down to if his style of play would suit us a year down the line.

He was. A couple of times he took the ball down from long balls with an exquisite first touch was just quality. He's a good player, just not a striker. I thing games like last night really show what a player is capable of.

Pedro was a really frustrating miss, but it was him or Isak wasn't it? Again just us being hamstrung by FFP. He would have provided the balance of physicality and pace which we are missing up front right now.

It's based on fuck all.

I could understand sitting deeper against Liverpool though, we don't have any pace in our back four if we push up and get countered, Liverpool are especially good at doing that as well. Even with numbers back Salah was still tormenting our left side, can you imagine what they'd have done with Burn and Botman exposed? Saturday is very different, they won't have the players to hurt us in the same way. We can hurt them assuming we can put out a half decent first 11. It really should just be about better players making the difference.