TRon

There's a good case to be made they are not so competent so I agree with you there. But I don't think there's much chance of us getting more competent owners who will invest as much money into trying to make us into a top club. More chance of an Ashley type of buyer coming in and using the club's assets to refinance.

100%.

FWIW I still think he's a very good wide player, but if he's our best option as a striker, then that's more of an indictment of our actual strikers than an endorsement of Gordon.

How does that help us in the EPL though? Unless we are selling him.

Which is fine, but we might need to rein in our ambitions for a while. That means complying with SCR so selling star players who want to move on to bigger clubs and replacing within our budget.

I think the board at this point would prefer to go another season with Howe rather than go with an unknown quantity. The only thing which might impact that is if they feel they are buying players who will lose value and then be useless if they do decide to go in another direction. The question then would be, do they give Wilson another summer budget to spend on players recommended by Howe?

The idea that we will be competing for CL or PL titles is fanciful, but these are more as a show of ambition rather than realistic goals. The financial restrictions in the short term mean we can't compete even if we want to.

I don't mind, I quite liked him when he was here, although if he was hitting the coke back then, that would explain a few of his more erratic performances.

Thought the writing was on the wall when the new contract talks were shelved tbh. But we can't help that, just need to actually get ahead of it this time. Same goes if Tonali decides he's done here.

Haven't really watched them since Carrick took over but I'd agree they are well beatable by a team well set up to exploit their weaknesses. I don't think that's us though, and even if they aren't a great team, they do have a few outstanding players.

I've always maintained that Howe needs to get next season as well, and pretty sure he'll get it. I'm not convinced he'll do much better though. The game has changed in the PL, and we've not been able to adapt. We've kept trying to play the same way despite not having the players to implement it, and the football has lacked any coherence for most of the season. The club has a decision to make in the summer as well. Howe has the final say on transfer targets, but how do we decide what type of player we are targeting? Do we stick with the players we bought last summer or trade them in at a loss in order to rebuild? The rest of the season is a write off for me, but I'm hoping we can use it to get a tune out of the players we brought in so there's at least something to look forward to next season.

Don't we have any actual right backs who can play at right back? Is it endemic through every age group?

I would like to see us go 4-4-1-1 with Woltemade playing off Gordon assuming Wissa is not fit for purpose. Put Barnes on the left and Elanga/Murphy on the right depending on which one Howe thinks will deliver. It's a simple system and you don't need to move players into unnatural positions.

Our football has been bad in just about every area of the pitch. We don't look solid in defence, our midfield can't hold possession, and we end up with 3/4 strikers on the pitch on some occasions and still don't look like scoring. Maybe just playing one striker in a coherent system would be more effective.

Plus I think the sum is worse than the parts at the moment. Our preferred style of play clearly doesn't suit the players we've bought.

I knew we wouldn't beat Everton. While I think it will be easier against Man U, I still think a win is asking a bit much.

But we were definitely making moves for Ekitike and Pedro long before Liverpool and Chelsea got involved. Both were on the verge of signing for us three years ago, in fact the only reason Pedro didn't was because we went for Isak instead.

I think we were probably assuming the deal was there to be done and then Man City played their hand and we were left helpless. Maybe it could have been tied up earlier if we had thought they were going to step in but we got caught by surprise. He does look a good keeper though, I think Howe definitely has an eye for a player.

We still won't be able to persuade players to stay if they are getting offered twice as much somewhere else.

That'll teach them.

Might have a better chance against these, they are not that phsycial which means we might be able to bully them a bit.

I agree with this. I think we might see this repeated this summer with players fishing for new clubs, and I expect we'll sell one or two if they make it clear they want to go. Mitchell being a cunt is a seperate issue, but being a nice guy isn't going to persuade players to accept half the wages they can get elsewhere.

If Rice had that body lock any firmer he could have picked him up and body slammed him to the turf.

Sounds like a plan to adapt our tactics to suit the players we've got instead of getting the players to adapt to the way we want to play. Crazy stuff.

Football has turned to shit this season IMO. In the Premier league at any rate.