TRon

Yeah he looked fantastic a year ago but he seemed to score all his goals in one game against us. Even our current signings of that ilk like Hall and Tino are still not the finished article, Hall is making defensive mistakes, and Tino is not providing effective overlaps. I am pleased we signed them, but it's a lot of money to pay for half baked players no matter how promising. I think with PSR restrictions we have to make future signings like that from abroad where we will get better value and potentially a bigger upside.

I just think that for players that aren't the finished article it's a lot of money with no real guarantee they will make much difference to results. Good prospects maybe, but you'd probably pay half for similar players from abroad.

I wonder if there's any mileage in playing him alongside Burn as a pair? Schar's been making a lot of mistakes in recent games, including some howlers against Brentford. I think we'll stick with Howe against Leicester but he must be on pretty thin ice by now.

They are the epitome of paying a premium forPL experience though. There's a question mark whether they would even impact results in the near future.

I think that's a misreading of the banner tbh. Demanding a team that tries is referring to a team that tries to win things, cups, titles etc. You seem to be reading it as "oh well we tried, that's the main thing, results are not the be all and end all".

Most of our signings of that season were a success on the pitch, massively so really. Unfortunately the ones still here are rapidly depreciating assets, so thanks to PSR, instead of appreciating that success we are reduced to seeing them as liabilities, even though we could afford to keep them on if we were allowed to buy upgrades.

I think Howe sees him differently, from previous attempts to sign him for quite a lot of money, that seems to be the case anyway. At the right price I think he'd happily take him. Whether Mitchell will sanction it is another thing. Depends if he's convinced Howe is the right man to take us beyond this season I suspect.

Quite a leap to think Howe will suddenly start trusting him with game time when he's barely been allowed 5 mins as a sub all season. He'll just move Gordon up front and use Barnes and Almiron/Murphy wide right.

This is my take on it. I've not paid that much attention to Elanga to pass judgement, but if Howe likes him, he must see him as a good fit. That said I'm not convinced Mitchell will be as keen unless the price is low-ish.

I've always been of the opinion major investment would be with the carrot of building a winning team. If that path is blocked, then unless there is some genuine upside to spending a huge chunk of cash to finish 6th, would they do that? If they are looking to be associated with a winning side with all the sportswashing benefits that come with it, then they could conceivably sell up and buy a cartel club instead. It's just a matter of money, and they aren't short of it.

He's right though. The number I've times I've seen us finally get to the byline and cross it, and there's no one in the penalty area. Sometimes not even Isak as he's the one crossing or he's dropped deeper to start a move off. A goal scoring AM who would steal into the box would help a lot. Also with the wingers cutting in so often or ignoring the overlap, there's not much for a striker looking to get on the end of stuff. Shearer would be going apeshit with that sort of service.

Feels like a watershed game this one. After recent poor results against less fancied teams, we are in a position where only a win will be acceptable. Anything less and the pressure on the team and manager will really start to heat up. Also we need 3 points to keep us in touch of the European places. While it's quite lucky that other than the top 4 no one is getting consistent results, it also means there's a lot more competition for those slots.

I don't think Mitchell will be chasing any future signings to appease Howe.

I think it's getting to a point that we have to do something otherwise the question might arise whether PIF will remain committed to a project which won't deliver a trophy winning side. I know it is probably sacrilege to go there, but for the Saudis it would probably be a lot cleaner to sell up, then spend their gazillions on buying out Man U instead. Not sure how it would work in the short term with them also being close to the PSR limit, but long term that wouldn't be an issue as they are already probably the biggest revenue generating machines. Ironic that FFP is geared to such a way that locks in the cartel advantage forever.

Yes, but I can only call it on what we are showing so far this season, and that has us not playing very well and sitting 12th in the table.

I'm sure Yasir would love to be No 1, and if we were allowed to spend our way there, we would do it. But we aren't because since the takeover the rules have been specifically amended to stop us spending on the squad. So our current target for this season is Europe, which isn't out of the question and is not as I understand it a firing offence if we don't achieve it. This is just speculation. Your suggested solutions seem to be break the rules and take the punishment, points docked or whatever. I just don't think that's a sensible way forward. By all means criticise the ownership but you need to come up with something more realistic and concrete that we could seriously ask ourselves: why haven't they done that?

Did anyone at the club actually specify the target = 6th? From what I understand the target is Europe and that can be achieved even with an 8th place finish if things go our way.

Didn't Leicester, Everton and Forest end up in a shitload of trouble for trying to bend the rules? The staff responsible for trading badly prior to this summer have gone as you acknowledge. Even the Yasir No 1 ambition has been downgraded. I'm not really sure what you are arguing at this point. Seems to be breaking rules and then risking a points hit if I'm reading that last post correctly.

I think Europa is a target to aim for, it's not tied inherently to Howe's job. Eddie's been backed pretty extensively in the transfer market, the only reason he's not getting more is because the league rules won't allow it. This means if Eddie wants more players we'll have to sell in order to generate the funds. He's been reluctant to let players go previously but seems to be on board with it now. Unfortunately it seems the only players clubs want is the ones he wants to keep.

I agree with teams beating each other, in theory it wouldn't take that much to put us right back in there. What puts doubt in my mind is we have looked disjointed all season, and because we've dropped a lot of points to substandard teams, those will be harder to make up in the second half of the season.

I'm just looking at a realistic way forward. I think what would be useful is an update from PIF as to what our current ambitions are. Fans might still be going off the Yasir quote about becoming No 1, but that's since been updated to getting into Europe in the short term at least. For that we aren't that much off course, it's quite conceivable that Howe could achieve that even with 8th place. As for other clubs navigating PSR issues, I think all clubs have different headroom, and they probably come under less scrutiny as well. Just have to look at Man U with their Covid allowances to see that. We've hired top class people to oversee all this. What is it you are arguing then? They are bad hires and we should sack them and get others instead?

Some of the most successful managers in the Premier would never have landed if clubs looked for PL experience above other credentials.

Not sure there's much chance of getting money for Almiron either, that ship has probably sailed.

Agree, was just a response to the post about how much better a captain Trippier was. I don't think it makes much difference myself.

Make someone else captain then.