TRon

Me. Although Ramsey's been pretty shit tbh, just don't think Joelinton's got the mobility these days. For whatever reason.

I'm not even sure they are capable tbh, although you wouldn't think it would be that difficult.

He'll get the chance to turn things round, he's earned it. I expect us to look a lot better second half of the season with Wissa available, but I do think we've dropped too many points and goals for this to be anything other than a disappointing season. The last two games have been a real kick in the teeth tbh.

Agreed. We have to take the long term view and buy players who will be the finished article in a year or two. Maybe we could attract the promising talent by offering them a route to first team football they won't get at the cartel clubs.

It's the same calendar for everyone tbf. Even if we didn't get our first choice signings, we spent big on PL experience and we do have a reasonable size squad to choose from. I think we could have complained about that the last couple of seasons, but this time round we usually have some options on the bench and for rotation.

Ramsdale had his chance and failed to take it. He's blown any chance of a permanent move here in all likelihood.

I think a lot of posters are making the same mistake tbf.

Granted. But given we did lose Isak, once we signed Woltemade, I would have expected us to adjust our game better to utilise his strengths instead. It looks like we are still trying to play as if we have Isak up front. I've often looked at the line ups on matchday and thought, yeah that looks good. But then when we actually go through the game it looks like everyone is playing to a different tune. Plus the in-game management has been pretty poor most of the season, our subs rarely seem to make a positive contribution.

I don't think it's fair to expect us to be an elite club with the PSR shackles. I just want to see us making progress year on year for the most part. Obviously there will be blips along the way, but this season it just feels like there is no pattern or direction as to how we are set up. It feels like we've gone backwards from where we were a couple of seasons ago.

Well if you can win 4 games on the bounce, it takes the pressure off having to win too many of those last 16. Every game you don't win now just compounds the difficulty later. So yeah, I prefer the pressure of winning the easy games now.

Not so much a judgement on the tactics but on the squad itself: we really do need to be finding players who can shoot. In our current squad there's not that many who can strike a ball well. Barnes definitely can. After that I'm scratching my head a bit. If you doubt it, just ask yourself how many of them would you fancy to score from a set piece 25 yds out?

I agree. I don't really know why anyone is bothering to defend Newcastle here. It was an awful performance, and if we couldn't get something against Man U reserves, then we didn't deserve it.

Well I suppose I would take that.

So do you expect us to turn this round and qualify for the CL this season? I don't see it personally, I think we'll improve, but I think we've wasted too many fixtures, and what I've seen from us doesn't fill me with confidence. I could see us finishing 7-10th if we pick our game up.

Haven't Villa done pretty well over multiple seasons under Emery? They only missed out on CL last season by a whisker, and were unlucky if we are honest. One awful ref's decision put us in the CL instead of them. Regardless, it's about momentum over a sustained period. They have it, we don't.

Well if the football project fails, it looks like it could probably be converted into a nuclear power plant.

I've got no problem with us playing a more conserved energy approach, but I'm not sure that's what Howe is trying to do. Our squad is pretty decent numbers wise this season, we have been able to rotate much more than the last time we were in Europe. I think the main reason we struggle with slowing the game down, is our players struggle to keep possession. Do that, and by design you have to do less chasing.

What is their project? How are they funding it?

If investing over £1bn in a new stadium is a viable investment then I'm pretty sure PIF will be the best bet for this club to do it. I don't really see who else would.

Has anybody actually seen much of him in action? He seems to be fairly well regarded by everyone except Howe. Is he really worse than Ramsdale or Dubravka?

We'll win because we really don't have any other choice. We have a run of relatively easier games, and given we are going to need a streak like last season where we went on a winning spree to get us back in the CL places, we have to start that run at Burnley. 1-2 Win.

The rulebook has been changed since then. If City's owners had bought the club today, they would have had to sell to buy, same way we are having to do.

This is me as well. This is the first season for me it feels like we are going backwards. It feels like Howe has accepted that we can't continue with the high intensity style that got us here, but he's still buying players for that model. The problem is, it's very difficult to buy the really elite players to move beyond that without being able to pay top wages and fees. The only real way to progress is to buy the top youngsters and aim to build a consistent CL side over the longer term. We need to be more careful on spending big on players who don't really improve us.

Do you think Hopkinson and Wilson are bad appointments?

It has definitely worked in the past, but not been so successful in recent times. You really do need a manager with 100% belief in his methods, and really high class forwards for it to come off week in week out.