TRon

Same here. I tried to keep a lid on it yesterday, but it only looks more damning after sleeping on it. It's utterly depressing, and really took the shine off the FA cup game on Wednesday for me.

It's a very simplistic take to say both sides just cancelled each other out. We looked listless like we have most of the season. They had a bunch of players who had far less PL experience than us, but you wouldn't know it looking at them. I'm honestly concerned we are going backwards at this point. The manager might believe he has the squad to turn this round, but the players don't look like they believe it. Either that or they don't believe in the way he is setting us up this season. It doesn't look good whichever way you look at it.

Absolutely not. He should still have the final say, but we are seeing the result of not having a proper DOF in charge this summer. Mitchell got panned for saying that the recruitment process was not fit for purpose, but however much a cunt he was, it's showing this season. Howe has been brilliant in getting us to this level but without a clear view of how we are meant to be playing, the recruitment looks confused at best. We need someone at the top who will put less emphasis on PL experience unless we are going to play Moyes football.

Elanga and Ramsey were long term targets, I don't think you can blame anyone else for signing the players Howe wanted.

A few weeks ago he was.

Honestly thought he was no worse than anyone else. He was involved in quite a few tight situations where he found a pass I thought. I did nip to the bog for a minute, maybe I missed a particularly bad passage of play where he was giving the ball away for fun.

There is a touch of flavour of the month, I suppose he's still relatively unproven. But I do like Iraola, I think he's done wonders at a club at that level who are selling their best players. We'll never really know what he's capable of until he gets a bigger club who can buy quality players.

Tbf, Iraola is at a lower tier club, he doesn't have the resources to compete properly, and his best players are always going to get sold.

It was bad luck, that can happen. All in all he had a dreadful game in general though, I think that is why he is getting the flak.

There were quite a few crossed thrown into the area which just dropped into empty space. We just don't have players who attack the ball in the box, whether that's Woltemade or anyone else.

Story of our season. At some point you come to the conclusion we don't find a better decision or pass, is because we've bought workhorses and not thoroughbreds.

Yeah that was the gutter for me. I was convinced before the game we would press them and force their players into mistakes with their shite ball control, but we just sat off them for 90 mins. The players looked like they didn't believe in whatever they were doing either.

Why would Emery come here now? The best choice without a doubt, but it's not happening when they are flying high.

That's my biggest issue. We seem to be spending a lot of money on players who look technically deficient to play a possession game. To the uninitiated it looks like he's bought the wrong type of players for the style we are playing.

Just said that in the Elanga thread as well.

I find it more annoying that we spent a year chasing him when his limitations should have been obvious to anyone who watched him regularly. Not really sure what Howe was seeing tbh.

Yep. But he ended up having a great last season and we are still in the CL and the cup competitions. He's earned the credit in the bank as they say, so that's why he'll get the rest of the season to turn things round. I agree it doesn't look great though.

Which makes his signing even more baffling since it seems he was a long term target.

Mate, while I appreciate your balance, we don't need it after raising the white flag at the stadium of shite.

I'm not pinning our hopes on one player, but he might make a difference. I don't see who is out there at the moment who we could bring in anyway, and why would we sack Howe when we still have quite a lot to play for this season?

Yep. It's been the story of our season, and now compounded with awful set pieces at both ends of the pitch.

As far as Howe's future goes, it's time to hunker down and just give him the rest of the season to work things out. I think we've hit rock bottom today, now the only realistic option is to hope Wissa can make a difference to how we are playing. The players look lost at the minute.

Also, not a single person other than Freddie Shepherd thought Souness was the answer.

Hall and Livramento are good prospects, but they would fetch big money. We do tend to overrate our players generally.

I don't mind when we get beat by better teams but when you spend so much money and can't separate from a bunch of athletic try-hards down the road, then questions are going to be asked.