Shak

It’s made such a difference to us on the ball just having the threat of pace in behind, and obviously the speed with which he presses without the ball is fantastic. The concern with him at CF is that he hasn’t been a great finisher so might not score as much as you’d want from your lone striker, hopefully having Woltemade in that LCM position will offset that though as you’d expect he should be able to chip in with more goals from that spot than Joelinton or any of the other midfielders who have played that spot have managed to do.

Two days after his team wins the Super Bowl and all.

Lay down with Frogs, you’re gonna get slimey. Let this be a lesson to you, gash bandit.

Just get yourself a Man U jersey and be done with it, you traitor.

Kaks for me, like.

Miley full time RB now then? If he keeps up his recent levels of play for a prolonged period then it may potentially become quite interesting as regards it becoming his full time position. He’s been incredible there. Having local lads at both full back spots would be quite cool.

The issue of course is that as soon as he’s fit again then we all know Eddie will use Burn at LB instead of Targett when Hall is unavailable

Aye, if he’s doing well there then well for him and hopefully he can sign on permanently in summer when his deal is up here. We have spent tens of millions on him and made him very well off over the last few years and I’ve not heard anything about him being treated anything but well, if we need him to be here and play for us for the next few months then he may get in his car and get back here and get on with it. Decent chance of being in involved in some Champions League games, we are one round away from Wembley in the League Cup and are still in the FA Cup. It isn’t the worst situation to come back into.

He doesn’t look good and I would strongly be in favour of selling and getting someone else in. That said, I think anyone blaming him for the third goal is nuts. The ball has just been played here. Taverniwr gets to it about two yards outside the six yard box. Ramsdale must be standing about three yards from where the ball ultimately next gets touched, Botman redirects Tavernier enough that it should be a very easy claim for an even somewhat competent goalkeeper. Don’t think I can blame Botman for not just assuming his keeper wouldn’t come and claim a routine through ball.

Legendary stuff in the shootout, fantastic. What a way to finish his Newcastle career, storybook stuff.

Still quite interested to see Tonali in that LCM role at some point. Think he can bring that physicality and being absolutely everywhere energy Eddie wants from that position while being a lot more capable on the ball. Visions of him in that wide left area knocking the ball around the outside of the fullback and absolutely doing him for pace. Bruno back to the 6 and then Miley (with Ramsey providing competition) in the RCM role.

It’s such a good finish for the winner like. He had just had a moment on the edge of the box thirty seconds before where he just couldn’t sort his feet out to get a shot away, ball comes back in and it’s so congested in there and he is facing his own goal before managing to swivel and get a shot away with enough power on it to get past the keeper. What a moment for him, fully deserved especially in light of Eddie’s comments about the whole willingness to play on the right thing.

Aye you’ll really show everyone then.

At this point he surely should just stay put and get the absolutely massive signing on fee?

Friend is actually a massive Besiktas fan and reckons his biggest issue was bringing in players and tactically he was just not up to it. Will generally bring a good atmosphere and players will play for him. Seems a pretty decent caretaker appointment, should be alright for a few months and surely not someone they'll consider making permanent, which is the only real way this could be a disaster.

Like you have the first clue as to what makes me happy, bozo.

Interesting that Howe has said it publicly, you wonder if he is getting a bit sick of Gordon’s shite. Plan IMO should be to play Gordon left the rest of the season then see if we can flog him for a decent fee in summer. Elanga and Barnes then become the options for the LW spot. Need to ditch this whole idea of having a right footed player at RW and get a proper ball playing leftie for that spot, use the Gordon money to get the best player we can for it. Juice just isn’t worth the squeeze with Gordon IMO. For all his waffle I just don’t think he has enough to his game to be a top class player and we’ll get just as much production from the spot from Elanga (once he settles) or Barnes.

Aye, doesn’t have to be both, would agree with that. Think it’ll be interesting to see how we approach it in terms of adding players for the front three in the summer, and if we potentially look to move some players on (Gordon seems the obvious candidate) for decent money to get players who can better complement Woltemade.

Actually quite pleased if we get 20m given he has 18 months left on his deal and is clearly someone we’re desperate to get rid of. Will be less in the summer so hopefully can get it done now.

Was thinking from the transfer rumours thread about what kind of setup we need to get the best out of Woltemade. The obvious one is a change of formation, so we have something close to two up top with a pacy #9 type to stretch teams behind. Wissa would fit the bill pretty perfectly, I do wonder if Eddie might be tempted to give it a go in one of the next two games? If I’m honest though, I have a hard time seeing Eddie go away from the 4-3-3 as the primary setup, with the odd five at the back game to set up to counter teams and maybe occasionally going two up top when chasing games. At some point I could see something like this being interesting. Woltemade basically operating like a false nine. (I know Thiaw and Botman are on the wrong side) In this setup the wide players are tasked with essentially playing right up on the shoulder of the CBs and becoming almost like strikers when in possession, forcing the defence back and giving Woltemade and the midfielders space to operate and runners behind to look for. Tino and Hall then push up aggressively and provide the width. Wissa would be nigh on perfect for this, I reckon. Put Barnes in there as I think he would be the most suited of the other wide options. In possession then we ultimately look more like this. Think ultimately that’s how you get the best out of Woltemade, we need players beyond him so that when he takes in the ball with his back to goal and turns or lays it off we have runners to aim for in advanced positions. Another thing I like about it is that it solves the issue of our wide players being technically quite limited. None of them can really get on the ball and unlock a defense, but I could see all of them being useful doing this with Barnes’ eye for goal and the pace Gordon and Elanga have. Ultimately we will hopefully have an upgrade on Joelinton and then you’d be hoping to run most of our creative player through him, Bruno and Woltemade. It also takes two of our best players in Tino and Hall and gives them much more prominence in our attacking play, serving as wing backs essentially. (Needless to say, we’d need competent backups as this would be beyond Dan Burn and the current iteration of Trippier) Anyway, just me nerding on here

Given that Eddie was basically the transfer czar last summer I would be very surprised if Woltemade isn’t a player he’s keen to build around for the next few years, especially given the promising signs we’ve seen from him so far. I can honestly see the logic in moving him on for a profit and getting a player who profiles more similarly to Isak, but it would be a very discouraging sign for me. Woltemade represents an opportunity for us to evolve our style, think it’s as simple as Eddie needing a bit of time both working with him and on the training ground to find the way the rest of the team needs to adjust to such a different style of CF.

We’re definitely having issues across the team adjusting to a very different type of CF in Woltemade than we had in Isak. That said, I don’t think much could have saved Elanga the last few months. Hopefully it settles down for him because we can’t afford to just write him off as a bad buy, need him to become a functional member of the squad.

Like literally not one form at all? Is it a whoosh?

We’ve had players start slowly under Eddie and come good before, I will say though that Elanga is probably the most concerned I’ve been about a struggling new player. I think he’ll eventually settle down and become less jittery out there and understand what is expected of him tactically, he’s clearly got some tools in his locker and has shown he can be very effective at this level. However, the major issue for me is that he was bought to play with a striker that we don’t have anymore. Think Eddie somewhat struck gold with a right footed RW last year, with Murphy excelling in feeding Isak the ball quickly. Elanga then was intended to be the evolution of that, with the added bonus of having a lot more pace and being able to take players on in a way Murphy never could. With Isak gone, we need to evolve our style of play and I don’t see Elanga as a traditional wide man out on the right in a 4-3-3 being a good fit for it, especially as Eddie is trying to evolve us into more of a possession based team that doesn’t rely on intensity as much as we once did. We are crying out for a ball playing left footed RW in that spot, someone who will get on it between the lines and give Bruno someone to bounce off of in the build up play. Almiron wasn’t exactly that but between him and Trippier we used to run most of our play through that side and it was a lot more effective than it is now. I would also suggest that a big part of the reason Livramento often looks better at LB is because he has a right footed LW ahead of him, creating space to run into. On the right he doesn’t have that and it limits him IMO. Where does this leave Elanga, then? A system change to a 4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1 would probably help him look better on the right, though some of the issues above would still exist. I just don’t know if I see Eddie moving away from the 4-3-3 though, being realistic. If not, the other option is that we view Elanga as a left sided player going forward and sell Gordon or Barnes (or just cut your losses with Elanga) and use that money to buy someone else for the right side. I suspect that the stats here aren’t perfect but this is what transfermarkt has for Elanga in terms of his numbers by position played over his career. Even accounting for some inaccuracies in the data and taking into account likely issues with the level of opposition he was up against, he seems vastly more productive from the left. Feel like in our system he’d offer a lot of the same things Gordon does there, frankly. Feels like something for next summer rather than anything we can realistically expect to address any time before then, but honestly binning the whole right footed RW thing would be my preference and I hope it’s the direction we go.

Ultimately I expect he’ll be given a lot of leeway for this season and rightfully so given all he’s done as manager and some of the shite he’s had to deal with given how the club has operated at boardroom level in his time here. By all accounts he has a great relationship with Ross Wilson so I don’t see there being much of a threat of him being forced out in a bad period, whereas he might have been if Mitchell was still here. I must say that my confidence in his ability to one day take us to the next level and be a team that challenges for the title is pretty low. There’s very little to suggest he knows how to set up a team to effectively control the ball and take the game to weaker opposition. It’s all just very poor and you can see teams are very comfortable now just giving us the ball because we can’t do anything with it. That’s all very far down the road though and I think he’s earned the right to a bad patch or two and to see what he can do working alongside a recruitment team that seem to be on the same page as him. Still in with a shout in three cup competitions and the league looks incredibly tight where I don’t see us falling too far off the European spots. Get some quality additions in January and the season can still be a good one.