Shak

Wood's shot just landed in my back garden and broke my glass table FFS.

Looks like he'd add absolutely nothing to Sheffield Wednesday's team.

Was mostly just a roundabout way to call Mike a cunt.

All people named Murphy are cunts, we can all agree.

Just jogged along waiting to lose it. He'd not good enough to even be a squad player.

Quite a lot of smoke around this tbh, really hope it's a mix-up. I've felt for a while he'll be gone in the summer anyway but it would be a bit of a blow in the second half of the season.

Torn to pieces and 20 minutes are both an overstatement IMO. Could easily have gone behind early but Howe changed it quickly and then it settled down and was pretty even after that I thought. Point is that no team has come out and dominated us, we generally give as good as we get until we have to start making subs.

Absolutely, I'll be quite disappointed if we don't get a couple who'll improve the first team. I'd love to see us go back in for Diaby, personally. Seems he's a long term target but it's been quiet. Leverkusen look mid table bound so might be willing to let him go now? I guess the theory is that Almiron has likely played himself into being a starter but our depth up front is shocking and Almiron being the only left footed winger isn't ideal IMO. Think it would impact Trippier a lot of he went out, we get great balance on that side from someone with a dangerous left foot cutting inside and Trippier overlapping. We know Howe likes to bed players in slowly and with Miggy in such great form it'd be an ideal time to bring Diaby in if he is a long term target. Even with a fully fit squad we basically have ASM, Almiron, Isak and Wilson for three spots on the field and then a massive drop off in quality. Joelinton I'm actually comfortable with starting on the left in some games but he's better in CM IMO. We need another attacking player that can actually do something rather than just be hard working warm bodies in Murphy and Wood. The Arsenal game was the latest in a number of games against the better sides in the league that have followed the same pattern. We've basically matched or been better than everybody we've played this season for the first hour or so. However, our style of play means our lads wear down and fresh legs are needed. This is especially true against good teams where we don't have as much of the ball. The Man City home game, the Man U away game, Liverpool away game and Arsenal away game all followed more or less the exact same pattern. Evenly matched game for an hour with the other team finishing strong and looking the far more likely to score. The Liverpool game they got through. Man U should have but for an awful miss by Rashford, they had other chances too. We were hanging on against Arsenal too. All of those games we had Wood and Murphy on for the closing stages and in all of them once those two were on teams basically didn't have to worry about us as an attacking force and really took the game to us. The only exception was the Man City game that I thought we could have won and the key difference there was ASM was still on the pitch. Anyway, where was I? Yeah, buy a winger. We're frightfully light up there and it'll end up costing us. Diaby would be ideal but if that's not realistic at least get someone who we won't all be collectively heartbroken to see coming on with twenty minutes left. A starting CM to partner Bruno and Joelinton with Willock and Longstaff as cover.

I expect that's what the plan is long term, for sure. However the idea of such a philosophy is that you'll always have a player or two that was signed a year or two previously that's ready to break into the first team and hopefully improve you or replace a player who needs to move on for one reason or another. Problem is that it's a new philosophy for us so we don't currently have signings from a couple of years ago that are taking that leap forward right now. If we want to improve the team in the short term, we'll need to sign players who are much more ready. You of course sign the youngsters yoo. We've added Kuol so far and I'd guess we'll add a couple more teenagers in the coming weeks but I doubt we're looking at this kid Varela as somebody that's going to give us another gear this year in our attempts to finish top four. They're long term investments that we should be bringing in two or three of every window and hoping develop into PL quality options. Combine that with being willing to sign more established and pricier players to fill the biggest holes in our squad when necessary and I think we'll build a very good team.

Can definitely see why we were after Gallagher, the little press mentalist.

To be fair to ASM you can very much see he's trying to become the player Howe wants him to be. Really trying to play with his head up more, make the pass when it's the right move. Would give me a lot of hope that he can learn the other things that we'll need from him to be someone who can play every game. He's obviously got the athleticism to press effectively and he's a strong lad so there's no reason he can't become an effective presser if the mentality is right and there are signs that it might just be. Will be very interesting to see if he starts the Fulham game if he comes through the next two games unscathed. I certainly hope he does.

18 months with the way your cardigan game is coming together.

Seems a great time for Isak to be coming back, by the way. Some very obvious situations to give him short run outs off the bench and be ready for the Fulham game. He'll probably still be on the bench for that Fulham game but hopefully ready to really contribute.

Gonna be an interesting one, this. Don't really want us to go too weak, I'd like to have two irons in the fire in terms of winning a cup this year. Really, really would be great if we got a couple of signings in this week, would fe much more confident in our ability to compete on multiple fronts.

Our 8 draws do stand out like. More than Arsenal, City and Man U have combined. Suppose the positive way to view it is that they're games other teams are losing. Good round of fixtures for us, though. Liverpool losing while we get a point at Arsenal is great. Man U have some really tough fixtures coming up, while our next four are favourable. God I hope we bring in a couple of really good additions this window. The drop off from our 11th best player to our 15th best player is fucking immense. I've no fear of any team. We'll probably lose games before the end of the year but we'll show up and give anyone a game with Howe in charge. I just hope we have the quality to get as much from our play as a team as we can.

I'm sorry, Mila. I don't deserve you.

It was a genuine compliment. Lots of fresh young lasses out there, would be easy to cast aside a long term committment for one of them and he hasn't done so. Respect.

I mean absolutely.

Credit to Midds sticking with Liz Hurley as his ideal woman well into her 50s

When he was having that bust up with Arteta at the end, when it panned back to the game I actually stood up in the pub and shouted at the TV " don't fucking concede now!". The thought of Arsenal scoring and Arteta celebrating in his face made me fucking sick. That's. My. Fucking. Manager.

Team I expected and makes sense tbh, need to defend seamlessly as a team and not sure ASM is quite there. Time to start ASM was on Saturday IMO, hopefully if he comes off the bench today he'll hit the ground running a bit more.

They look to me like a team with a very good manager who is increasingly getting them to play more and more like he wants them to. Think Ten Haag will be a success there, seems to know what he's doing unfortunately.

Feels to me like Man United and Liverpool are the teams to beat for us? Arsenal or Man City missing out on the top four seems almost impossible. Spurs meanwhile haven't looked great at all this year and Chelsea adding all these players seems great in theory but they're still getting used to how Potter wants to play and are now going to change up the team even more and are already well off the pace. Quite possible one of them makes top four but I'd be surprised at this point. Today and tomorrow figures to be bad for us. We're at Arsenal while Man U host Bournemouth and Liverpool go to Brentford. After that, our next four fixtures are a huge chance for us to make some strides. If we're serious about finishing top four we need to take advantage of that run of fixtures. Home games with Fulham and West Ham and away to Palace and Bournemouth. At least 9 points from that needed IMO, chance there'll be a slip up but what we can't do is draw too many games. Hopefully we'll have Isak back and maybe a signing or two to give us a boost too. Meanwhile Liverpool and Man U both have four tougher fixtures coming up. Man U have trips to Arsenal and Leeds as well as Man City at Old Trafford. Liverpool have to go to Brighton and Wolves and host Chelsea and Everton. All winnable obviously but all challenging fixtures. February 18th could be spicy, Liverpool coming to St James Park. If we are ahead of them when that fixture gets here it should be an immense game.

The way Howe likes to play he'd be great in the DM spot for us IMO. As we see when Bruno plays there, the role is more about being able to be the foundation of our attacks, taking the ball from the defense and getting it forward effectively and providing an outlet when we're in attack if we need to go backwards. We don't really need a true ball winning bruiser in that spot as much of the ball winning is done through our pressing as a unit. Tielemans is pretty decent defensively, much like Bruno. On the ball he'd get plenty of chances to shoot from distance and would be able to offer something similar to the passing that Bruno does in that role.

I'd be pleased with Tielemans as he's got the ability on the ball that we desperately need from our DM. One reason I've been wary of moving Bruno is that I don't want to lose his ability on the ball in that role but Tielemans would mean that it wasn't an issue.