Elma

Eddie Howe is always Frank…and John.

Project that forward 21 games and you'd like to think that Howe's NUFC will have out-scored Keegan's over the same number of games. Crazy how underrated Keegan's defence was though.

Not sure if I'm delighted (due to the timing and I kind of wanted to see what Mitchell would come up with this window) but if it's Mitchell or Howe then it's Howe all day. I also think Howe did a great job in January 2022 overseeing the transfers and I trust his eye for a player, as I did Keegan's. I firmly believe that a manager should have the most significant input on first team incomings and outgoings, with a DoF sense-checking it in the context of value for money, and taking an holistic approach with regards to continuity throughout the club. I appreciate that in the modern era a DoF has that role to play and ideally you have a manager and DoF who have an excellent working relationship and who trust each other. However, the manager is always going to have the greater impact on the direction of the club/results in general, and when you separate recruitment from the manager (as we did under Ashley) it rarely works. Eddie has earned this trust though. Let's just hope we have the team behind the scenes to pull it off this window as Eddie needs to hand over his list and then take a proper break this summer.

Used to quite like him but he said something a few weeks back which came across as quite arrogant. I can't find the actual quote now but if I remember correctly it seemed to shift any credit for their season onto him and away from the players. At the time I put it down to a translation thing, but the way he was going on yesterday made me think otherwise. He's obviously a very decent coach but having been a fan of Eddie since his Bournemouth days I'm so glad Emery turned us down.

I got.... Home: Barca, Club Brugge, Napoli and Monaco Away: Inter, Leverkusen, Ajax and Celtic

At least their match DJ got some practice in this year by playing the Europa League tune. Will allow them to hit the ground running.

28 August I think.

To be fair I don't blame him.

Ooh, got lucky there.

This will be a Villa goal.

Man U hit post again

Hence, "pretty much guarantees".

That's not true. A draw and we finish above Forest on GD. A Villa loss pretty much guarantees it.

I'm moving to Turkey a week too late for this one. 😕 From next weekend I'll legally be allowed to watch all the games, including the 3pm Saturday slot, from about £7.50/month. Used to be about £2.50 when I was there ten years ago but everything's gone up. Great timing with the season ending 😂 Ridiculous that the UK has such rules in place and the cost is so high. My folks have just binned Sky Sports and their bill went from about £150/month down to £35/month.

Ah of course. Less parachute payments.