stozo

I think the beauty of the midfield options are you can play a different three for different types of games. Against a Big 6 team, Joelinton is absolutely in the team. At home against a Bournemouth I'd be starting Bruno-Tonali-Miley or Bruno-Tonali-Ramsey as I think that gives you a more technical midfield arguably more adept at cutting through teams. I actually think the bigger problem is we need to find left/right balance in our midfield. Bruno, Miley, Ramsey and Willock all look better on the right. Joelinton is still the only one who looks best in the left midfield position. Edit: I suspect the above (along with general quality issues) is why Willock will be sold in the summer, allowing us to buy a CM who favours the left hand side.

You look at our last eight fixtures and think there are seven winnable games in there. But we haven't managed to string a consistent run of wins together this season. I think in truth it probably hinges on Wednesday. You obviously want us to win, but if we get knocked out I think there is probably a much higher chance of us taking the 14 points or so we'll probably need to snag Europe than if we end up needing to focus on a two-legged tie against Atletico Madrid.

Absolutely had the Chelsea winger in his pocket all night. Brilliant return to the starting line up.

I honestly think we have over-philosophised and to an extent over-professionalised our approach this season. We seem absolutely set on trying to control games as that’s the footballing philosophy we’ve bought into based on its success in the men’s professional game - but the reality is at this level of women’s football the quality is so patchy that it just doesn’t work. Keeping the ball doesn’t really matter (to an extent) because the quality isn’t there for us to restrict our opponents chances and all we end up doing is getting suckered into low scoring games. Every game we look a million miles better when we start to panic and throw players forward. If we’d played like we did in the last five mins we’d have scored 2 or 3 at least today.

Can only assume that must be pre-agreed as part of the loan as she has done virtually nothing since joining to justify a perm move (largely as she’s been injured for about 4 months).

Also does my fucking head in that this clashes with the men's team game. There are so many simple wins to get more interest in women's football and avoiding men's fixture clashes seems like one of the easiest!

I just think - and no blame here, I think it happens naturally as it’s hard to keep up - that our fans expectations of the value of an ‘improve us immediately’ player is anchored on where the market was one or two years ago. If you drew up a list of £40-£45m midfielders who would improve us immediately, I think you’d have a very short list. I also think the broader problem is that we got completely fucked in the striker market in the summer, so all our signings are playing in an attack that is far, far below where it has been. Elanga, for example, has had some very poor moments, but so has Jacob Murphy who last season looked a world beater when he has Alex Isak on the end of his supply line.

But you've also explained why Bournemouth do not compete. The reason we have bought Elanga for £55m and Ramsey for £43m is because they are 23 and 24 when signed respectively. The aim is not resale value immediately. It's develop them as players to help us compete in the long term. Ramsey certainly looks like he could be handy in a CL competing squad - he's done that at Villa and has shown real promise in the past month here. Elanga is obviously some way behind but seems to be improving every game. People are frustrated because we've performed less well this season but ultimately that's because we ended up in a bad situation with Isak, not that our model is broke. Actually, if you look at the past window aside (I genuinely think it's too early to judge any of them), I don't think we've had a real bust transfer under Howe?

I think the point is it's very hard to scale Brighton's model above a certain level. You reach a point where 'smart' hits the limit of competing against teams with enormous budgets. Our 'hidden gems' are also the 'hidden gems' that the Big 6 want. It's very well reported that both Khusanov and Leoni were targets in the past 18 months - both got snapped up by Big 6 clubs with deeper pockets and similar levels of smarts.

Firstly, let's not judge Rayan off a tiny sample of games. Woltemade looked a world beater after a similar number of games. You've managed to name five players - one of whom, Kluivert, has only 2 goals this season. Let's look at the rest. Luis Sinisterra - average. Unal - average. Diakite - average. Tyler Adams - average. Romain Favre - total bust. The above exemplifies the risks of that model - you buy a bunch of 'gems', some work out, but some do not.

I'm sorry but that's nonsense. Firstly, the profits we'd have achieved on Wilson and Almiron selling the in summer of 2023 would never have hit Andersen and Minteh levels. We'd probably have booked profit on both - but not a combined approx. £60m. Then you come into the fact that, even discounting the profit disparity, the only way you keep Anderson and Minteh is if we don't replace Wilson and Almiron. Wilson and Almiron played a combined 70+ games in the 23/24 season scoring a combined 15 goals. Back to the original point - it would have been a tough ask/decent sized risk to sell those players, book modest profits, and then replace with two players who could have matched their output that season.

I take your point and agree somewhat - we haven't sold players at peak value. But equally I think you have to look at the results of the past few seasons and realise why we haven't sold (and Howe in particular has been anti selling those players). Buying and selling well typically involves shifting players in their prime or late prime and then replacing them with players who are a good few years ahead of their prime. Speaking generally, that probably means in year one, on average, you're replacement is not going to be as good. The epitome of the model is Brighton. Look at them this season. They have a squad of players who are probably going to be at some of the best clubs in the world in four years. But they aren't quite there this season - and they haven't come close to achieving what we've achieved in the past few seasons. Joelinton and Trippier absolutely could have been sold for something two summers ago - but both them ended up being winning League Cup final starters. And I can take a mediocre season this season in exchange for what we got last season.

I honestly don't think you can say that given the SCR situation. He clings on to Joelinton, Burn, Pope, Trippier etc. precisely because he has no ability to replace them like-for-like on quality. And 2 out of those 4 (Burn and Joelinton) will probably be squad players again next season, precisely because we won't have the money to upgrade them. I don't think that's Howe's sentimentality, I think it's just the reality of the situation he finds himself in.

Unfortunately I mean this season is a negative transition point between last season and next season. We're not evolving - we've taken a step back but I think this mediocre season will probably end up being a bridge between a very good last season and a very good next season.

City were very, very good tonight. Once they got control of the game at 30 mins they never let go. And we just couldn't get out. It's bloody tough but in that situation, if you're not going to risk playing it around at the back/across your penalty box, you have to rely on good out balls to the wingers and striker and for them to hold them up. I don't think the out balls were great and I don't think the hold up play was great. But as I say it's a bloody tough job. Some games, a bit like Barca earlier in the season, you just have to say fair fucks we were beaten by the better side.

It's turned into a transition season. We had one of the top five strikers in the world as the focal point of our attack, we lost him without any real replacements lined up and our attack has cratered accordingly this season. You add in the fact we've played a huge number of games and we are where we are. Likely end result will be a lot of churn in the summer.

Think the price rises are inevitable until there is PL wider action. A 5% rise actually sees us fall further behind Man U on revenue (and thus SCR) as they've done 5% as well, have got more seats and the 5% is on top of a higher base. Have seen some saying the SCR impact is negligible but this rise alone allows us to put probably £10k per week extra on the wage bill and, more importantly, the impact on a single year from an SCR perspective is negligible but if you don't do it and other teams keep compounding 5% rises, then it very much starts to matter a few years down the road.

Going to stick my neck out on the line at a time where everyone seems to think he's shit and say I'm pretty confident he'll come good. We've already seen this season Ramsey and Elanga make big improvements, and I don't think Wissa will be too far behind.

I think the sending off is wrong on the basis that I don't think it's a conclusive dive (though I think Ramsey was looking for contact which didn't come). That said I am not as seething about it a I might have otherwise been as Joelinton 100% should have been sent off for a second yellow for dissent prior to that and I think Burn only just about has enough eyes on the ball to get away with the elbow on Shaw.

Absolutely cackling to myself about the difference between page 149 and 150 in this thread. And I say that as someone who slagged him off on page 149!

The frustrating thing for me is that we absolutely should have got something from that game. As much as everyone whinges about the attack, we scored twice at home and that should win us a game. Instead, we've conceded three goals and lost. And all three goals are so, so poor. One set piece, one goalkeeping error and one mistake/insane tactical set up.

I don't want to be rude but the first half of that is just nonsense. You can want Elanga to do better, but all you need to do is watch the match to realise the issue is Mykolenko spends most of the 60 mins a yard or two off him, which is enough to stop Elanga burning him for pace. It's smart, Premier League standard defending. The challenge for Elanga here remains that he needs to work out how to be a threat in tight spaces. He was OK today but without being a major threat. He's got to improve but hopefully that will come with time.

Just rewatched the match and feel this even more strongly now. Somehow both the full backs are more advanced than Gordon when he loses the ball. Obviously frustrating for Gordon to lose the ball but it's literally a 4x4 as soon as the ball is turned over, which is just asking for trouble.

He's been disappointing so far but any criticism of him today is frankly insane. It was a 15 minute cameo. He's well known as a striker whose two skills are goal poaching in the box and playing on the transition. I don't think he got a single ball break to him in the box (apart from one 1v1 header v Braithwaite) and we had no transition opportunities. You can be frustrated with how he played against Brentford, without blaming him for today's debacle.

Pissed away two decent home points in the last two home games trying to win games by playing too high up the pitch and aggressively in games where we have not played well. I appreciate the mentality to a degree but when we equalise we need to be stabilising the games and thinking how we can build again, not going for a winner suicidally.