STM

Boooooooooooo Burn boooooo Eddie boooooo

Finally an answer. Booooooooo midfield. Booooo. I'm one of you guys now.

Who we blaming though? Need something to whinge about? It's ok for you and not for me?

Who we blaming? Simple question?

Who we blaming lads, just so I'm in the loop?

My gaffer

What I'd give for an Aston Villa away styled win and performance. I just want us to look in control again, instead of having my fucking soul ripped out. Please 0-2 Longstaff, Wilson

Yeah it's the, getting absolutely raped by pace, which is the issue. Burn knows exactly what he supposed to do. It's like shifting a giant redwood on a double decker bus when he's on the back foot which is the problem.... And the lack of protection from the 17 year old in front of him.

Well OK, you've made your point, it's a fair one. Let's hope the injury situation improves, so that we don't need this discussion again.

Burn will start. Would it be the choice I made? Nope. Will I be disappointed? Slightly. It won't stop me adoring the manager and getting behind the players. We are well capable of winning, Burn or not.

While this a perfectly sensible take... If its a game where we are drawing or winning and the result goes south because we've brought on some young kid... presumably everyone would give Howe loads of leeway? There are quite a few disingenuous fans trying the old "I would have understood if we lost" patter. No they wouldn't, they would have destroyed him post match.

Putting up with absolute weapons on message boards trying to tell him how to do a job which he knows much more about is a downside though.

Here lies the problem. Again, I mean this in the most respectful way possible but if Howe takes your reccomended course and loses on the back of it, you are the first person to be critical post match. You won't make any mitigation for having players missing. You would hammer him for losing and so would plenty of others.

Yeah fair enough, perhaps a bit of frustration creeping out. Just does my head in that we have 2 belting strikers and one is a permanent crock and the other is his fucking apprentice.

One last thing on injuries. Callum Wilson has absolutely zero leg to stand on (metaphor intended). Howe hasn't to take any responsibility on that one. Wilson is a crock and has been from day one. I love him as a player but I'd argue that his injury record has caused us more problems than his goals have done good. It's time to let him go and get someone who, we think, we can rely on.

Basically. Howe has been put in a ridiculous situation with injuries. Has he rushed players back? Yes. Is it what alot of managers would have done? Yes. Are there lessons to be learned as a management and medical team? Yes. Will we ever likely have an injury crisis like this? Fuck, I hope not.

This is it in a nutshell. Howe is being given a couple of shit options and getting hammered either way.

It does make sense though. Don't take this the wrong way TCD, I agree with plenty of your posts and i like alot of them (I hope you notice) but you seem to have a real issue with the idea of risk and gambling in football. You seem to be under the impression that everything is a black and white, clear cut decision or that everything should be obvious without hindsight. On transfers, you think that it's possible to find transfers with zero risk attached to them and now with injuries you think no manager should ever risk a player coming back early? It's just not the real world man. Here's a hypothetical scenario: A striker is coming back from injury, he's a week away from the scheduled time out. Bam, the teams other striker breaks his leg. The manager goes to his medical team and asks if the other striker is ready to play yet. The medical team would NEVER talk in absolutes, they say that x player is close and there's no signs that a reoccurrence is likely but there's a small chance he might hurt himself again. Your the manager, what do you do? Option 1: You don't play the striker, you go into the game without your main goal threat, you have to move one of your creative players out of position to cover and you massively decrease the likelihood of winning the game. On the other hand, you might get a slightly fitter version of your currently injured striker next week. Option 2: You take the risk, you try and get 60 minutes out of the striker, try and win the game and you hope that he doesn't pull up injured. What I'm saying here is that neither option above are correct or incorrect ones, it's a question of risk, weighing up the pros and cons and making the best decision possible. You are absolutely correct to say that those risks haven't paid off but to say the manager (management team), should get some big criticism is overboard IMO. They zigged when they should have tagged. I'd certainly be questioning the advice of the medical department. It's the same decisions every management team the world over, some times they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong.

I don't think there's any doubt we've rushed players back. It would have to be one helluva coincidence that Isak and Wilson are miraculously back when the other gets crocked. However.... For years players have played through pain barriers or have come back early because of injury crisis. Its a gamble and a gamble that has failed for us. I'm not sure it's a stick to beat Howe with mind. He's almost certainly taking advice from his medical team on this. Also, alot of our injuries have been freak ones. Pope (shoulder), Burn (back), Anderson (back), Barnes (toe) and then Tonalis suspension (we won't go over old ground). There's 5 missing before a medical decision has been made. That puts us on the back foot from the start. I think we certainly could have dealt with Isak and Willock better. Wilson we only have ourselves to blame. He's a crock, always has been. We need to learn our lesson.

You are correct, I hope we haven't paid a flat fee of 30m. Obviously it's just guesswork but I'd be surprised if we have.

My instinct is that it's done. I might be wrong but as I've said in the two posts above, I suspect we've realised he's either not good enough or not ready. FWIW, I also don't think for a second we have paid 30m for him. I suspect that it's probably half of that with a shit load of add ons. However, as I've also said, just because he's not ready now, doesn't mean that it will always be the case. That's why I suggested a loan. A year with Kompanys Burnley in the championship for example, would do him wonders. Loans aren't our strong suit though.

What I'm saying is that we signed him thinking he was ready for the first team and have realised that we got it wrong. What do you think we should do? Play him more? Despite not being ready? The only scenario where he gets more games next year, is if he shows he's ready in training and in friendlies etc, which is possible. It won't protect our investment having him sitting on the bench for another season, that is for certain. I have this horrible feeling some of our fans think that Howe is just going to start playing him and he's going to be class. I'm certain that this won't happen. In short, he has until the start of next season to prove his worth. Edit: Also worth bearing in mind we have ALREADY spent the money on him (albeit in this summers accounts), it just hasn't been ratified yet. The transfer is done. I'm surprised that anyone still thinks that there is any chance that he goes back to Chelsea.

What you are essentially saying is that every transfer is successful? I'm suggesting they thought Hall was further along in his development. Does it mean they made an error, yes... like every other side in the league, we may have made an error in our scouting assessment. However, he's very young and has big potential, so all is not lost. If they thought he was good enough.. he would have played far more, its as easy as that IMO.

It much, much more likely that Howe doesn't think he's ready. It won't take long on training to see whether someone is up to standard, not least when they have so much data at their disposal. What if they know his stamina isn't up to scratch or he's not keeping the ball well enough in training? We can't JUST play him. Howe has to be convinced he will do the job correctly... or at least better than those competing in his position and while Burn has his flaws, he's also got some serious tactical strong points. I think we may sign him permanently but I'd get him shipped straight out on loan in order to get some experience knocked into him. Target sell Hall loan Sign a new left back. Livramento will get loads of games either side and push BDB into back up CB.