Colos Short and Curlies

Have to say the Marseille captain looks exactly what you would sketch if asked to draw a Marseille player

Need the drop back to 4, don't look comfortable with the 3/5 at all. Gordon off, St Nick on Ramsey or Miley on for Murphy

His chant should just be a repeat of his surname in the MILF chant style

There's no reason why we can't go to Christmas on an unbeaten run. No real gimmies in there but also nothing where you'd say we should be leaving with nothing

Starring, not just starting

Thought it looked like Pep had pissed him off a little as the conversation ended

Looked like Pep and Bruno had a little falling out after their chat as well. Great stuff... Stay away!

Murphy swapping shirts with Haaland 🤣

Obviously all the clubs will have looked into the ramifications in detail, as most of the English clubs in Europe easily comply with UEFA's SCR, if the view is that this is more competitive than PSR then I imagine a few of the 6 will be in the nos. Then the likes of Palace, Brighton who quite like it the way it is

The real question is where do related party deals fall into this. our problem under PSR wasn't the losses, it was the inability to use Saudi (or related) companies to turbo charge the revenue growth

As has Big Jam from memory. Watch Pep bench him and let Marmoush run riot

We need to hit him 10-15 yards further up field so his build up play is in the final third and not on the centre circle.

On the last paragraph, you hit the nail on the head. Even if he finishes in the 10-15 range this season Howe is in the top 3 pl era managers for us and one of the top 5 premier league managers over the past 10 years. If last season was his peak then it's a very high peak, not quite getting to the summit of Everest is no failure when you've got 90% of the way there I'm shorts and a Wham tee shirt competing against a team of climbers decked out in the best specialist equipment

Are we giving them the summers transfer budget? With the shall we say less than stellar thoughts on the summer transfers I think it's fair to say another manager may have brought in different players who just may have picked up a win at Leeds, West Ham and Brentford. So yeah another manager may well have us in the European spots right now. Would another manager have this team in the European spaces now? Unlikely but not impossible. Would they have also taken us on the last 4 years journey? Probably not but the money that has been available isn't so insubstantial to say definitely not

Funnily enough, as a money man I have no issue with getting next to nothing back for Pope, Burn, Trippier. They were bought fully in the knowledge that we would get very little cash back and they have more than repaid those fees. Wilson we definitely kept hold off for too long, but with his injuries in the last 2 years how much we could have recouped is up for debate. The likes of Big and Little Joe stand out more in holding onto for too long. I'd also argue (with hindsight obviously) that we should have flipped Gordon at peak value. Scrambling after that tbh, the get out is the state of the squad 4 years ago but a different manager/DoF combo would have recycled through some of the newer signings more aggressively

We didn't have to be firmer, we could have quietly negotiated a £125m deal for Isak earlier in the summer and then moved for Ekitike with no competition

This isn't directed at you Zero but I see a lot of comments on rebuilding the team and working with what he inherited. Personally I think that narrative needs to stop. Pope/Ramsdale Trippier Burn/Hall Thiaw Botman Tonali/Miley Bruno Joe/Ramsey Murphy/Elanga Barnes/Little Joe Wolt That's 17 players used on Sunday, the 3 in bold are the only ones who were inherited. The rest are his buys. Tino, Gordon, Wissa to come back - all Howe men. Schar another inherited who is in and around being a starter. This is Howe's squad now. I posted a while back that his challenge is in rebuilding the house that Howe built as his generals (Pope, Schar, Burn, Trippier, Big Joe) all begin to lose the fight with mother time. In one way or another all those who have been instrumental in the past 4 years are beginning to have a negative impact on the team and he needs to work out the right way of either ripping off the bandage or slowly phasing them out. He's in a bit of no mans land on that atm - yes largely injury related with Trips and Burn at FB but as has been said before we can't carry 4 or 5 of these players at the same time (but of course accepting that on any given day they are all capable of a monster performance just not on a regular basis any more). There's not many managers who manage to build multiple successful teams at the same club

It's the midfield shape again imho. It's time for Miley to come in as a double pivot with Tonali, Bruno playing in front of them. That sets you up for a 4-3-3 with Wissa or Wolt upfront and should get more from the wingers in having Bruno further up to dictate play or a 3-5-2 with Tino and Hall providing the width and Wolt & Wissa as a Henry/Bergkamp lite partnership. Ramsey will get his time, either rotating in for Bruno or Miley or as the number 10

how do you fit Wissa in? We need a goal scorer in the team. for me it’s a 4-4-1-1 formation but it puts a lot of pressure on Bruno and Tonali. the alternative is a genuine 3-5-1-1 with Hall and Tino giving width but then you lose Murph and Barnes

Something in the coaching set up needs to change, could be some of the personnel or could be the methods.

and a nice gentle return after the break to bring these changes in. ah actually scrap that, it would be fucking City, but at least it’s at home and we won’t just pull our pants down for them at kick off. Halls going to come in, play well but we’ll concede a couple that are not his fault but it’s enough for Burn to come straight back in. Repeat for Ramsdale and Pope

You just can't knock that for the price you are paying. They took about 8 weeks when I ordered this time last year

Ordered 10 shirts from there mid October, all arrived and looking great yesterday. Can't knock a month's delivery time

It feels to me that any long ball we play to him is from and to too deep a position. My 7 year old is starting out as a keeper and I'm showing him red/amber/green zones to split the pitch up when he has the ball. If I put the same here green would be within 10-15 yards of the opponents box, red the reverse and amber in between. We're feeding him back to goal in the amber zone and it needs to be in, or just outside the green zone so his hold up and passing is in an attacking area and not the middle of the pitch. Basically need the players on the thigh master

Cynic in me says this is the last game before we see Wissa in the squad