LionOfGosforth

Stressful end like

Wow City nearly pissed it away there

Fuck was Donnuruma doing on that corner

The light body touch = legs collapse thing needs to see punishment imo, fucking rancid

This lot are 1986 Wimbledon with a couple of skillful players they can't wait to sub off for more brawn half the time

Arteta and his anti-football can get in the sea, we might as well pack up and go home if they win the league, so depressing to watch

Have no love for City the cheating cock ends but they have to win this for my personal sanity

Villa pissing all over the mackems 3-1 up, nice goal Rogers

Burnley score ffs

I do think if the football had been more like our 23/24 vintage (loads scored, plenty conceded, exciting games) it would have made this season easier to take.

No doubt. We may have already seen the best we can realistically do. TBH, other than managing European competition better, I don't see how we can do much better than we've done, this season excluded. It's up to the individual if that's "good enough/acceptable" or not.

TBF, it's not just us that finally hit on this. See Man Utd for the past half dozen or so transfer windows waste massive money and have multiple shit/down seasons before finally, inevitably signing some good ones and eventually improving. See also Chelsea for massive money wasted but these clubs are not affected in quite the same way we are. We literally can't have a bad window and the damage may take years to fix. After 4 windows with no significant investment, we were pushed into business we probably didn't want to engage in and wouldn't have had to but for the cunt.

Think we'd have gotten over it quite quickly if we'd managed to get any of our first choice strikers before having to go down the list. Pedro, Delap, Ekitike, Sesko, any of them would have fared better than Wissa.

Don't think we'll ever know for sure but we'd have probably been 6 or 8 places higher with even a half decent striker up top all season. Whether keeping Wolt up top all season was the answer, I don't know but someone like Delap or Pedro would have surely grabbed a few more goals than our insipid strikers. Basically anyone but Wissa who has been a disaster. We're only 6pts from being in the shake-up after pissing away countless points.

What do you think our ceiling is under the current financial rules?

I'm defeated today man, can't even muster the energy.

Fair enough, wasn't aware of your recent history there. I'm in a bad mood anyway, ignore me mate

It wasn't a criticism. It's a good result for you but hardly something to crow about, even we won there. Chelsea are gutless shite. And stating that any other season we'd be in the mix is hardly outrageous given we've been in the top 7 for 4 of the last 5 years.

What a shit league man, them being in third. Any other season we'd be right in the mix. We're only 6pts off huge relevance in the European shake-up after being poor most of the season.

Maybe so but I don't think we know what he wants or thinks of as the ideal structure and anyway, I doubt he wanted to be in the position he found himself in, in the summer. I think he's alluded to that. More importantly, what will PIF do and how will they react to a down season. Will they panic and replace? Will they apply reasonable context and go again, maybe partly to avoid a recruitment mess like last summer? All unknowns.

Yeah and we don't know much about him at all, his exposure to what we need, the data we have to give him in the search, his ability to lure the right man etc. It's not clear cut at all. What's his track record in head coach recruitment and everything that comes with that? If we're going down this road, it would be nice to know he's got the nous and the means to attract the right bloke. Sometimes with the desire for change, it can cloud what you already have.

I think this is why I advocate for him to be given the opportunity to operate under a proper structure and be given a chance to right things. We can't judge the chaos of last summer and subsequent mess of a season that resulted from it and put it all on him. If he's given that chance and it goes pear-shaped, we and he all know the outcome.

Odd player. After that Leeds game, I felt he was borderline unsellable, just such a good goal scorer and from out wide, those are rare. But so many poor games since then. The overall state of the squad, who we need to sell/cash in on and how many will need to be brought in to up the quality is honestly kind of terrifying.

And on that point, I am in total agreement. Trouble is, do PIF actually know their collective arse from their elbows and will we be pissing in the wind looking for a manager after the top few have had their pick of the best available?

I think it's far more likely he walks or it's a mutual thing. I get the desire for change, particularly after such a poor season overall, there's always a natural end for any manager but i'd just be scared stiff who it would end up being. We got lucky in the first place getting Howe after we sank our chances at Emery and Howe was available and refreshed and ready for the challenge.