Yorkie

Not kidding in the slightest, are you? You're arguing that the transfer window is the reason for our downfall, making specific reference to us not signing a CB as an indicator of that. That's just crackers to me; an addition to the list of crazy alleged reasons for our nosedive alongside "we havent played Lewis Hall," and "we should be playing academy lads." The defence was performing absolutely fine until Pope got injured and we entered peak exhaustion. Our record without Botman up to ManU was W8-D3-L3.

You're criticising the window by identifying the one case where we've all but got away with the respective injury. Botman is brilliant but we've not missed him in the way we have the likes of Pope, Murphy, Barnes and whichever CF has been sidelined. If there's one thing I'd consider criticising us for (in terms of recruitment planning) it's not getting a third striker. But even then it's clear we saw AG10 as third choice, with Barnes filling the vacated LW position. But injuries.

Keeper is number one priority and then several furlongs beyond that it's probably another CM. I know Miggy is public enemy number one but once the pressure on him has been alleviated by virtue of rests and Murphy/Barnes returning, we'll see his performances pick up imo.

Tbh I think we could've gone into the season without making a single signing and still progressed in the CL and maintained top 6/7 form, providing everyone stayed fit. I get that's a daft hypothetical but the point is: it's the injuries that have killed us, not our decisions in the transfer market. Blaming the transfer window is like saying the sprinter who had his leg chopped off would be doing fine if only he'd started wearing better trainers.

The biggest reason for our struggles is the cumulative impact of injuries and fatigue. Unless you're buying well-known crocks, you can't assign blame to your summertime business if you end up with an availability crisis. We used our budget on a top defender, a top midfielder and a top attacker; there's no complaints from me where that's concerned. We could've used it on more backup/squad padding but why would we when we already had plenty of that?

Nice post until the trademark wummery right at the death. ASM would obviously be injured by now anyway.

Trying to find the peak issue then. I think it's: Given, Babayaro, Moore, Emre, N'Zogbia, Luque, Owen, Ameobi ... in late Jan '07. We still had Solano, Dyer and Martins to see us through. Likes of Milner and Parker too.

Great to hear Jon Champion on comms incidentally. Feel like I never do these days.

Sighhhh. Good finish. They've done well here, the fuckers.

From this point forward we'll be adjusting from a game every 4.8 days to a game every 7.3 days. That's an immense gain. (5.6 if we go all the way to the FA Cup Final) With returning players and backing in the January market, we'll finally have capacity to correct things. We haven't had that luxury recently; in fact we've had increasingly less capacity to repair things.

He's set them up more passively and it hasn't worked. You could argue that that's no defence - because it demonstrates his inability to implement a tactical setup which differs from his preferred one - but the stuff about "no Plan B" is horseshit. We've tried something different but broadly speaking the squad hasn't had the time on the training pitch (or off the treatment table) to implement it effectively.

Yep. It doesn't let him off the hook but there's a chance that Trippier's Everton howlers don't happen with Pope in there. If you assess the impact of each injury we'll probably look back at Pope's as the worst.

"The fatigue excuse has to stop now." Now. It was a fine excuse before. But now they're even more exhausted I don't want to hear it any more. Some logic, that. Get Ritchie on, Eddie, do some fucking managing. And that gadgie from the academy, whichever one. Anyone.

I know there's more going on and I may be simplifying the issue but I think we've probably underestimated this bloke's contribution to our entire set-up. The difference in shot-stopping is one thing but it can't be a coincidence that our defenders have lost their confidence and structure since he exited the side. Aside from a half against Milan we've not played well since he got injured.

It wasn't quite Fulham under Souness but 2-3 or even 3-3 wouldn't have been a totally crazy result (nor would 1-5, mind). There were a couple of occasions where it seemed destined to go in for us but it just didn't; Isak and Miley in particular had good games imo. We were desperately vulnerable out of possession; a symptom of our mental fragility atm. We had a disjointed backline which got caught ball-watching too often, barely shielded by a shape-less midfield. Combine that with the deadly striker wearing red and there's your reboot of Michael Owen's 1998 first half hat-trick. Holy Guivarc'h was it painful to watch.

Aye fair play to Wood. Looks like he's turned out to be a decent enough signing for them. It's a pity there wasn't room enough for him in the squad, really. A third CF wouldn't have gone amiss this season. For him to get a hatty is almost entirely down to a defensive shitshow mind. Second goal took a fair bit of skill but the amount of space he had today... christ. ?

Exactly. Don't understand this notion that the fatigue excuse is wearing thin. It becomes more relevant with every game ffs. The odd returning player doesn't mean that suddenly Miggy, Gordon, Bruno, Schar etc are suddenly not absolutely shagged.

Obvious wums are gonna get fucked off like. Despite everything, there's actually some genuinely good debate happening here. If people wanna just be incendiary then they can fuck off to Twitter; the results are bad enough without that utter shite.

Curious to know what the question was before I judge the answer.

If Howe is accountable to this awful run on the basis of not having played Lewis Hall and academy players then frankly he isn't accountable. He's been between a rock and a hard place in terms of team selection for months now. We've clearly missed Murphy though. He's been a really good asset for us for a while now. We've missed the likes of Anderson too even though he hasn't pulled up any trees.

What's so frustrating is that no bullshit ref call and no Trippier brainfart and we're still in both of those cup competitions despite the nosedive in performances. Then the confidence isn't utterly shot. Really do feel he deserves a colossal amount of grace. And financial backing next month.

They've got some really talented players; even Wood isn't the Luuk de Jong lookalike many around these parts see him as. Immediately looks a very sensible choice getting rid of Cooper despite the job he did.

Do agree to some extent. Obviously it was a bad performance and it loses 7 or 8 times out of 10, regardless of the opponent, but it wasn't apocalyptically bad. Every bounce went Forest's way for a start; it's mad we couldn't force another one in, and the xG backs that up.

That's a fair summary and I agree with everything. The seed of all of this is the injury crisis and - to some extent - the PSG ref call (cos we would still be in the CL if not for that), which gives him some leeway for me, even if he didn't have a lot of it already. What I'd give for a Jacob Murphy.