Yorkie

It's a good shout cos I loved that Rafa set-up but you can't imagine Howe ever reducing the emphasis on out-and-out wingers. The question marks in that set-up are Wissa and Gordon; the former looks like someone we need to be getting on the end of chances as much as poss; the latter's strengths are in being direct and needing space. Gordon gets found out in tight spaces. Woltemade does the Rondon thing in his sleep though, and that formation at least gets other attackers close to him! Funnily enough I'd have happily seen us take a punt on re-signing the Pezzler. 22 goals last season.

(Not trying to be edgy); Isak in the conversation for shooting? Definitely the best after Shearer in my lifetime; not old enough to remember Cole.

How do you define 'another level'? If you mean a title challenge, I'm afraid there isn't a manager out there who can. It's not available to us. If you mean regularly qualifying for the CL, I'd still back him over any other manager out there, he's a great fit for us.

Improving on Tonali should be a piece of piss tbf.

Sorry for the non-compliance but I'm certain that's true. I saw him at the Sage with Terry Mac a few years ago and they basically reenacted the moment together.

aye go on then. You've talked me into it.

Is it?

Yeah fantastic result. Itching to get back to see them having not been for a year. Need to see this lethal partnership of Stones and Pearce in the flesh. Ollie Pearce must be a late bloomer. 30 years old but basically no trace of him at any meaningful level until 2022, since which he's scored 115 goals in 159 games. Absolute machine.

You out of bed yet you lazy cunt?

Nah I knew you were. Was just building on the point!

Yeah I guess. The reality is that it's a staple of all the seasons under Howe, there's always at least one stinking run of form. 21/22: run of W1 D4 L4 22/23: run of W1 D5 L2 23/24: run of W1 D0 L6 24/25: run of W2 D4 L5 Then we find our feet and get moving. I think it'll be harder this season, and we'll be more inconsistent, but you've got to have faith that we pull ourselves together at some point soon. Ultimately it's only the away form that's of any major concern.

Agree with you re 23/24. We had some dips in that season and a lot of the abuse thrown at the players/managers was incredibly unjust because the mitigation was so obvious. We did go six defeats in seven PL games at one point, which ought to act as a cautionary tale to anyone making conclusions about our current run of five defeats in nine.

Nope. By all accounts has been a target of Howe's for a while. He was linked with us as early as May and genuine ITKs on here were claiming we'd attempted to sign him last summer too. He came a bit later in the window because Villa's PSR issues weren't as urgent as we'd hoped cos they sold the women's team. Honestly, the guff on here after a couple of shit games.

And with 190 minutes' worth of evidence, you've been proven right!

I agree, I just think one reason why we didn't recruit there is because - whether we like them or not - we had so many players in that position already on the books. That doesn't matter to some clubs but it does to us.

It definitely is bad luck that Tino and Hall got injured at the same time. Maybe there's an argument to suggest the squad planning hasn't been up to scratch for that position, but if you expect us not to have a single gap in the squad, you must be mistaking us for Man City or Chelsea. Reminder also that Burn had at least one exceptional game at LB a matter of days ago. That's not to say he isn't an obvious weakness, but we should be able to find mitigation in the way the team functions. Again it comes down to an over-emphasis on the recruitment.

The full-back situation is just bad luck imo. We have four on the books (five with Ashby, six with Targett) and we won't have the budget to carry another. It's just a shame so many of them prefer the right. I don't think you can criticise the club too much. Not managing the centre-midfielders is the thing I will most instinctively criticise Howe for. Bruno didn't feature at Bournemouth and we got a good point there, proving he isn't totally indispensable. But he's played every single minute since then, despite his international commitments. The continued reliance on Joelinton is also very questionable because the man, God bless him, is losing his magic. I'd have had absolutely no beef at all with a CM line-up of Tonali Miley Ramsey at Brentford.

What's this based on?

As always, xG is just a stat used for making observations about trends and performances. I don't know why you always criticise it as if people are equating it with stuff like goals and points. Honestly man, just embrace xG and its whole inoffensive existence.

So we discount those? You can only play what's in front of you. Not trying to claim we don't have some deep-rooted issues, just offering some nuance.

See post above. Benfica and Spurs were also really good but granted they weren't in the league.

Liverpool, Forest second half and Fulham last twenty were all very good performances. Didn't see Wolves. Arsenal very disappointing but hinged on the Tino injury imo. Villa and Bournemouth were tidy away performances and good, hard-fought points. Clutching a wee bit maybe but the point is I don't think we're fully broken. Said of loads of times now but it was always gonna be a bit of an uneasy path given how the summer went. We just need to ride this storm and come out of it.

We've been absolutely minging a few times this season but there's been plenty where we've been alright-to-very good. Certainly every home game in all competitions has had either a sustained spell of good, progressive football, or have just been outright good performances. We're just shite away from home and, up to now, getting worse. But there's still 13 games on the road available to us to address those issues, and 14 at home.

Nah, we're not mingling with the lads near the top of the table any more, so that automatically means we're relegation fodder.