Andy

To be fair, for large chunks of this season we've played shit football without being organised. It's arrogant to be dismissive of them at this point and act like we're guaranteed to finish above them. Nothing we've done on the pitch this season backs that up.

That's what I mean. They've closed the gap massively in one window.

That's quite damning though and goes to show how much they've closed the gap on us over the course of one summer. This is a team that limped into 4th position in the championship last season, yet at best we looked their equivalent yesterday in terms of ability, and much less hungry in terms of desire.

As shite as we've been at times, we're still in touch with most of the pack. Wouldn't be too unhappy at Europa or even Conference qualification. As others have said, Champions League just really isn't all that fun to be a part of.

The mental damage of the Isak sale is probably more impactful than the physical disruption. From a recruitment perspective, we were targeting the likes of Elanga, Thiaw, Wissa and Ramsey before the Isak scenario came about (long before in most cases). We also knew we wanted a keeper, even if Ramsdale was ultimately a fallback option. There's only really Woltemade that can be considered a signing that we didn't expect to have to make, so while the Isak situation was disruptive, it doesn't account for the fact that we didn't really manage to strengthen our starting eleven at all, Thiaw excluded, and I also don't think it fully explains away our performances as a lot of the problems were there at the end of last season too.

I guess the options are: it's instructional (to reduce fatigue)/it's because we're playing with a 6ft 7 striker who isn't as mobile as Isak/some of our players are going through the motions. Possibly all of the above.

Forest built their attack around his pace and he had the luxury of Chris Wood being on ridiculous form which padded his stats, but yeah, he was still good for them and for whatever reason he's been ultra-minging here. It doesn't help that we are pretty terrible whenever we sit in and try to play how Forest played last season, our midfielders can rarely find the right out-ball for players like Elanga and Gordon to actually benefit from their pace, and their own starting position is often way too deep. The only time we look good as a team is when we squeeze up the pitch and play in a style that doesn't suit Elanga at all.

I mean you're right, but you weren't much better. Take away the derby element and it was a poorly contested game all round, there was no danger of either team winning it without that freak goal.

Thought their player had every right to go for it tbh, if one of our players pulled out of that challenge I'd be annoyed. A yellow is fair as he was late, but I didn't think it was "nasty" unlike some of their other challenges, just an unfortunate collision.

Got Rich written all over that one, anything to push the anti-Howe agenda

They're solid and don't concede a lot of good chances, that's enough to get you points in this league if you carry a bit luck at the other end too.

Yeah using a comma instead of a decimal point is bang out of order.

In seriousness, I genuinely can't recall anything that came off for him. I'd put him on par with Gordon and Wolte I think.

You misspelled "good spot Andy thanks"

You misspelled 0.5 for Elanga

He'd be in serious trouble if I remembered how to use the admin tools

And yet my posts are the only ones you've replied to in a thread full of people genuinely wanting him out, calling me a fruit loop snowflake for...not being sure what my stance is at the moment..? And asking legitimate questions about our performances this season? If you want to go on the attack at me and me alone, then continue to go for it, but if you're goading me then don't be surprised at the outcome as I really can't be fucked

To be fair it's not a fair comparison given the money spent by each. They've both done a fantastic job overall; Glasner winning the FA Cup at Palace and turning them into a strong team isn't to be sniffed at. If Eddie left, he'd be the ideal replacement for me. Just to clarify, this isn't me asking for Eddie to be sacked. Nobody quote me calling me a snowflake please.

Abuse of power fuck off man. Who's being a snowflake now? I didn't say once "he should go". You should improve your reading comprehension before you go on the attack. Nothing about your post or subsequent posts have been nuanced. Pretending everything is rosey this season is absolutely mental, there are clearly major issues with our performances.

Well, the same doesn't apply because I'm not insulting you for your opinion, and I'd imagine admins of other forums (possibly even this one) would've just fucked you off for that, but I'm trying to be reasonable since emotions are high. If you disagree with what I said, consider giving a nuanced response back.

I thought my post was pretty balanced to be honest. Is criticism not allowed? If you can't take a contrary opinion to your own, feel free to use another forum.

who the fuck are you?

I've abstained from voting in the poll as I'm just not sure what is best for the club at the moment. He's turned it around quite a few times before but it feels worse this time and to an extent like he's lost the players, or at least that they aren't running through brick walls for him like they used to. In seasons gone, I could never imagine a derby game under Howe looking so flat. Where has the team gone that used to go away to the likes of Arsenal and get right up in their faces? Why are we so passive and negative? When you look at the players available to us today, we should be controlling the game. Or at least trying to - granted it doesn't always work like that in a derby, but we genuinely didn't even try to push up the pitch as a unit. We attacked in twos and threes at best. Where has that fear come from? This is the closest I've felt myself to turning against him, and I can see why other people have. This is the one where we really couldn't fail to turn up, but it's arguably the worst of a bad bunch of away performances this season.

What you're saying is fair to an extent, but nobody is "overreacting to a bad performance" here. It was a tepid, gutless performance in a derby match against an average team with a set of fans who are already cocky as fuck about their over-performance this season. It was the same performance that we've given too many times this season, and that anyone could see coming who has been watching us closely. Worse, we set up in a way that made absolutely no sense given how they've played in every game this season. The counter attack wasn't there to be had and it just made us look fearful of them. People are justified in being critical after today IMO.

It would be a lot easier to defend him today if we'd gone there and had a go. Trying to absorb and hit a newly promoted team on the break just isn't it. Our entire strategy can't just be: defend, lure them in, Gordon and Elanga run fast. Especially against a team who are above us this season by doing basically the exact same thing and literally won't get "lured in".