Andy

If it's a substantially better offer, it's hard to blame the lad like, especially since he gets to stay in London too. Easy to look at it as a fan and say "why would he go there to warm the bench", but he's a top level athlete, you don't get to that level without fancying your own ability.

Since Howe has been here, the only first team players we've signed from other clubs in this country, who remain at the club, are: Gordon Burn Barnes Pope Targett Livramento Hall You could argue one of those signings has been a failure - Targett.

City have been far from their best but Man Utd have been class tbf, text book example of how to counter this City team.

Well yeah, obviously, but we were probably at our level relative to the squad we had available.

Not sure what came of it, but didn't Joelinton go off injured in the Spurs game?

In that case, we shouldn't have been in a position where we needed this fixture to exist in order to fix FFP

Then my immediate thought is surely there's an easier way to materialise 3 million quid than travelling across the world, it's not exactly a huge amount of money in football. If the fixture was absolutely necessary, then at least play some fringe first teamers (Ritchie, Dummett, Krafth etc) so it isn't a PR embarrassment and a waste of money for fans who've forked up.

There's no benefit to it being arranged post season, is more my point. There's no reason these same games couldn't have been arranged for July, it's clear from the team Howe named that he had no appetite for this fixture existing either.

Hopefully the club have learned something from this and won't arrange another post season friendly like this in future, the spurs game I can sort of understand since it drew some neutral interest, even if the timing was still shite; this game was just a pointless exercise that has had absolutely no benefits whatsoever, in fact it can only really reflect badly on us.

They might "tell a story" but they aren't a good metric for evaluation of where a team should have finished, or whether a team should have won a game. In the case of Dyche's Burnley for example, they didn't "outperform their xGc", they performed at their expected level because they have a good keeper and restricted chances. These stats don't take into account individual ability of players at both ends of the pitch, which is the major flaw. A chance is only as good as the players involved.

There isn't a stat that can predict results, at least not very well, football is unpredictable. This is proven every time someone posts a table like that to show a team has underperformed or overperformed their xG/xPts or whatever else. It's not that the team has under or over performed, it's that the data is flawed apart from at the extreme ends of the scale. A team's results over a full season is their correct level.

See this a lot, but over the last half a season they've had 4th best form in the league, ours is 7th during the same period.

The first one is ridiculous How good is the punditry there compared to what we see nowadays btw? No hyperbole or attempts at banter, just a calm, honest analysis of what's happened.

Challenges fuck offfff man Let's just go all-in on making VAR centre stage - scrap new football altogether and replace it with 90 minutes of VARing old football games to make them more accurate instead, with points being reallocated accordingly, we can even re-VAR the VAR when that gets old. Literally a better spectacle than a challenge system will end up being.

I don't see it personally. He rarely ever tries to make a brave play and instead almost always looks for the safe option it's very rare that he makes a run in behind, tries a cutting pass, or even takes a pop from distance. Even Longstaff tries these things fairly regularly despite having less technical ability, he just fails in the execution usually.

I think Challenges would just turn it even more pantomime than it already is tbh. It would end up almost making the VAR checks an "event" within the match (I can already see the OTT Sky graphics when a challenge is called now), whereas the objective should be to minimise its fanfare and interruption.

He has ability and is physically capable, but he isn't brave enough in the attacking third, rarely makes a burst into the box, almost exclusively plays safe passes, and never looks like scoring a goal. There is a player in there but he doesn't seem to have the confidence or belief to take risks and impose himself on games.

I think you could definitely argue significantly increased accuracy on offside decisions (which I'm all for keeping, just make it faster). I'm not so sure about the subjective stuff, particularly fouls leading to goals being disallowed, fouls leading to penalties (or not), and handball decisions. I'm sure there is an increase in accuracy, but it feels like VAR over-scrutinise these incidents and still get it wrong (at least in the opinion of many) on a fairly regular basis, so the trade off isn't worth it to me as a fan. It also feels like they're often desperate to disallow goals, looking at every aspect of the play from every angle, which is miles away from the "clear and obvious error" element and outright spoils the game. I'm aware most of this is down to the human using the tool, but the same humans will always be using the tool, and that's where the problem lies. Removing the human/subjective element from VAR is the best way forward for me.

It's a good return aye, but on the flip side, he's nearly 27 and has 10 premier league career goals. Suggests that this season has been an anomaly to me. There's an argument that shooting is the strongest technical aspect to his game too (better than his passing, control and dribbling for me), which is pretty damning with that stat in mind.

Not sure why people turn their nose up at conference. It's a winnable trophy where you don't even need to play a strong team until later on. Would be ideal for the likes of Miley if he doesn't go on loan.

Partially true, although I suspect he is second choice right-sided CM based on selection at the start of the season. We're inundated with midfielders that Howe doesn't seem to want to play on that side for whatever reason. It's obvious he isn't good enough though, aye. You'd be going quite far down the table to find another team he'd play regularly for.

Will probably feel he should have done a little bit better for the third goal (not just him), but in general a really good performance both ways. He has to be our starting left back next season for me.

Tonight summed the season up really, played well in spells but just not good enough consistently, and way too sloppy at the back. When you look at the team we've started with for most of the season, and particularly the bench, it would be hard to argue it as being better than the 7th or 8th best lineup in the league. We are where we belong. Pretty much a "par" season from Eddie, all things considered.

You're arguing against an argument I'm not making. I've already said in several posts that automated offside should be maintained, and VAR eliminated for subjective calls.

I don't get this argument at all. "Wait and see what it's like without VAR". I've been an admin on this forum for two decades I've seen more football without VAR than with it, and certainly more than enough of both to make an informed decision on which I prefer