Andy

I don't think fans are referring to going back to the Dan Burn left back tactic when they ask for a change, to be fair. Even if it wasn't horrible yesterday and he did a job, surely anyone can see how much it inhibits us as an attacking force?

About time the admin Yorkie got called out on being a nasty piece of work IMO, anybody want to dig out the admin Rich while we're on?

Surely that's damning in itself? Rewinding to before the Palace game, there was no reason why we should have been heading into the last few weeks in a position where the season was dying with a whimper.

Suspect the bar has been set so low this season that any game where we have sustained spells of possession looks like a great performance to some, even if we ultimately did very little with the ball.

We did alright to an extent but created basically nothing apart from that Wissa chance. Never really felt like we were going to equalise. Is Hall injured? Can't really understand why he didn't get on the pitch when we needed a goal, we had nowt going forward down the left.

Aye fair, I think it's more the mentality that the line up suggests we're going out with. Feels a bit backs-to-the-wall and I feel like if we concede an early goal we'll just fold given how fragile we are. You're right like, it's all just different shades of shite

The Willock, Murphy, Osula front three isn't exactly doing it for me personally either

Normally don't get sucked into the pre-match team selection meltdown, but aye, this one looks pretty rank like. Surely Hall hasn't been dropped because of one iffy half of football in a season where he's been one of our only decent players? Front three looks absolutely abysmal on paper too. Seems to me like we're just going to go backs to the wall, which I don't really get considering we have basically nothing to lose.

Not a fan of the whole "if he takes credit for success, he has to take criticism for failures" thing. And that's as someone who has been on the fence with Eddie this season. It's a reductive way of looking at it, it depends on the underlying reasons behind the successes and failures.

Server couldn't keep up with the intensity, Eddie has fucked this up for us too

Trying to figure out where his heart has gone

Palace away is a much easier game than a local derby against a team who are in contention for Europe, they've literally got nowt to play for and are phoning it in even more than us. First half in that match was arguably the flattest we've been all season after a 3 week break.

Genuinely think Hopkinsons' wooly comments have fucked the end of our season as much as anything else btw. Plenty of evidence to suggest that there are enough players of the wrong mindset in our squad who would listen to that and think Eddie was probably away and just half arse it after the international break, sail through to the world cup or their holidays, or just outright feign injury. Absolutely no surprise that we've somehow been even more listless than we were before those comments. It's still absolutely wild to me how passive we were in the first half of that Palace game, with so much still to play for.

There's definitely an argument that the players aren't responding to him tactically like, unless his gameplan all season has been to go through the motions and be passive as fuck for large periods of almost every single game we've played since August, including both before the fixture congestion kicked in and in recent weeks after it had passed. This obviously speaks volumes about the players themselves too. I'm completely comfortable with Eddie staying if we are capable of replacing the majority of our team with young, hungry players who actually have something to prove, as I think that is what suits him best. If the plan is to go into next season with a starting eleven of players that have mostly let him down this season who he hasn't been able to get through to, then I'd probably rather roll the dice on someone else.

I've seen/heard his name pop up quite a few times tbf, on here and off here, not just in the last two pages.

Can't wrap my head around why Emery's name even keeps coming up, there's absolutely no chance he's leaving Villa to come here. Might as well discuss bringing in Pep.

In a world where you can get an assist if it deflects off your arse then Messi carries the ball 30 yards past 9 players and scores, it's a useless stat IMO.

Personally think assists are one of the most useless stats in football, and Murphy is solid evidence of that. In general all they show is how good your other players are at finishing. Not to say he doesn't produce the odd worldie cross mind, he obviously does, but when you don't have an Isak in the middle turning every half chance into a goal, the rest of his limitations stick out like a sore thumb.

These stats pop up a lot, but it's the whole correlation/causation thing. There are countless other factors contributing to our form than "Nick starts up top". He was banging them in at the start of the season but it was obvious to anyone that his form wouldn't and couldn't continue. Literally every touch was going in for him, it's a massive red flag when strikers aren't also missing chances. He wasn't even attempting shots. I don't think the alternatives are much better FWIW, but I can see why Eddie didn't and doesn't see him as the answer up there, particularly in the system he wants to play.

For all of Howe's faults, removing this lad from the centre forward position really isn't one of them IMO. Even when he was scoring he didn't look like scoring.

Nearly all of our players are failing at the moment tbf, that isn't exclusive to Woltemade. While I don't fully agree with the assessment, it's easy to understand why a lot of people think (a) that it may be the manager's fault that they're failing (or that they're not responding to him for whatever reason), and (b) that it's easier to try something new with the manager than it is to replace a full team of players. A lot of our players are either not good enough or are not suited to the style of football that we're trying to play. No one is letting them off the hook, it's just difficult to see how that changes in the current setup without spending hundreds of millions again, which is a tremendous risk based on recruitment over the last few windows.

Said it earlier in the season but his "nice to assist you 🤝" (paraphrasing) comment to Isak after he left pretty much summed this lad up. That entire post was about saying "look at me! Look at the Anthony Gordon brand, Isak's goals were also about me!", despite hardly actually providing any assists for him at all. No fucks given for how our fans felt towards the Swedish rat, it was all about how he could divert attention on to himself in the hope that Liverpool or someone else would see it and think it was actually true. He will almost certainly force a move, and I 100% believe Shearer when he says that he feigned injury. In fact, I'd be very surprised if Al hasn't heard that directly from one of Gordon's more experienced teammates.

Pretty much what I felt after watching the game yesterday. The players aren't playing for him IMO, it's clear at this stage that they're not carrying out whatever plan he has to their fullest. They're just going through the motions. Rather than fighting for him when his job has come under question, they're playing like they think he's as good as gone. I think the Barca game in particular may have been the final straw for some of them, since then it's been pretty half arsed across the board, and certainly not the reaction we all expected.

Aside from a little spell when Bruno first got injured, he's done pretty much nowt to change my mind on him this season. Tidy feet, but consistently flatters to deceive, in my opinion. His tracking back just before he came off today absolutely infuriated me too, was just jogging back at one point while his man was running away from him. Was almost Ben Arfa levels of busting a gut to get back.

The lack of any kind of urgency in injury time there was pretty damning. So was the first half against Palace when we thought we'd come out the blocks flying and instead played like it was an early pre-season match. Like many of our fans, I think the players may have lost belief in his system and ideas. They're playing like they either want him gone or think he's gone; they're just going through the motions all over the pitch. I don't know what the next step for the club is but I'm concerned regardless of who the manager is next season. This bunch of players will have us in Spurs territory if we're not very careful with our recruitment.