Andy

It's the midfield and lack of Pope, just that simple for me. Botman and Schar are massively exposed without the sweeper keeper, full backs are massively exposed without the athleticism in midfield.

Disagree.

Arsenal have been good but I doubt they'll get an easier 45 minutes of football all season, it's almost unbelievable how off the pace we've been, Trippier, Schar and Botman passing from the back has been absolutely suicidal stuff, made even worse by the midfield hiding and all of our attacking players suddenly having the first touch of a trampoline. Isak is isolated but is running around in jeans. Looks miles away from being fit enough to start, Gordon up top would have been better. You expect them to be better than us, but they've looked much hungrier and that isn't acceptable. Karius our best player. Damning.

This is rancid. Can accept being beaten by a better team, but they are more hungry and switched on all over the pitch, and we can't even make a 6 yard pass.

we're definitely about to see the worst game of Tino's career. Might whack him down for an OG.

His full quote was "closer with every game", so it can't be appearance based given that he hasn't kicked a football for us since 1997.

Hope so, that sounds like a transfer embargo and points deduction for yourselves, and huge damages for NUFC just waiting to happen, as well as Ashworth losing all credibility in the industry. No way a business like Manchester United or individual like Ashworth would risk this though obviously, if you live in the real world.

Re: the first window, weren't Isak and Botman already on the club's radar prior to him starting? I think Pope may have signed before he started too? Gordon was a good signing, but otherwise the two January windows were obviously very quiet. As for last summer, good signings individually (Hall excluded?) but as has been done to death on here, we were left weak in positions a lot of us would have liked to have seen strengthened (RW + CF in particular) in exchange for bringing in youth.

An important role perhaps, but to justify this furore? I'm not so sure. I remember seeing him interviewed on TV on the pitch either before or after one of our matches and just thinking it was odd for the role he's in, I can't remember seeing other sporting directors putting themselves in that kind of scenario very often. Just finding it hard to feel anything other than bewildered by the whole thing tbh.

Honestly if we can get £15m-£20m for him I think it would be a greater achievement than if we somehow sold Miggy for £50m. The transfer windows since he took full control have largely been underwhelming. I know that's not solely his responsibility, but it's the only tangible thing we can judge him off, other than random soundbites about how nice his laptop is. Said it before but I genuinely think he might be one of the most overhyped people in football. He's a sporting director, they're ten a penny and way down the levels of importance when it comes to actual results on the pitch imo. The media coverage has almost been Ronaldo-esque.

To be fair, based on our performances since November against teams we're expected to beat, that might be his point

You'd think if it was FFP based the club would just come out and say it (or leak it) to take some of the spotlight off what is an obviously strange situation - even more so today with White coming on ahead of him. The lack of any explanation suggests he's either not good enough or Howe just doesn't fancy him.

Lack of pace across two thirds of the pitch is definitely an issue, we are about as undynamic as it gets at the moment. Our defensive line has a tendency to drop back due to the risk of being caught out (or after being caught out), and this is where the massive gaps form when the attacking element of our team are chasing the ball down like madmen at the other end. A high press starts with a high line, but we just aren't capable of it due to the lack of recovery.

I watched that game and the result looked more comfortable than the reality tbf, Bournemouth had something like 25 shots to Fulham's 6.

I thought Miley was good today in the holding role personally, he makes the occasional poor choice but that's just obviously going to happen. Put himself about and made some decent tackles, and I thought the decision to push him further up the pitch in the second half was an odd one tbh. Was also disappointed to see the idea of Trippier moving into midfield being thrown out this week, it looked effective against Forest until we just randomly stopped doing it in that game.

Entertaining again, but another disappointing result. We look like a bunch of school kids, suddenly seems to be no organisation or plan whatsoever.

Ritchie did his best to miss it like, the fuck was that first header

Howe will drop Miley when Willock is back, not Longstaff.

The coverage of this is mental. Don't think I've ever seen anything like this for a sporting director. I don't doubt he does... something... But with the reaction of some in the media and many Man Utd fans, you'd think he was the sole mastermind behind our 4th place finish and Brighton's rise to "success" before that. In reality he was a only small cog in both machines from what I can tell, especially relative to his hype.

True enough of Arsenal and City tbf, but even then the players they have in those positions are more dynamic than Burn, they also play with a completely different style to us in general. Liverpool are more stylistically similar to us and at their best they play with Trent and Robertson first choice, Gomes has played there a lot this season due to injuries I believe, but again he's more capable going the other way than BDB and is more of an all-rounder than a centre half.

This is why the best teams generally play with two attack minded full backs, not defensive minded ones. For me, we should be looking to add threat down the left hand side so we don't become predictable in our attacking patterns, this would help pin teams back. Yes you're going to still see players like Trippier and Livramento get caught out, but Burn gets caught out anyway, and adding an additional attacking dimension and dragging us up the pitch far outweighs that. Ideally you find an athletic midfielder who is capable of filling the holes that are left, so you don't need to rely on this "Dan Burn fills in at CB when Trippier goes forward" idea.

Yeah I already edited my post to say that. However, point remains that he struggled against Bailey which is why Tino came on.

He got man of the match against Fulham, but not Villa? Schar was MOTM against Villa. Burn struggled against Bailey in the second half of that game and was subbed off. Edit: not subbed off, but Livramento was brought on to support him

This is pretty much how I feel about the Burn situation too, it's my only frustration with Howe really. Tino looks better at both ends of the pitch, the only advantage of Burn is aerial duals, but that shouldn't be a deciding attribute for a modern fullback. He's costing big chances 2 or 3 times a game, Elanga could've scored today 10 minutes before he actually did, in near-identical circumstances. Him constantly being exposed for pace is a big part of the reason that we constantly drop back so deep imo.

He's so much better further up the pitch like. We need a proper defensive midfielder to unleash him fully next season, assuming he stays.