Minhosa

Howe: 'We wish Cristiano well in his venture, but there is no truth in the rumours from our perspective'.

You've got to think Brighton would be commanding north of £70m each for him and Caicedo which, when you add in the Potter/Ashworth/Back of House fees + Cucarella etc, means they've got to have a shit tonne of cash lying about for them to reinvest in their model. If they reinvest successfully, they could be a serious outfit. That Tony Bloom fella has been incredible for them.

The 'Mike' chat did for me tbh. I could buy in to the apple on the bike thing when he was just an innocent squad filler. Find it hard to have any time for the fella given how he went on about Ashley tbh. Could/should have said nowt tbh and maintained his legacy as an one handed apple muncher and occasional Mackem Slayer.

Surely there'd be more clubs taking an interest and prepared to pay him a greater salary/sign on fee if there was no transfer fee? Still talk of a £20m fee in Jan isn't there?

I went to Brighton away and Pope essentially got us that point because they outplayed us throughout. Some of his saves were phenomenal. I think if Dubravka starts that game, we'd not have got the point.

If he could get his head around being a back up, it would leave us with a helluva GK set up for next season IMHO. I hadn't appreciated just how good Pope was until seeing him live. He's miles better than Dubravka who I've always liked and hadn't felt he'd let us down really but Pope is something else. He's so alert and quick off his line that he extinguishes dangerous balls/potential 1 on 1's with ease. If we could convince him to stay and get cup games (and hopefully some European football) next season, then I'd probably opt for keeping Karius and selling Darlow and releasing Gillespie.

Given the overall cost of Tielemens across the length of his contract, I do wonder whether the new owners may take the view that we could get better value abroad in the summer and hold off/let someone else take the risk? He's looked proper top drawer at times but then a lot of games seem to have passed him by over the last couple of years.

- question away, I'm happy that my eyes know a good shout from a bad one tbh.

Oh yeah, no disputing that, but I'd guess they might be closer value-wise if they had similar contract terms remaining.

It's probably just a coincidence but, whenever I've watched him (granted not every game) he's not seemed to have the influence in the last 18 months compared to when he first signed for Leicester but I can see, him on form, would be a big leap on Longstaff.

- sorry you struggle with alternative opinions tbh. You'll have to let 'Captain Tripps' know that because he was offering apologies too which is a strange thing to do after having such a statistically great game.

Ekiteke scoring tonight I see. If there was a straight choice between Caicedo and Tielemens, I'd go with the Brighton man every time. I'm not convinced at YT at all tbh.

Too busy wanting to reply to you spitting out your dummy tbh

I said he failed the eye test to me (and he did) but don't think I claimed it was better than data tbh. There is, however, a crossover. It's not one or the other imho. I don't need to watch the highlights back to know he had a poor first half against their winger (got done off him a few times, their lad got in behind him a couple of times and also he got booked against him) and also, in my view, his deliveries yesterday were below his normal standard. If you think he'd have been happy with how he played and his statistical output then absolutely fine, I'd disagree with that firmly though tbh. Suspect he would too tbh given his reaction at the game. Everything from an attacking sense (in terms of building up from the back) comes through him and rarely down Burn's side (how often do you see Burn overlapping his winger?) so he should be the one sticking in umpteen crosses and therefore almost has a greater responsbility/accountability imho in terms of the standard of delivery. When the game plan is to free you up to deliver the ball, then you'd feel disappointed having had so many opportunities not to have gotten an assist. If he delivers well yesterday, imho, we win the game. That's not to say he's not been great but yesterday he'll have been disappointed I think.

Wonder who the '6' options are other than Tielemans because Maddison's surely not in that camp?

I've been driving all day but at the game it seemed the same corner time after time tbh. Straight into Meslier.

East stand looked excellent yesterday. So impressive.

Would be really interested to see what Howe and his coaching team could do with Tyler Adams too btw. Looked really athletic yesterday and fits the shithouse criteria well.

Yep

No problem with folks disagreeing but when a player is holding his arms in the air, apology style, at the game and he's not delivered to anywhere near his normal standard, it's absolutely fair game to highlight that here regardless of the admin views.

Said this exact thing yesterday. Really nice to be able to enjoy an open relegation battle without any fear that we'll be dragged in.

He's literally tried the same corner every time. A player of his experience has got to take some responsibility for that not working and come up with an alternative imho. As I've said many a time, it's a rare off day as he's been great, but he can't be immune to valid criticism regardless of the admin/rawkishness view or policy. He ain't getting a ten regardless btw because that young winger gave him a bunch of issues in the first half resulting in his cheap booking.

Before the season started, I was of the view that top half would be good, steady progress. As we've done so well, I struggle to think of what is reasonable progress given the backstory etc. Gut feel is that anything in the top 6 is probably over-achieving tbh so I'll be delighted with that.

Still of the same view. Burn's limitations going forward could cost us as more opposition teams come and dig in. Interestingly Trippier continues to get targetted aerially. Strange that opposition coaches continue to take that approach given, even when Trippier does get beaten, Schar is often on hand to clean up/support. All in all, this is a priority position for improvement imho.

Wonder if we'd have gone for Brennan Johnson if Forest hadn't got promotion? Howe would do wonders with him. Looks a really good player.