Conjo

Completely forgot Arsenal was playing CL today. Can only be a good thing. If we can make them run a lot in the first half while conserving our own energy we'll have a great advantage second half fatigue wise.

This "he'll work for Man Utd during gardening leave" stuff is so bs btw Even if he did take the odd call here and there, it's not like he'd be able to perform his work anything close to the standard that is required, but taking that aside, I doubt Ashworth is the type of person who would risk his reputation, career and legal trouble to do a half arsed job for no pay.

"Best in class" sporting directors and "Oven ready" players mentioned a lot lately. wtf Coulnd't care less who comes in as long as the club is confident the person is good enough to make us better on and off the field.

I can't see why we would ever accept it, but unless the contract we have with Ashworth states we cannot appoint a new dof under this circumstance, we can hire as many as we want. Even if it did, I'm sure there are workarounds by changing titles and work descriptions.

If Livramento starts, we lose and Burn is back at LB for Blackburn it'll be a bit of a throwback to when Pardew threw on HBA in lose lose situations almost as to fabricate a reason to us in why he was right in starting Obertan. This was the start of the 2011/12 season. HBAs first start was against Man City, and also started against Man Utd and Chelsea. On the bench again against Norwich

Can't remember whether it was a pre or post match interview, or which game it was, but last time he came back from injury Howe said he has to manage his workload due to not being 100%, so you're probably correct in your wager.

Genuinely wondering if he went for scoring on his own, particularly on those two situations that left Gordon & Trippier jumping up and hitting the air in frustration when he missed ( ), to prove his worth since we tried to offload him in January.

Had a brief scroll through redcafe when someone posted a link couple of pages ago, and there were quite a few man utd fans who thought ffp was coming to bite them in the ass very soon so they didn't like the thought of spending £20m on Ashworth. Not sure how accurate that is, but at least its something that is being discussed/worried about.

My dream.

He's always chased what he think is the best combination of job freedom, project and money. Don't understand how anyone can be butthurt or surprised by this. Just hope when he's gone, we're satisfied with compensation for losing his services and the person taking over. Considering the people we've brought like Ashworth himself, Eales and the guy (from Arsenal?) responsible for partnership/sponsorship deals already I'm confident we'll get it right.

Bruno would have been too late to shoot cleanly at goal because he would have had to adjust his body while Burn was facing and running towards their goal.

Besides the point that Bruno would have been too late to shoot cleanly at goal because he would have had to adjust his body while Burn was facing and running towards their goal, Burn has scored more than Bruno this season.

He was really annoying (good) against us, particularly in the first game.

You guys talking about the situation in the first half where Burn ran into the box, had better momentum and was better positioned to score than Bruno, but you like Bruno more than Burn so try to make it out that Burn was in the wrong and Bruno in the right?

turned off the game already

It's worth trying imo. Miley has done the Longstaff offensive runs to get into good positions loads of times, particularly that period when Miley played in Longstaffs position while Longstaff was on the left, so it seems he's well aware of the instructions and pattern of plays required by Howe. The question is how the team functions without Longstaffs mythical impact nobody can quite point out what is except that he runs a long distance over the course of a game which must be good.

If Luton rolls over for Man Utd today I'm going to be pissed.

01:17 Dubs saves that

you THINK Pope saves that. You have no idea, as none of us do, that he definitely would have. It was a hard shot that dipped to the ground just where Dubs was, on slippery surface. Could easily see Pope conceeding it, albeit more likely to save it than Dubs.

I say similar too, but looking back, I've said this since end of December now

I don't mind him persisting with Dubs personally, and don't view him as a big factor in most of the goals conceeded. There's been maybe 3 goals I've thought Pope would definitely have avoided them, which wouldn't make a huge difference to our points total. Almiron starting a lot of games beginning of the season makes sense to me considering how good he was last season. Murphy got injured at the absolute worst time just as it seemed Howe was going to try him from the start more. With Barnes long injury as well there's nothing weird about how many games Almiron has started imo. I understand how you feel Howe is being loyal to more players than just Burn if you think otherwise on the above though.

Murphy just came back from a calf injury. Before his shoulder injury Murphy started against Palace ahead of Almiron who was benched. The only sign staunch loyalty I can see is with Burn. Tino is fairly big and strong for a full back, so I struggle to see the argument that Burn at LB is critical for the way we play.

Always good to have a mix, but Toney isn't a player we have room for if we're keeping Isak. For the striker position the ideal mix imo for optimal performance/rotation/development is to have 1 superstar (Isak or Toney), 1 mega talent and if finances allows it 1 experienced emergency 3rd choice.

Individually nothing wrong with any of them imo, even Longstaff has qualities we can use (remember how much better we looked once he came in for Tonali - opening game against Villa excluded?). It's just the combination of the three of them that doesn't work. Replacing Miley or Longstaff for Joelinton or Willock would make us much tougher to play through.