KaKa

Anderson needs to tone down the recklessness of his challenges. Going to injure himself.

Giving me Jack Wilshire vibes.

Oh boy, hear we go again ...

1 minute ago, gbandit said:

Beto the worst striker in the league?

Far from it. Team doesn't play to his strengths at all.

3 minutes ago, Andy84 said:

All these will have is pumping balls into the box 

Their build up play is awful, thankfully.

No one technical enough or close enoug to Beto to play him in behind, which is when he can be dangerous.

1 minute ago, gbandit said:

Fuck’s sake, take a pot shot when you don’t have five other options Murphy

Just needed to keep it down. Horrendous effort.

Just now, Pixelphish said:

I accept my fate.

I just hope they keep sitting off us.

If they pressed us higher up the pitch with the legs they have in midfield, I think we'd actually struggle more.

Thankfully they don't seem to realise that.

Just now, Pixelphish said:

They're proper shite.

Way to tempt fate my guy.

1 minute ago, Aiston said:

Anderson barely got to that with such a massive head start

 

Quite a pedestrian midfield going up against a pretty athletic one. Need to be careful in those central areas.

Chris Wood again. Turns out it was a good signing for them 

Add another £20 million to his value 

Nice pass from Barnes!

No Premier League club has a chance IMO.

Only one that will pay is Man City and they have strikers already.

If he ends up leaving in a few summers, because I don't think there is a chance it will be this one coming, it will be a Barca or PSG.

6 minutes ago, Turnbull2000 said:

 

Financial Fair Play, Fair Market Value, their vastly superior income and stadium, Champions League coefficient payments, and the London pull factor.

Oh God ...

We'll see fella. We'll see.

We will be right there with Spurs. FFP or not. We all know how Levy moves by now, from decades of evidence, and Spurs have been spending money by the way.

We are not going to hand over Isak to any of these clubs unless crazy money is put on the table i.e. £150 million and up. None of them will pay that.

1 minute ago, Turnbull2000 said:

Would be devasted to lose him, but we're not going to regularly completing with Arse or even Spurs any time soon, so wouldn't blame him.

We're not going to be regularly competing with Spurs anytime soon?! Why?!

24 minutes ago, clintdempsey said:

Reports in the Swedish press about Arsenal and Spurs preparing +£100 million bids for the summer. 

Spurs?! 

12 hours ago, NSG said:

And just like that he’s linked with a £100m move to Arsenal.

He's been linked with Arsenal for a little while now.

Moreso before he even joined us, but they blew it.

Isak's price keeps going up. They can't afford him.

As far as I'm concerned conversations start at £125 million and we negotiate upwards for there.

13 minutes ago, Lush Vlad said:

Not saying I massively studied him for Arsenal. But don’t remember him coming really high in the same way the likes of Pope and Martinez do for example. His FBref says otherwise and all. 

https://themastermindsite.com/2023/05/09/top-20-sweeper-keepers-2022-23/

Any team that presses high up the pitch pretty much needs to have a sweeper keeper at the back.

The article above had Ramsdale at 13 last year among keepers from all top leagues. 

Just to further emphasize how much of this element we have missed from Pope, he was ranked at number one out of them all.

1 hour ago, Lush Vlad said:

Don’t get the Ramsdale link, if we are genuinely interested. 
 

Debatable whether or not he’s even an upgrade on Pope. He would cost a lot. Has plenty of howlers. He’s not a sweeper keeper. He came across as a complete clown in that chat with Ian Wright. He wouldn’t come here to possibly be second choice again.
 

Hard pass. 

He's definitely a sweeper keeper and would be an upgrade with the ball at his feet and in distribution from the back.

Then there's the link with Howe who had him at Bournemouth, which probably plays into the links.

He's still young for a goalie and is certainly talented, but for me he's a bit eccentric and has a goofy side to him I don't really like at all when it comes to the position. I want a very boring no nonsense type at goal keeper everytime please.

25 minutes ago, Weezertron said:

I’m massively pro Howe. But there’s been times this season, such as Gordon playing 30 minutes after looking absolutely fucked on multiple occasions, where he should have played even a kid to manage potential injuries. 
 

And I don’t think he rotated as well as he could have whenever he had the options to. Howe would admit himself he likes to keep the same team if he can, which is viable without all the extra comps. 
 

I’m sure we can attribute atleast some of the personnel losses/reinjuries down to squad management. However a chunk were just unlucky or standard for any season.
 

He’s the right manager for the job IMO. But I’d like him to improve on that, just like I’d like any player to improve a specific skill. 
 

having said that, 98% of managers are stubborn. So I can’t hold it against him. 
 

 

Yes, completely fair.

The unfortunate thing is the way people talk about his decisions as if he's a complete idiot, and as though most other managers don't do the same sort of things.

There's for sure stuff for him to learn from and improve on. Judging from his character and commitment, I am quite confident he will do so.

In the current heat of battle in the middle of the season though, I have accepted that his preference is not to try and rock the boat too much, because he clearly believes we will be worse off for it, and at the end of the day he has the most information to be able to make that call.

10 minutes ago, Dr.Spaceman said:

 

I'm not disputing the fact that he learns, I'm just saying we've got no evidence to suggest it's true. It's something I've read on here more than once and I can't understand how anyone has come to that conclusion based on the fact that last season we were mint and this season we've been quite disappointing on multiple occasions.

Despite everything that has been said in this thread you're still talking about being confused about why we were mint last season and now we are not?

Someone even posted a graph that showed at the start of this season we were on track with last season prior to losing key personnel.

And still you can't get your head around things? 

It's as simple as were not good anymore so the manager isn't learning?!

This is somewhat terrifying man.

3 hours ago, Dr.Spaceman said:

 

Once again I don't see any evidence of this.

We've all heard him talk about the way he works and looks to continue to learn.

If that's not good enough for you then I don't know what to tell you.

4 minutes ago, 80 said:

Agree with the vast majority of your post.

 

To throw a little grenade in, though, sometimes I wonder/worry that his next major period of growth will come after he leaves us i.e. as a consequence of the deep reflection he'd undergo during his first real period of downtime since he joined us. Personally, I suspect he'd conclude he needs to be slightly less rigourously methodical in his approach to allow more serendipity in.

 

A sort of horrifically depressing catch 22 situation for us, basically  Time will tell, obviously. My thinking may well be influenced by NUFC-related trauma!

 

I would like to find ways to expose him to other ways of doing things though, as kind of inverted sabbaticals. I get the impression much of his working life is based around trying to personally invent things himself, and it takes a major disruption to break that habit e.g. leaving Bournemouth.

I think he'll definitely be doing this during the off-season, especially having faced some new and different challenges this season, with having had to balance the demands of European football for the first time. Can't see him resting on his laurels at all. 

What's the story with the back up keeper at Liverpool, think I like the look of him more than Ramsdale.

16 minutes ago, Theregulars said:

And what about the sacrifice of attacking intent and pressing which that involves? 

This is what makes me laugh.

When the changes then completely stifle our attack and invite even more pressure because we're pinned back in our half, then they'll moan about that.

Think they have all the answers.

4 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

This is the only doubt I have about him. When I look at this season, I don't see it. 

 

I think we may need some outside influence in the backroom staff, show other ways of working.  

Yeah, you don't see it because you refuse to acknowledge the effect the unavailability of certain players has had on our approach.

You also think just changing formation or the way the team plays is something that can just be done at the drop of a hat in the middle of the season to fix everything immediately. Or simply dropping any player that makes a mistake will fix things too.

This is not a realistic perspective.