clintdempsey

Had a few shaky moments in the first half - mainly some stray passes during a wild 2-3 minute period. Tbf he hardly got any protection from AG10 either. Gets his head on everything (not particularly accurate mind) and lovely to see him get a goal.

I thought we looked really rough until we got the 2nd. After that we controlled the game better. In the end the result is what matters - but the performance didn't really inspire confidence for tuesday night. We really, really, really need to find a new midfielder down the back of the couch before the window closes. Something is off with the balance - though it did look better when Miley and Longy switched sides.

Thought he did very well last night. Seems to be getting better with his positioning as well. He's a gem for sure.

Thank fuck for that.

Well, the winter break and more time on the training ground that was supposed to fix things like our sloppiness and fatigue hasn’t really worked. We look a shambles unfortunately. Hopefully we can get to HT at 0-0 and regroup. We can’t possibly be this bad for 90 mins.

We’ve been off it so far. Burn and Bruno the main culprits. Wake up!

That’s my hometown team. ? Absolutely hideous, but unfortunately a lot of Swedish teams look like that.

That gaping hole has been there since preseason tbh. Calculated risk I guess to press hard with all CMs pressing. It’s just a bit too noticeable against the best sides.

We’ve had far too many hiccups the last couple of months to just ‘need’ a performance IMO. What we do need is some points on board in games we hadn’t relied on before. Lose at home to Forest, lose at Luton and so on = the need for unexpected points in games such as today or Villa away. Momentum is everything, last we had it on our side, this year not so much.

Absolutely - he's got a journey to make. He's a very good coach, we all know that but he'll have to transition to a very good manager over the coming seasons. Hopefully he'll get the backing and time needed to do that.

Psychologically there's a huge difference between "Richest team in all of sports"/Saudis' cockfighting Qatar and Abu Dhabi ie. an unknown entity with potentially a huge upside and a team finishing mid table on the back of a quick visit in the Champions League and having their possibilities limited and hamstrung by new rules brought in to stop us from upsetting the apple cart.

If last season is deemed a 'miracle' can we really expect it to happen again? For the record I don't see last season as miraculous - a few things fell in or favour (other sides having off-seasons, a welcome WC break in the middle of the season). But last season's achievements were more down to hard graft and a very good coach having enough time with his players on the training ground to prepare for games.

Absolutely. But if we could have them back at around the same time we could at least ease them in a bit. We have a squad that is good - good characters, good players. We just need a few more of them to stay fit for longer.

Just getting players back in january and february should help us immensely btw. The 'best' additions we could make would probably be Murphy, Barnes, Anderson, Willock, Trips and Wilson.

Of course the deals are better than the earlier ones. But we also have signed players at a higher price and higher wages than under those deals. I agree that a bad season shouldn't set us back but the way FFP and the likes are set up it unfortunately means that if you're speculating to accumulate from a lower starting point than the clubs with 2-6x our revenue you need to get it right and a whole lot of luck as well. For me it's imperative that we somehow try and get a spot in Europe for next season as well be it through the league or the FA Cup.

Defintely 6th and EL. We need to learn how to attack multiple competitions and we need the increased revenue and exposure that multiple seasons in Europe brings.

We are in a bit of pickle tbh. This latest run of bad performances and results has really fudged up our season. Everyone knows it's down to injuries and fatigue (mostly) but this really puts a dent in our future business as well. As I've mentioned before - I'd be surprised if our new sponsorship deals does not include incentives based on CL, EL, Cups and so forth. Probably even league table. We'll have no choice IMO but to sell one or most likely two of our better players this summer to be able to give us the required FFP space to strengthen accordingly. It's a shame, and FFP is a bitch but one "bad" season really can set us back bad.

We’ve had that gap since pre-season tbh. The signs were there against Villa already. (The pre-season game). The midfield shape has been “off” all season.

Dubs has been amazing today. Would be nice to see us pass the ball to our own team sometime soon. ?

Isak ?

We’ve been really sloppy defensively in midfield since pre-season. Like a hot knife through butter playing through us even in the games against Villa, Brighton and Chelsea in the States as well.

We keep making the same mistakes. Fucking hell.

He won’t lose his job based on the Sunderland game. Nor will it buy him more time either if he’s on the ropes. The only thing he’ll be measured on IMO is league results. And those will probably get worse before we’ll have a turnaround. There’s no denying we’re in a sticky situation though - this is more than “a few bad results” at this point. Given time though Eddie will fix this and have us firing on all cylinders again.

If we were to miss out on Europe altogether at the end of the season surely that can’t be seen as progress. I’d say that we need Europe to satisfy the owners and to show the wider football world that we are indeed here to stay. If we’d fall away and finish 10th-14th there will be issues legitimizing “the project” (as ? as that sounds). There will also be financial ramifications as a result of that which won’t help us at all in the coming windows. Our sponsorship deals are probably (as they should be) incentivized and we’d probably have to sell one or two of our crown jewels to give us some room for the much needed signings of the required quality. On the other hand - Eddie has shown before that he’s more than capable of constructing a team from rubble. So were he to get the chance to rebuild he’ll have us up chasing the Top 4 again. He’d definitely deserve that for me at least. As piss poor as the last few weeks have been.

Regardless of mitigating circumstances most top level managers would be questioned after 6 defeats in 7. And with the next few fixtures coming up that likely will be even worse. I love the bloke and what he’s done for us and given time and patience he’ll turn it around but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fear for his position.