Ronaldo

Unique situation for us this. I hope the moment Man U are even linked with one of our targets he gets a visit in the middle of the night from the Saudi Furio Giunta.

I said on this forum 2 years ago (by all means search it) that relying on Callum Wilson was insanity. I’m a little frustrated hearing about how he’s raring to get back for the umpteenth time.

No, I still hope he is the right fit long term. I’m far from sure of it but he’s absolutely what we needed for stage 1 and I’ll always appreciate his hard work.

No one questioning a manager should be accused of being a mug when we’ve won 2 out of 8 PL games with some pretty comfortable looking fixtures. Fans are always entitled to ask questions. You can love the bloke and not be sure he’s the right fit long term. Out of curiosity what will happen, in your opinion, in the next 8-10 months?

Finish 11th and we’ll see players leave and the club interviewing new management. Fortunately I don’t think we will.

Wilson has been managed very carefully this season to keep him fit but he’s still out for most of the season. I’m tired of hearing questions in press conference which evoke what sounds like Howe drafting love letters to him. I know that may sound harsh but I’d sell him in a heartbeat now. I can’t think of a more injury prone player we’ve ever had.

On course to score more goals than Wilson ever has in the PL to be fair. He’s a better player.

Not on this season’s form. He’s always been a high effort / mediocre quality player but that would be an extremely generous way of describing this season for him. He’s been awful for a while and needs dropping.

Are you watching the games? He’s 10 yards further back than Pope. There’s either an acre space between him and the defence, or they drop deeper to compensate and amplify the issue of space between back 4 and the nonathletic 3 in midfield. I’m not saying it is all on him but he’s just a horrible replacement for Pope in the context of the way we play. Solid keeper in his own right for a Championship side I guess. As for today he was at fault for both goals unfortunately. He doesn’t deserve inordinate amounts of credit for bad finishing and his usual overly dramatised saves.

I turned 10 that summer we signed him and obvs had no clue at the time either. Looking back it’s fairly blatant where that £15m should’ve been spent but at the same time you’ve almost got to admire Keegan for it. Scored a tonne of goals, susceptible at the back with the defence and 2 inadequate keepers so let’s just spend it all on a striker and score more.

All keepers make saves, all keepers make important saves. The keepers who win you games have a fair bit more than that. The simplistic thing is giving him credit for doing the most basic aspect of his job.

You just sussed that now?

Woah slow down there daddeo, apparently there’s an alternate universe where with no keeper in net strikers score goals from 4 yards out. Can we all just take a moment to appreciate Dubravka for having the decency to drive back up from Manchester to get paid to play for us and occasionally do his job or we’d really be up a creek.

He’s there to make saves. Some go on like it’s Ben Arfa against Blackburn every time a ball gets pounded into the keeper’s chest. It really doesn’t take any amount of special ability and it’s the easiest part of being a goalkeeper by far.

?

It’s not my job to fix a midfield that clearly doesn’t work. I’d take out Miley and play Livramento. Back 3/5 with Schar more advanced than Burn and Sven. Far from ideal but it’s worth trying because we can’t keep losing the midfield battle and expect not to concede a tonne of goals.

Not play that midfield 3 even if it means changing formation, for a start. It’s every game they’re getting completely overran.

He looked like he was out for months in December and was back for the next PL game a week later.

I love him for his efforts but also have to acknowledge there are far more PL sides he wouldn’t get into than ones he would.

If we finished 10th last season there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind Eddie would’ve have lost his job. Zero. You don’t spend hundreds of millions to go from 11th to 10th in a league where Brentford and Fulham finish top half.

It’s a bit of an overreaction granted but you can barely keep yours dry when anyone is critical of Howe on here. Surely you understand that people are going to be frustrated seeing the same glaring issues game after game to the extent we’re only 2 points ahead of Wolves?

Nope. Being an inferior shot stopper is understandable and allowable. Causing our entire approach to be severely compromised isn’t. I don’t blame Dubravka for his failings as such but he’s very ill suited to a high press team. Keepers with that starting position have rarely been a thing since Mancini discarded Shay 13 years ago.

Huge. But again, another deficiency in the squad that was kicked down the road.

I’d love to know how much of our FFP freedom we lost as a result of signing him. The whole thing is completely bizarre.

At fault for 2 goals, what would you give him, a 7?