Ronaldo

Lots of pressure on Howe to play him now, mind. From all angles.

We were 3 points off 8th last season. Given the signings of Pope, Botman, Isak etc and having Bruno all season I don’t know how you can argue that’s a ‘success’.

Scored goals with his right too, so he shouldn’t be mentioned. Just his left foot was the best in history.

True, to an extent. Bit of a gulf between attracting a player like that mind and trying to survive half a season with 2 strikers, one of whom is hopelessly out of form and fitness and the other desperately needing time and games to acclimatise.

If we get no form of European football there’ll be a lot of uncomfortable questions asked given we were only 3 points off 8th last season having not turned up for the first half of it. Doesn’t bear thinking about really. I think I said 8th was the minimum aim in summer but given we were 3rd halfway though the season it would represent a pretty blatant downward trend. Be interested to know how people would consider an 8th placed season given how much better we should be than last season in theory.

It’s very clearly the wrong call. We’re losing games because we’re not scoring and Wilson has been our worst starter for a while now. Not rocket science.

No one is wishing anything other than Howe getting the issues going forward sorted, which I think he eventually will.

You’ll get over it eventually, bless you. But I totally stand by my opinion. Top man, done a great job but he’s got all of the big calls wrong recently, particularly with Isak and ASM.

I’m just concerned that if this continues we’re going to slide down the table and our better players are going to be on the phone to their agents in May. We’ve got to grow with players like Isak, Botman and Bruno.

Has always been like that. It’s usually just a couple of posters lurking in the shadows that see something that challenges an overriding forum opinion and try to score a few points. Everyone likes Howe, everyone appreciates the terrific job he’s done, but he’s in a new phase of the challenge now and he will have to change, improve and be pretty ruthless to succeed. Nowt wrong with saying that.

Same as Liverpool 2 weeks ago.

Where did I say everything was wrong? The club is blessed in a lot of areas - for now. If you can’t distinguish between that and manager getting the big decisions wrong it’s not my problem, Brains.

You were playing that tune weeks ago. 3 games and 3 2-0 defeats later you can surely see there’s a massive issue? Never said everything was wrong. We’ve got a fine team in places. He’s getting all of the big calls wrong now, though. Wilson over Isak, not giving Almiron a rest. ASM once again benched in the type of game he’s perfect for…

Doesn’t bring anything to the table in this form. He looks so slow and weak and reluctant to attack the ball. There’s no reason he should be in the team ahead of Isak.

It’s football. It’s about scoring goals.

That I have huge respect for him or the fact we can’t score goals to save our lives isn’t a big issue? You can see the likes of Bruno and Botman getting really frustrated with how useless we are in the final third.

We’ve scored 3 goals in the league since December. It’s March. There’s no defence whatsoever for playing Callum Wilson again today.

Huge respect for him but he’s been getting everything wrong for a while now.

When isn’t he?

He’s never there for the early ball anyway. In the last few months at least. In fairness we’re very good at getting into good crossing positions but there are 2 issues: the crosses themselves and the amount of people we have in the box to attack them. Look at how City beat Bournemouth on Sat. Bodies in the box pouncing on the loose ball. We need to be like that but unfortunately the players we have in central positions don’t anticipate / execute well enough.

I get loyalty to him as he’s largely been a good signing but you can’t honestly think that? He was shit.

He’s static as hell mind. He’s 31 so we can’t expect Craig Bellamy but he’s been so easy to defend against since the WC.

Is Darlow still second choice at 16th placed Championship Club Hull? Says everything you need to know about him. Karius is a much better keeper.

Well said. Time to persevere with him.