Elephant

2 minutes ago, kingxlnc said:

Wouldn't get Kurzawa AND Targett, same position so one or the other - and the fact Targett is lined up for his medical confirms the choice

 

 

You are right, complete brain freeze on my part. Kurzawa was not the player who I was suppose to say was Thilo Kehrer.

Hope we get Carrasco or Dembele (probably off to PSG though). I wonder why we were never linked to Icardi. Hopefully we can also get Kurzawa from PSG, but I fear it’s too late to sort more than Burn, Targett and Ekitike

3 minutes ago, Mr Raspberry Jam said:

 

He was a winger who was signed to play as a goalscorer/target man. Not his fault. Not my fault, not your fault. He's playing well now and that's all that matters brother.

In Hoffenheim he did not play as winger, he was striker there. Only few games as winger, not used there much at all.

Just now, gdm said:

He was never a goalscoring striker.

Well, in 89 games he has 5 assists, so not for that either.

6 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

 

Doesn't look so bad now does it?

 

 

Yes, it does. We didn’t sign him as midfielder, but goalscorer. He has played 89 games and scored 7 goals in PL.
 

I like how he is playing now, strong and full of confidence, but failed in role he was signed for.

However Ekitike has better stats than Joelinton, but that’s not exactly hard, because we signed Joelinton because of his great performance against poor Favre’s BVB.

4 minutes ago, OoOGazOoO said:

I think it depends on the expectations, kind of reminds me a bit of the Joelinton situation - brought in to score goals and thus judged on that with a hefty price tag.

 

I think Ekitike looks very skillful, and can provide something different for us. However, if we are bringing him in as a goalscorer, I think we may be disappointed.

I have exactly the same feeling about this, feels much like Joelinton’s signing.

Ekitike is not very quick, is he? We need pace upfront.

5 minutes ago, Rich said:

Dieng?

Not worth 20 million euros

Just now, Mazzy said:

Zapata please ? 

Not for that price

Just offer them money + players, we have plenty of players to give them for with no problems. 

God I hope they use the money to buy Nico Schulz

Probably Schick leaving then.

Delighted for him, I would love to be completely wrong about him, because I love this club more than I want to be right about something. Hopefully he can build on this, he has made big mistakes in previous games and hopefully he’ll learn from those. It’s still only one result and long way to go.

He needs now support from our board with new players. We need to back him and get the necessary players in. Hopefully today convinced that we still have fight left and need players in for it.

Yes yes YES! 

The problem is obviously money and the hard part is that if we start splashing alot early in January, every next signing is hard. It’s clear we try to get as many deals as possible at the same time, so we avoid having to pay +20 million for every player.

If we sign now someone for £70 million, then all the clubs know to ask more.

If we do it well, we can finalize 4-5 deals at the same time without having to use £150 million for players that other clubs would sign for £50 million.

And it’s really bad business to overpay, because if the players flop, we are gonna lose lot on these deals.

But we should have had these deals lined up already before Christmas.

Benitez knows the squad, he doesn’t need time to settle, could have instant impact. Not easy call, but after last two games I would be ready to gamble. Howe can be U18 coach or ”consultant”.

Just now, Geordie Ahmed said:

Howe has 7 points from 9 games, across a full season that's 29.55 points 

 

So there is an improvement, unfortunately it's not enough of an improvement 

 

 When you look at our opponents, you realize it’s not good at all. We are not going to have these easy games, because we blew almost every single of them with poor results. 
 

We’ve had opportunity to gain points from the weakest teams and we have not done it.

Brentford, Norwich and Watford home, no wins in these games.

Stats of 29.55 points looks pretty crap when you think about who we have played against.

Only two positive results and honestly winning Burnley home 1-0 is not exactly win of the season.

Do you honestly think Emery would have said yes to Chris Wood? Or Rafa?

Howe said yes, because obviously manager has to accept the signings. And for me that’s very concerning.

We can’t sign big names like Coutinho or Digne because Howe is not attracting manager. And right now we need class more than anything else.

1 minute ago, macphisto said:

Each to their own but he doesn't to me. Indeed, I find him quite bland. He's well presented, probably had good media training as he talks well enough but that's not charisma in my book.

I feel the same way. He seems like very nice guy, who knows lot more about football than me and you, but it seems like he lacks character and toughness of great manager.

1 minute ago, ManDoon said:

We also said anyone would have this team mid table and Bruce was shit. You can’t have it both ways 

This is what I’ve been saying too. You can’t have it both ways.

Bruce was horrible manager and we played very poor football with him. With Howe it is completely the same, no change at all. If you judge Bruce by that, then you judge Howe too.
 

We can blame Howe for this, because he could have reacted to Ranieri’s changes and change what’s wrong. However he made horrible substitutions, no reaction and we completely lost the control of the game.

I’m sick of people blaming Ashley and Bruce for every mistake he makes. We had completely chance to win this game with these players. Howe just DID NOT react to changes. Look at Watford side, we had players to win this at home. And the absolutely same thing last week. We are poor, but not that poor. It’s all about management. Howe is not good enough for this task.

Just now, Decky said:

There was a moment around 60 minutes when the side completely lost their shape and were making mistakes everywhere, it went on for the rest of the game. Just before Murphy came on I was wondering where the direction was from the bench to try and stop the rot but there was nothing. 

Like I said earlier, Ranieri showed different class with changes during the game. Howe is absolutely clueless, just completely incompetent.

With Howe we go 100% sure down. If we want to have any chance, we need to changes quickly. New players, better manager and pray for miracle.

We need to get Rafa back. He is not the best out there but he is hell of alot better than Howe.

We need new starting eleven and new manager. Let’s start with manager.