Chris_R

We just don't look like we know how to attack. Which is annoying, because Howe came in to rectify that. In our first game under him we attached really well even though we only got a draw, but since then we've looked turgid and I just cannot ever see where a goal is coming from aside from getting lucky from a moment of magic or a set penis.

If Shelvey (I know) and Joelinton can sit deep and Willock push forward towards a 10 position, he might have a chance of paying ok but he's not a central midfielder.

I've not said it before. I've not thought it before. I really think though that no win today and we're down. Even a draw leaves us cut adrift to the point that it'll stop us recruiting many new players.

Looking at the table, this is a must win game. Absolute must. Don't win, and we're down. Not because the points gap is insurmountable because it's not worth new players, but because it'll massively affect who will come in during the last week of the window. We can have all the money in the world but without players through the door we're fucked and we've got to do something to indicate to those potential new players that we're not already down.

If he has 2 functional legs he'll be a huge improvement on what we have.

Remind me who we thought Keith Pattinson was on here, again?

I get that he wants to leave etc and I would too, 3x your salary would tempt anyone, but to describe it as "life changing" seems a little odd. Surely the guy is already a millionaire and could easily never work again from tomorrow if he wanted, living very comfortably through to extreme old age without wanting for anything ever again. I'm not sure to what extent this will "change his life".

We need to stop wasting time with players who don't want to come or clubs that don't want to sell. We're shit, there's literally hundreds of players will make us noticeably better. Move on.

We need to move on. They'll otherwise just keep stringing us along and upping the price. We're shit, there's plenty of players will improve us, he's not the only one.

No. Just no. I loved what Rafa did with us but we must move forwards, not backwards.

What, are you worried the rest of them might start underperforming like?

You can't show more than one goal if you don't have more than one shot on target in the match. Just not good enough on any level.

Yeah we've not been bought by one man, but by a business. A business can't get bored. Maybe they could change strategy, but their whole country is geared around their "Vision 2030" so it feels unlikely.

Slight difference between "Indonesian rich guy" and PIF though. Our owners could lose £10bn and not even blink.

Ok, so what do you think he should have said instead?

And don't forget that simultaneously we overpaid for Wood

Which bit do you think is inaccurate, and what should he have said instead?

Maybe we're trying to confuse the opposition? Rather than having one or two weak areas which they can focus on attacking in the build up to the game, we're going to make planning against our weak spots impossible by the ingenious tactic of being shit at absolutely everything.

Where are you finding these stats? I'd find that kind of thing fascinating to have a look through.

Absolutely outrageous stats there. Honestly, I'd think that if you just stood still in the middle of the pitch you'd have 1 interception per game.

I don't see why one bid should detract from making others except in the real closing stages where we're writing out the actual contracts and things might bottleneck there. Early stage enquiries though, we should be able to be doing loads at a time.

Jeddah I found to be quite beautiful and fairly liberal.

I cannot stress this enough but alcohol just cannot be bought in Saudi at all. Not in the shops, not in the hotels, nowhere. It's a dry country. It's not just hard to get, it just doesn't exist as a consumer product. Finding a hotel in Saudi that sells alcohol is about as plausible as finding a hotel in the UK that sells heroin. Maybe he got some illegal homebrew off a work colleague or maybe at a push a hotel employee, and drank it in his room (Something I did once and it genuinely felt like I was doing a drug deal and I decided then and there I really didn't need alcohol that badly to ever do that again), but that's about as far as it'll go.

Yeah I'd play Willock too, but I still think there's a decent player somewhere in Almiron. Whether it's too late for him here or not though is a big question. I suspect it might be, because our trajectory if we stay up might make him superfluous.

Willock this season has been a victim of a change in position. He's been dropped to CM and he doesn't have any of the attributes required to play there. He desperately needs to play at 10, but so does Almiron and obviously only one can. We need a winger and at least one central midfielder to allow these two to not play in the wrong position where they just stink things up. I won't judge anyone too harshly when played out of position.