AyeDubbleYoo

Next season he’ll be extremely scary.

Don't be silly, second or third tier He just needs some more coaching from Howe and internalise the game plan more. He's meant to be part of a 3 striker rotation I'm sure, not direct backup to Isak. He was never signed to be second choice straight away.

Burn was fouling the shit out of him throughout as well.

Is he that good? Remember he was rated before Rodgers took the limelight.

You can never really solve every weakness in one window, there’ll generally be something that’s in need of improvement. Even Liverpool have that. We’ve done brilliantly in the market since the takeover and I’m sure that will continue. As long as we have the money for it.

Yeah but do you believe we’re that incompetent? Otherwise I don’t know what the argument is for.

Well yeah obviously, but we’ve experienced that situation now. I don’t believe any of you actually think we’re as bad at transfers as you keep saying, or Howe is obsessed with PL players, or any of this shite. It’s just something to stress about.

There won’t be a saga about Guehi this summer. We wouldn’t be still in for him unless we thought a deal could be done easily and at the right price.

Tend to agree, I don’t think we’ll pay big money for him.

Yeah I don’t disagree with most of that. I’m definitely not saying the manager should be dictated to. Of course you would seek to avoid that situation by having the DOF and manager in alignment, probably by hiring a manager that fits what the club are planning to do. You would hire a manager that suits the squad the club has developed over time, as you say. It’s a bit more complicated when you already have a world-class manager in place. We still don’t know what the reason for Mitchell leaving is though, so I don’t think power struggle with Howe is very likely.

Yeah fair enough, but I guess once a department is established it continues even if the executive in charge changes. What you need is a club philosophy that informs what we do with recruitment and (eventually) manager selection. Maybe we could use Howe’s philosophy as the template since he has turned out to be an incredible manager for us.

Thought there was already another report saying he didn't fancy Barca?

But we still don’t know what the reason behind any of this is. It could be that they just didn’t think Mitchell was the right guy, a different one could be fine. I love Howe more than anything but I still want the club to have a setup and a system which isn’t too reliant on one man and can continue strategically if the manager changes. Of course Howe’s influence should be very important and they all should be able to work together. I haven’t read any of the local journos waffling about this, so apologies if other people know some actual facts that I’m not considering.

So we’re assuming this is about conflict with Howe? And we’re assuming Mitchell won’t be replaced with someone else in the same role? Why?

Any sensible club wouldn't be in the market for the likes of Rashford.

Yep, it's mental, ironically you've kind of bought into it yourself by accepting that Howe needs to be challenged.

It's completely made up

But surely we won’t do that if that’s the consequences? So I don’t get why it’s something we would worry about.

Of course yeah, but hopefully we already know our targets and it’s more a case of closing the deals than actually identifying the targets.

Howe will not have total control FFS, they’ll replace Mitchell with someone else.

I’m going to guess the profit would be hit.

Well in that case it’s good he’s out. Tonali, Tino and Hall were incredible signings. Let’s hope the replacement has a bit more sense.

I don’t think there is necessarily a lack of alignment. Howe seems to fully accept our PSR position and he’s always been good at coaching and improving non-star players. So where would the lack of alignment be? Like we’ve discussed on here loads of times, most of the chat around Howe’s need for control is absolutely nonsense and completely made up.

But why are you just assuming the worst at every turn? We don’t know that this has anything to do with a disagreement with Howe or his way of doing things.

Top tip, thanks