AyeDubbleYoo

Don’t think I’ve ever been happier than when they took that Sports Direct lettering down Just unnecessary vindictiveness by Ashley to replace the iconic text that was there.

I just don’t think Murph is technically good enough to be a fullback. His mistakes would kill you.

I know, yet we’re very quickly accepting both rumours.

Drury is the worst person alive.

Do any teams play with a sitting midfielder now? Guess it’s difficult if you value pressing high up the field. Probably easier if you dominate possession like with Rodri.

And they associate themselves with absolutely dire journalists.

The nature of the transfer and the timing was also a big issue, combined with the Mitchell disaster. I would note that staying stable in the Bournemouth/Brentford acceptable finishing range is a lot easier than staying stable in the CL positions.

Selling Bruno and Tonali to Man Utd seems pretty unlikely. Winds me up so much that people accept every rumour means someone's "definitely off" And I don't even read the football media.

I don't really disagree with your assessment but "Eddie's comfort blanket" is just silly when none of them were meant to be regular starters at this point in our progress. Including 2 training goalkeepers is a bit odd also. They're not really relevant to anything.

Not even sure what a full reset means TBH, there's only so many players you can turn over in one window.

Not sure I’d call it flukes, it was great signings and a great manager tapping into the inherent potential of this club. I agree the 2030 stuff is fanciful since we haven’t got a new stadium etc and financial rules are still there to stop us. But I kind of brush off things that executives say most of the time anyway. At least they’re expressing some desire to improve.

I agree with the general assessment of PL football being crap though, can’t stand all the long throws and VAR and diving and shit like that. Don’t watch any full matches now apart from ours. If Gateshead had a decent stadium I would consider less PL engagement.

Football fan opinion is incredibly short term generally, it's understandable but not really something I get into that much. Try not to be too high and mighty but the fan reaction is probably the worst thing about this season - much worse than the actual football itself. This season has been a grind, but if next season is good we'll be fine again. The off field progress has been slow-ish, but if this summer goes well we can be confident in Wilson et al again and that's fine too. We haven't moved on the big projects as fast as people would like but it's only slow until it isn't. They could announce the training ground project is starting at any time now and the stadium maybe soon after. The stadium is a very difficult decision and will take years to build anyway. Howe is IMO our best ever manager and I want to hang onto him until it's absolutely obvious that the club could do clearly better under someone else. We won't see linear progress to winning the PL but I really don't care about that anyway. I just want us to try to compete and function as a PL club, I won't forget the Ashley era for many years yet,

Having this Brasil game in USA is so weird, people in Brazil kits filming the France celebrations. Game’s gone.

Some talent in the France squad.

The way we played up the second half of the second Barca game showed me everyone is totally behind the manager and we should be too. We are currently struggling to do that every week and sadly we chose Sunderland to lose to, but overall there’s absolutely no sign of discontent at all. I also feel Howe doesn’t get enough credit for never disposing of or writing off any player. Wissa is the closest at the moment but I still believe he’d look to bring him back if he thought he could risk it. He never seems the type to give up on a player.

There’s no way any team could rely on players primarily scouted by the manager. What probably happened is that overall we didn’t have the right structure in place, Mitchell had gone so we (as a club) had to go for some more obvious targets. It doesn’t mean Howe insisted on every single one at the exclusion of any other option. Not sure why that has become the narrative.

Always thought saying a manager doesn’t “trust” players is a weird way to think about it. He’s making selection and tactical decisions all the time, some players take longer to come good than others. Maybe he “trusted” people when he brought them in but when they don’t perform (or sometimes if the team overall isn’t working) he has to make other choices.

While true, there are plenty of transfer rumours that come to nothing. The vast majority I guess.

Tune.

What has actually happened?

I wouldn’t crucify him based on a Craig Hope tweet mind.

Him and Bruno?

We need an overhaul but not including replacing him.

Think the problem is clear and obvious really means to the referee in real time, not after looking at detailed replays many times. Think a lot of the time it’s like “was it understandable he didn’t give that live?” Shouldn’t have anything to do with the on-field decision IMO. Should just be “what is the correct decision given what we can see on this video?”