AyeDubbleYoo

Gordon's natural game isn't constantly going outside on his weaker foot though. It's not even really getting to the byline.

To me this is Gordon and Barnes though. I feel like Gordon is only going outside so much because he's been told to, his natural game is cutting in at least 50-60% of the time.

I think the reason to sign Woltemade and Wissa was also that we could rely on Wissa to score some goals and take the pressure off while we integrated Woltemade more gradually.

Yeah, we shouldn't be firing aerial balls into him anyway, unless they're crosses.

If we can I'm up for it I did think it was strange that we didn't sign a left-footer for RW.

Yeah I guess, I was more thinking about developing the overall recruitment team so that it supports Howe and provides us with more targets.

No chance we can sell Elanga in January after buying him in summer.

FWIW I've always agreed that Howe shouldn't be too powerful when it comes to signings, no one person should. Ideally it should be a collaborative effort with data and targets identified based on the manager's needs and what the experts in the recruitment department can spot. But I have no idea if we're getting closer to a proper recruitment setup or not.

Suggests to me that some players don't have the confidence and belief to be getting into the right positions, or we lose the ball too quickly for them to really get forward. Course, these are average positions (I think?) so it could mean that the wingers track back as much as they attack, so their average is around the middle.

This is a very weird way to look at making good signings and transforming a relegation side to CL contenders, have to say.

Yeah I understand, it just seems like we can't supply the manager with that many signings to take his pick from. It seems like all of our signings need to work and hit the ground running because we aren't in the financial position of Chelsea.

Yeah fair enough, but he also gets an infinite supply of signings and can discard whoever he doesn’t fancy.

I expect more to come from Ramsey like, I don’t think what we’ve seen so far is the limit to what he’ll offer.

Maresca handled it a bit differently TBH, he just fucked off half the playing squad and just worked with the players he liked.

Yeah sure, but he’s also quite poor and presumably can’t start every game.

He’s also a bad sub IMO, especially when the game is going against us or the opposition are confident. Never seems to have enough to impose himself in those situations.

This is selecting from the players we have in the squad like, not from hypothetical players we could’ve signed.

But Tonali 100% is.

Whatever your views on him he’s obviously significantly better than he’s shown for us so far. He looks like he’s never played football before at the moment. All I can think he’s struggling with the move and feels under massive pressure and lacking confidence. You could argue he should be introduced more gradually but that basically means start Murphy every game. Which we probably can’t do anyway. As I’ve said I think Gordon converting to the right is probably our best bet for now.

Yeah but I don’t think the right option was to just sell Isak as easily and early as possible. In hindsight maybe, but I don’t think people would endorse that general approach to letting our best players be poached whenever someone fancies it. Guess just have to differ on the signings for now, we’ll see how they play out. FWIW I’ve always said no manager should be all-powerful on transfers and I think we all agree the club needs a fully professional recruitment department and technical director.

Right, I mean I don’t buy that characterisation. We’ve only made 1 bad signing, could be 2 if Ramsey contributes nothing but with his ability I don’t think that will happen. Just as much risk giving loads of money to a new manager. It’s the structure of the recruitment department that should protect against wasting money. Not that it will ever be perfect. I wouldn’t say we had a full summer this year because of the Isak saga.

I would say you ask the other way round TBH. What are our ambitions, are they realistic with the budget and draw to players we have. Then you decide if Howe has enough about him to get back on track next season given a full summer.

We have to give him a full summer, hopefully one without all the chaos of the last one. That said, if we have a really disastrous season it will be followed by a very difficult summer if some of our better players start wanting out. But I don't expect that to happen.

I don't think one poor season would ever be enough to get rid of him, unless you've got Pep interested or something.

This is just what people post when a player is doing badly. You could literally say it about anyone going through bad form. Tonali is playing badly right now (with the ball) but he's an elite player.