brummie

Arsenal are fucking nuts. I don't get Luiz at all. He really hasn't shown a great deal with us, and if it weren't for the fact it is deadline day, I would happily move him on.

Yeah but we weren't exactly brilliant when he was still here, either.

The bloke is fucking toast already. It's only a matter of time. Doing all the old Bruce stuff already - blaming the players, picking fights with some of them, insane stubborn decisions, no evidence of any coaching. He is finished.

One point of promise - we tried to sign Bissouma in the summer, we also tried to sign Bentancur in the last January window, and we did sign Kamara, the belief being we were after two DMs. That suggests he might have been thinking of playing a double pivot, which would make MUCH more sense, so let's see who else we get in this window. And that ^^^ is basically why the suggestion of signing Sarr was so stupidly bat shit.

I understand that. TBH when he joined the appointment was largely considered as stupid, and, like fans of pretty much every other club except Liverpool, most of us had thought of Gerrard as a wanker as a player, so he was starting from a tricky position. I don't like him, I thought it was a stupid appointment, but am prepared to give him a chance. It's hardly disaster territory, the window is still open, he can turn this around quite easily - but if he acts charlie big bollocks and goes down the stubborn route then he's not going to be getting very long to do so.

At very least top half of the table or top 8. Benitez blamed Purslow for him leaving Liverpool. It'd also be interesting to see Digne reacting to Rafa walking through the door ;-) The owners have thrown tons of money in so far, have been excellent. Gerrard is definitely Purslow's choice and the fans aren't stupid, that's a generally held view down here. Purslow said in his interview he blew him, Edens and Sawiris (owners) away and gave a brilliant presentation etc etc but it's hard to shift the idea the appointment might be about getting his mate in.

Zaha - who remains an absolute wanker, mind - was very very good on Saturday.

Given that Purslow is our CEO, I think I have more of a chance of getting the Villa job than Rafa ;-) The other thing I didn't mention, there's been a few signs of throwing players under the bus, which is not going down well with the fans. He can turn this around, though, he just needs to do it soon. Oh, and I also just read that the proposed Sarr deal involved Cameron Archer, who is unbelievably promising, going there on loan. He'd just made a big song and dance about how he's staying here for the season, but to now have considered loaning him seems insane.

Incidentally, we were shit on Saturday but Palace were really impressive, full of energy, creativity and running and clearly wanted it more (a bit like you lot yesterday). Vieira is doing a good job there.

This is exactly it. You're not playing bozos week in week out. It doesn't work like it did up there. He has got to learn this, and fast.

There is a definite feeling of discontent. Not too sure about the sentiment around Digne, mind, generally speaking people are happy with him. Have discussed Targett sale before, I understand why we moved him on in the circumstances. I think a big hit was Michael Beale - asst manager - leaving to take the QPR job. The players had said a few times in interviews that Beale oversaw pretty much all the coaching (Emi Martinez went on that Ben Foster podcast and said this, and added that his tactics knowledge was incredible). He replaced him with Critchley, who is also highly thought of, but he wasn't on the Australian pre season tour (passport problems apparently) and won't really have had too much time to bed in. It's unfair to compare Gerrard to Bruce, nothing quite matches the degree of ennui brought about by cabbage head, as you guys will know, and there have been some stand out performances under Gerrard. The situation is that 3 points from 3 games at the start of the season isn't sacking territory, but if you look back to the start of 2022, the record is really poor. He needs to stop this insane tactic whereby we cede control of midfield because literally everything is going down the wings, it does not work. If he can break free of that and try something else then he'll do much better. He has certainly - assuming he fills the two holes we have - got the players to do well, he's just failing to get the best out of them. Boubacar Kamara looks an excellent signing, Carlos looked good too until his unfortunate injury. I am worried how things have started, and I can definitely see him getting binned if things don't improve but then again, I'd much much rather be us than Everton. A low bar admittedly, mind. Oh and another misstep - giving McGinn, the dressing room joker, the captaincy is insane. He's had about three good games in two seasons, and is now seemingly undroppable despite being a clear non-deliverer. In doing that he also fucked off Mings needlessly. Mings takes unfair stick at times, he's always got a ricket in him, but our record with him is way better than without and against Everton his return made a huge difference. He is undoubtedly in troubled territory, he can get himself out of it, but people are seeing clown shows like Saturday and hearing the way he talks about the team and thinking he brings back bad memories. Not of Bruce, nowhere near that level, but there's sometimes a hint of Paul Lambert about him. That is not a good thing.

Good Fucking pointless signing. Play a system in which you can't have wingers because the full backs are already there, struggle to shoe-horn Bailey into that set up for exactly the same reason, blatantly need a central midfielder and a centre half, don't address those gaps but try to buy another winger?

We don't have a problem with cash. The problem isn't even the players anyway, it's the boneheaded system

Gerrard is not going to make it to October. Awful tactics, awful decision making. Rodgers, Gerrard or Lampard for first sacking.

BUT BUT BUT LEAKY FALLY DOWN STADIUM!!11!!!!

Man United and Casemiro remind me a bit of the latter Wenger years when he'd get stick in the papers and on the web, check the calendar, see the window was running out, shit the bed, start googling players and randomly spunking silly money all over the place because the fans were angry.

Martin Edwards maybe?

Yes.

To be fair, the last two years, our academy have been hoovering up good prospects from other academies so we can't moan. Chuckwuemeka is a very promising player, but he's miles off being PL starter material, miles. The problem isn't his skill or not, it is that there have been rumours about him being a bad influence in the academy for a while, and his agent has been hawking him around most of Europe this last year. The stories of wanting over 100k a week, which would totally fuck our pay structure, his agent demanding guaranteed starts (which he's going to get at FC Waffle or wherever they send him in Belgium tbf) Compare him to, say, Jacob Ramsey (and his brother Aaron for that matter) who are incredibly promising players, same sort of age, great attitude and in the case of Jacob have absolutely produced the goods at the highest level (check out his goals from last season on youtube, for example, he only scores belters). Good riddance and, really, £20m for a youth team player they could have a free-of-charge contract agreed with from Jan 1st?

Chuckwuemeka to Chelsea. weird. Agent been demanding over 100k a week for us for a player who has only ever looked out of place in his few PL appearances. He was also apparently demanding guaranteed starting time. totally against the ethos of our academy which seems to be doing very well (Ramsey brothers , Archer, Iroegbunam, various other very decent players) so we refused to budge. not sure where - except Vitesse Arnhem on loan - he’s getting playing time at Chelsea but hey ho, just glad he’s gone. 20m for an unproven kid they could have had signed on a pre contract in January. Nuts. Looked at another way, £120m in income generated by selling two academy products in a year.

Honestly, I fucking hated having him as our manager, and I can remember the likes of Graham Turner, Billy McNeill (got us and Man City relegated in the same season) and McLeish (who produced awful football but was at least not a cunt of a person), The football was absolute fucking vomit, week after week, and having his cast of loyal ringpiece lickers in the press - as well as that cretin of a son of his - just made it worse. As if not only should we appreciate watching truly awful football, we should consider ourselves lucky. Fuck that.

It sounds suspect, indeed. However, this bit made me laugh: There's no way we'd ever have sold Grealish for that, ffs. That's typical fucking Bruce, bigging himself up and rewriting history. When he talks about his time with us he should maybe talk about the squad he had in the Championship and that he failed to get us promoted with it. That also masks the fact that in his entire time with us, we played football devoid of any shape or tactics, a team just sent out there with a 'do your best, lads' and fingers crossed it works out. I knew what would happen as soon as he rocked up at your place. He's so fucking predictable.

Castore off to a lamentable start with us.

Just been reading NSNO. In full meltdown mode already.

We are with Castore this season, too. I can't be arsed to look, but is your gear - not just the shirts but the training stuff too - monumentally expensive? Ours is way more than last season. The stuff looks decent quality, but eye watering prices.