brummie

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.

Yep, that will definitely be an interesting factor.

Yeah but I'm not really sure what comparing two different scenarios proves. I wasn't a fan of the appointment, but he's come in after we sold our best player days before the start of the season (the player the whole team was built around), inherited someone else's squad, and done an OK job. Whether Howe did better or worse doesn't really come into it. I'll give him a chance and see what he does, he's done and said all the right things so far, so I am not really sure what this conviction that he is a chancer comes from. There isn't anything thus far that suggests that.

Fair play to them, always had a soft spot for Forest.

Based on results purely since Gerrard arrived, we'd have finished 9th. Not great but better. Don't forget, he came in halfway through the season.

No, I don't think we can to be honest. But we'll see.

I think our problem is also scoring. Ings is decent, Watkins is incredibly hard working but also very wasteful. Cameron Archer will feature, I think, he looks the real deal. I'd still rather have a more reliable source of goals. Wesley still plays for us. That's a shocking thought. Fuck knows where he'll be on loan next season. The only Brazilian male with no innate football ability whatsoever.

I dunno to be honest. I hope it's interesting. "May you live in interesting times", as they (can't remember who) say.

And further to that ^^^ i fucking hope more clubs do it and have a pop at it, it's way more exciting that watching the entitled 5 plus Spurs running things all the time. (except Wolves, fuck those cunts)