Gallowgate Toon

I was going to say that based on me very bog standard Spanish that his quote isn't that damning, but the Tweet about the club considering pulling out doesn't sound very good at all.

They might as well make the January transfer window a week long, tbh. Would save everyone a load of annoying faff.

Lingard would replace Fraser or, dare I say it, ASM, surely? Even if we move to 3-4-3 he'll pick up one of the wing spots.

Hang on... You rate Potter but slate Howe? Potter's win %age in the league is less than Howe's I like Potter, btw, and would've had him here no problem.

If they pull this one off then it'll be pretty impressive, like. Really surprised he wants this although he seems a bit of a mentalist - maybe he's confident that he can do a good job for us and still get another move in the summer if we go down.

I would try him in the midfield 3, like, particularly if we're playing Wood who will occupy defenders in the box.

Kayembe has played one game and may turn out to be absolute shite. Playing well against us isn't really a high bar. Granted, point still stands that we don't need superstars right now. There are plenty of good players out there.

I doubt Vickery will watch him with any regularity. If Sevilla fans are saying he's class then that's the best opinion we can get, imo.

What's defined as an 'error'?

Carlos feels far too good to be true We need to start quickly moving to the middle selections of our targets. While signing the likes of Carlos would probably be absolutely amazing and a good longer-term investment, there's still value in getting players who are good for the situation we're in and can be squad players for the medium/long-term. Have a sinking feeling that we're waiting for things to go mental in the last week of the window and try our luck again, which will probably then lead to some panic buying.

That is a very, very small sample size. I love the idea that coaching is this thing you just flick on and everything is better. Did Rafa teach us nothing? His whole philosophy was about building up everything and that took time. Eddie Howe finished 9th with this squad. He clearly has something as a coach.

I do think Howe is trying to cover weaknesses but keep some form of foundation. I imagine Brentford is how he wants us to play but he quickly saw we couldn't handle that style defensively and has tried to shore up the space between defence and midfield since. To me, that explains his bigger focus on trying to get defensive players in this window so he can reset the shape. I think we do try and counter in a different way to before, with higher pressing and retrieving the ball in the middle of the pitch to get in on goal. Before, we sat right back and would basically run the length of the pitch to get a chance. Joelinton has been amazing at being the guy who wins the ball and gets us on the turn. But what we don't see is commitment in attack when we build play. It feels cautious and like we're waiting for someone to break shape.

For parity, Benitez also went on some pretty terrible runs of results - it can take a while to figure things out and let coaching come through. Ultimately, we need quality through the door.

He really does lack a lot of fundamentals to this game, like. He's not at all unpredictable - you know what he's going to do and he's very talented at that one thing which gets him out of trouble quite a bit. But he has no idea about movement, his passing is 'OK', his crossing technique is poor, shooting can be wayward. He's levels away from HBA in many facets. It felt like he got in the way on a few occasions yesterday but the goal was fantastic. Howe's wingers at Bournemouth were system-focused, from memory. Agile and quick but looked to beat a man and get early crosses in etc. Someone with Robert's attacking game would be perfect.

Howe really did do a good PL job at Bournemouth for a while, like. Look at the squad he got promoted with and was the core for his first two seasons - so many absolute regens. Dan Gosling was a starter in their midfield ffs.

I'm happy to reserve judgment until the end of the window. But if we're going into the Feb games with marginal improvements at best then they should absolutely be pilloried for it. I can see some sense in building up through the window, players that we really want may come available the closer you get to the deadline. But does that counterbalance the risk of maybe getting 5th/6th targets in earlier to help make the difference? I guess if the players are really, really good then yeah. Basically, they've got to pull some more Trippier-like stuff out of the bag.

We should be buying a mix. Having good league experience does actually count for something. Even really good players sometimes don't initially adapt when they join. Considering our main links are to foreign players, I'm pretty sure we aren't operating a PL experience-only policy. When we went into the window, I really wanted a CM (and still do) but I just see such massive problems at both ends of the pitch that feel more pressing. A wide forward who can operate as a second striker and scores goals would be tremendous.

I thought he was OK. Some nice touches, a couple of times he was slow to react etc. I quite liked that we didn't just try to lump it up to him and wanted to mix up build up. What I didn't like was the lack of trying to get crosses in early for someone who obviously wins a lot in the air. Got to be smarter than that.

Mad that Villa have lost more than us

We're not actually that easy to beat though. We've drawn a lot of games and are often 'competitive'.

I expected 2 more wins in the league - today and Norwich. We're playing kinda how I expected though. I think the biggest problem we have is the mentality of the squad - a fair chunk of this lot have been grinding out staying in the division for years. While final positions have looked comfortable, we know that most of the season has been tough work each year. That's not healthy for high performance and players become harder to motivate for the slog each passing year. We've been a fine margins team for a long time. The last few seasons, it's been a slight shot of fresh blood that has got things moving in the right direction again - Almiron, Willock, Rondon coming into fitness etc. Theoretically, we have the means for a massive dose of quality this time.

Easy to forget that we were poor under Rafa in his last season until he had a fit, competent front 3 to work with. Don't think he'd make much difference now considering what's available. He'd also absolutely hate Maxi. Not sure where he goes from here, tbh. He does feel a bit finished?

Wow didn't realise it was 1 win in his last 13 in the league.

Fraser is weird. His off the ball stuff is top notch - movement, pressing, tracking back. On the ball, he doesn't seem to be able to beat anyone and his crossing is often very meh. Like a high octane Damian Duff.

We've literally signed Kieran Trippier who is a genuinely elite right back