McCormick

I doubt any team in the league would swap squads with us if offered. We look so gutless, regardless of tactics.

That’s optimistic.

I’ll just bump this now in anticipation.

Meh. Personally think he’s a poor man’s Favre but at least he has the slight advantage of knowing- to a certain degree- how a few of the other teams play in this league, which will hopefully help us to pick up more points in the short- term.

Howe is fine but there are understandable question marks over his time with Bournemouth, especially his last season. The unfortunate thing is, he is an obvious downgrade from Emery which is difficult to get over at this point.

I guess I can go back to disliking Emery’s stupid Bond-villain, rat face. Shan as fuck, but it’s how I’ll cope.

Yikes. Don’t know the ins-and-outs of this but it’s not a good look for us, I must say. Hopefully, it gets resolved but I doubt it; a top class manager, who is happy where he is, won’t want to risk a good thing to get into bed with a bunch of knuckleheads (if they did indeed leak this prematurely).

Ugh. edit: new page ugh.

He has the look of a strict P.E. teacher. I imagine he picks his teams based on their attitudes/ graft in training. I suppose that’s okay in and of itself, but shouldn’t be at the expense of on field talent.

Rafa loved Dummet iirc. Called him the most underrated footballer he’s ever worked with.

The problem with playing against Brighton is that they’re so tactically fluid; ostensibly a high pressing, possession-based, long-passing team with emphasis on wide-play. It’s quite a lot to navigate . Potter has done such a fantastic job there, it’s nice to see him finally getting the plaudits his team’s play deserves. Sadly, bad/ unimaginative coaches try to beat high-pressing teams with the long ball and then essentially having a foot race. While this can work, it tends to leave too many players forward making teams vulnerable to the high-press counter attack. If Jones has anything about him he should (IMO) go hard on counterattacking with emphasis on diagonal runs and field switches, keeping our midfielders very wide. Playing our current “system” will get us hammered, especially with the lack of technical ability across our backline (and no target man to ease the pressure off the press).

I think I hate Spurs again. That’s nice.

I imagine that’s Fonseca out of the picture now.

Yup.

might have been 13 points, but yeah, on reflection that’s a bit high.

Did a PL predictor thing a week back which had us at 15 points after 21 games, 10 points adrift. Don’t think I was being particularly harsh either.

As I said 2 weeks ago, we’re fairly fucked. I expect us to still be 19th with the gap 8 points or more by the time we get any signings in by Jan.

Not sure I agree. They have the specific players for their playing style, with years of being coached in that system.

Used to be a striker at youth level iirc.

Especially if we get Favre; good, mobile wingbacks will be crucial.

I think he’d definitely be a statement signing, especially considering they’d want around 40 to 50 million for him. I’d absolutely love to have him here, alongside (if I’m being greedy) a physically dominant/ defensively sound cm like a Brozovic or a Zakaria.

They were looking at Pocchetino before weren’t they? Not that it’s likely at all, mind.

I imagine they’re shooting their shot with Ten Hag, and I don’t blame them. Once he firmly rejects us (and I expect he will) we’ll go for one of the other names further down on the list in Fonseca or Favre.

It won’t be Ten Hag, sadly. If Fonseca wants it we should just give him the job already; every day that goes by I get more worried we’ll end up with Lampard. Who, as I’ve made abundantly clear on here, would be an absolutely disastrous appointment. He’s legitimately as bad as Bruce in terms of coaching ability.

Erik ten Hag Brendan Rodgers Rafael Benitez Unai Emery Paulo Fonseca Lucian Favre Eddie Howe/ Martinez/Gerard Lampard