timeEd32

Amen. I know this is not new information, but I feel like people have lost some perspective on where we sit largely due to how quickly we closed the gap in the table last season and our very rich owners. Our wages are the 9th highest in the Premier League, behind the six you'd expect plus Villa and West Ham. We are as close to Everton in 10th as we are to West Ham. Our wages are about £50m higher than Sheffield United's (19th), which is roughly the same gap from us to Liverpool. Chelsea's are another £16m higher from there and then Arsenal takes it another £16m higher. The Manchester clubs are another £35m+ above them. Our last officially reported revenue was less than the wages paid by the Manchester clubs. Even with the increases over the last couple years Manchester United's and Manchester City's wages are still closer to our revenue than our wages. The gap is astronomical. There are ~42 players in the Premier League on higher wages than Bruno, our highest paid player. There are another ~23 before our next highest paid (Isak) That means you can create almost six starting XI's of the highest paid players and we'd only have one player included. We have gotten 450 or less league minutes from Tonali, Targett (despite Burn being injured), Willock, Murphy, and Anderson. Just those players account for 21% of our wages and as everyone knows that is far from the end of our injury problems. All of the above is not to absolve Eddie of any blame. He's made some mistakes and I think he'd be the first to recognize that. But so much of the angst in this thread and elsewhere seems driven by ballooning expectations. We overachieved last season based on our revenue, wages, talent, and depth, plus a very good injury record. We are now (currently) underachieving in the midst of a horrific injury record and compounding fatigue problems (and we were still moments from the CL knockout round and a second straight LC semifinal). It's frustrating and the derby is huge, but some patience is in order.

One day we will win at Anfield again and it will be glorious.

0.79 but yeah.

They all think the world is against them too.

How?!

Correct. We are many miles off them financially and it’s going to take years to close that gap.

For sure.

Every time Nunez doesn’t score I get more annoyed about the home game.

Isak’s legs seem just as gone as Gordon, which is concerning considering he hasn’t played nearly as much.

GTFI

He needs a month off. Run into the ground.

I’d be very confident in us scoring with a fit Barnes / Willock and/or fresh legged Gordon and Almiron.

Feel like Beglin has been kind of fair to us considering he played for them. But yeah, they are not a fan of our “party” in the technical area.

There are many flaws but quite proud of our last 20 minutes or so. We’re going to need to score because I don’t see how we keep them out for 90 minutes.

How is that a foul let alone a card?

There are gaps in this press if we can play quickly and make the right pass.

If we were playing Hull or Bristol City no one would care about their form. I know the stakes are higher but really only two things matter for this game: 1) are we still in a rut with tired legs? 2) does the occasion get to us? If the answer is no to both we will smash them.

I’ve always been pro-Phillips and even more so now. Get him here next week and in the squad for the derby. Then he gets a few weeks to train (I’m assuming he wouldn’t be able to play City) and should give us a solid option starting with Villa.

Before the season started I had this game circled in my mind after last year. Wanted it even more after the collapse at home. Now I wish we could skip it.

I can’t keep track of who’s joking and who’s not. But please stop.

Worst 15 minutes of the season. Flat out bad.

Honestly the thing bothering me more than anything this season is that 3 or 4 times we just stop playing when we think the ball is out or offside. It’s infuriating.

I’m just going to enjoy Miley and ignore the various problems.

I think it’s very likely we’re not comfortable with how many minutes he’s had to play in the last 1-2 months. He only returned in May from his ACL injury.

ASM would have spontaneously combusted having to play a game every 3-4 days.