timeEd32

What a disaster. And Wilson can’t play 70 minutes.

Arsenal haven't won three in a row this season. Tottenham haven't won three in a row since December. Brighton haven't won three in a row since 2018 from what I can tell. Man United haven't won two in a row this season. Chelsea have drawn at home to Palace, Tottenham lost to Ipswich and Palace (each of those club's only wins), and Villa have drawn with Palace, Ipswich, and Bournemouth. I get your point, but I think there's this feeling like we're the only team with frustrating results. It's really only title challengers that win most of the games they should. Almost everyone is inconsistent, which is why five points separate 2nd through 10th and four points separate 6th through 15th.

Quoting you because it shows the point, but I've seen this a lot... There's an assumption that by replacing Eddie we can fix his flaws while maintaining all of his qualities. What if we become more tactically flexible while regressing at player development, as one example. What people want is a unicorn of a manager.

Three windows is a misleading way to look at it. We spent a lot in 2022/23 and a lot in 2023/24 with only a modest amount of sales. The players we signed in 2021/22 are also still included in our amortisation number plus ever increasing wages. So those three windows are the January of a year where we spent a lot and then the summer + January of the same accounting year.

The two are inextricably linked though. We sold two players, bought a useless keeper above his market value, and no one else because of how much we spent and the lack of sales the previous summer/January.

Sorry, but it's not. You're still talking about the quality of the players, which I am not at all disagreeing with. But as we found out in June we were spending significant money that we didn't have to spend. Now we may or may not have had a much better plan at the time to balance our PSR situation. Ashworth leaving clearly left a gap, maybe we had reason to believe Bruno was as good as gone, maybe we thought some sponsorships were coming that didn't. Maybe, maybe, maybe. The fact is we had to panic sell two players and add to our costs in the process with an absolutely useless player to avoid a points deduction. I don't think it's hyperbole to describe that as reckless at best.

In terms of player scouting it wasn't and that has been true of almost every player we've brought in. That has been our saving grace. In terms of financial management it was somewhere between reckless and completely idiotic. Where the debate can live on forever is was each of those players the right one in the right position at the right time. The problem is all of three of these things get continually mixed together and people just talk past each other.

I agree with a lot of what you said, particularly this expectation that we should continually overachieve. But the decisions we made in summer 2023 are why we had to panic sell in June and then had little to no money to spend. Eddie wouldn't be the first or second person I'd blame for that, but he does need to figure out how to get a clearly talented £55m player in the team.

One of my favorite things in any sport is when a player is so ludicrously fast that they stand out in a group of the best athletes. I feel like Hall is that except with technical ability. Some of the things he does with ease makes other professionals look downright clumsy. He has absurd ability on the ball.

I think we win that exact game more often than not and, not surprisingly, the reaction is over the top. But two related things concern me about last night: 1) Piggybacking on a point @KaKa has made, why was his first move with Willock coming off to put Joelinton in the midfield and go back to something that really hasn't worked all season? 2) After the second goal, why did he think we had to get out of our preferred formation into something we're clearly not comfortable playing? There are so many variations we could try within our preferred system that get Tonali on the pitch and that keeps Joelinton further forward. There are aspects of Tonali's game that could mimic what Willock does. Just bring him on and do more of the same. Don't like that idea? Then bring Tonali on as the 6 and move Bruno forward. Down 2-0 you could even try Longstaff as the 6 because what's to lose and try to get both Bruno and Tonali closer to goal. Or put Hall as the 6 in that scenario and do the Tripppier/Tino change we did anyway. I'm quite certain any of these would have yielded more coherent play and better chances than whatever that god awful 4-4-2/4-5-1 with Gordon holding Barnes' hand was.

You can, but all the sports are modeled a bit differently. With the NFL you could get most of your local team for free with an antenna or cheap with a basic cable subscription. But those networks are paying the NFL a couple billion each per season. Or you can pay about $120/mo for four months for Sunday Ticket, which gives you every Sunday game. Monday / Thursday night football require ESPN and Amazon.

Oh, baseball is different though because it's heavily regional. MLB has national deals worth almost $2b per season from the likes of ESPN, Apple, etc., but every team has their own local TV arrangement. And then mlb.tv is meant for the out-of-area fan. It would be like if there was PL TV, but if you live in Newcastle you have to subscribe to Sky Newcastle to see Newcastle's games. PL TV would give you the rest. And I guess the international market can't handle a higher price point.

What are you referring to here?

Kelly disastrous. Gordon, Willock, Bruno, Schar, Murphy, Barnes, and Tonali all poor. Isak moody.

I think in many ways he was let down tonight by individual errors similar to the Chelsea game. Kelly a catastrophe. But the second half was a train wreck with long spells of players not looking like they knew what position they were meant to be playing.

Struggling to think of many worse individual performances in the Howe era. A car crash from beginning to end.

Eh, the first never happens with Burn and from there we probably win this game 7-8 times out of 10. There wasn't a whole lot wrong with the first half. Second half is just a mess.

There is no point in VAR or rules in general if that is not a penalty.

I think it's meant to be a 4-4-2 but Gordon is making it a messy 4-5-1. These subs should at least make it a real 4-4-2.

Here come some of the usernames that must have been on holiday for the last month.

Never missed Dan Burn so much.

What a disaster.

I know Antonio is a menace, but Kelly looks like an oversized child trying to deal with him.

Tonali at 60. Wilson at 75 if we're still losing.