Jackie Broon

Under Bruce: West Ham H – 46% Villa A – 53% Southampton H – 36% Man U A – 36% Leeds H – 35% Watford A – 48% Wolves A – 48% Spurs H – 35% Average – 42.1% Under Howe: Brentford H – 52% Arsenal A – 34% Norwich H – 31% Burnley H – 48% Leicester A – 53% Liverpool A – 26% Man City – 28% Man U H – 31% Watford H – 52% Average – 39.4% Average discounting Norwich – 40.5%

Under Rafa we could at times be described as negative but it was effective, with a weaker squad than we have now. Under Bruce we were both negative and ineffective. That is what he was rightly criticised for. Under Howe we're equally ineffective (and have equally low possession statitics). Whether positive or negative what we need is a manager who can get us playing effective football.

We've seen much, much more out of these players we've seen Willock score 7 in 7, Longstaff look good enough to be linked with Man U, Lascelles lead one of the most solid defences in the league. What you're saying is exactly what people were saying in defence of Bruce.

Because Steve fucking Bruce managed to keep this dog dirt squad up last season. We were drawing by fine margins under Bruce this season, it should only take a moderate improvement to turn those draws into wins. Howe hasn't managed to find that moderate improvement over Steve fucking Bruce, that is inexcusable.

It would be very damaging in terms of FFP, especially if we spaff a load more money in this window and still go down. The positive position we have now in terms of FFP would be completely gone and our hands would be pretty tied in building from there.

He just needs to be given more time.

Just before they play Watford, who are the team we'll need to finish above to stay up. Burnley are going down whatever.

We've actually gone backwards under Howe. Individual errors cost us against Brentford and Norwich, today we were just shit.

We played 3 at the back against Brentford iirc.

We're a long way off being hamstrung by FFP given that transfer fees are amortised over the length of the contract. If we sign a player for 50m on a five year contract that's only £10m towards this season's FFP calculation.

Not at all when you consider we've just spent £25m on a 30 year old with probably no resale value and who will be a bit part player at best if we stay up, whereas Botman could be part of the spine of our team for a decade.

Yeah, he looks canny skinny with his top off. Although, that doctor/physio must be a bit of a unit!

The one Tripper was on was D-CROG, it's due to fly to Rome today (it's a charter plane that does random trips all over, so it's not likely to be anything to do with us) https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/d-crog

Transfer fees are amortised in the accounts over the length of the contract so I don't think it would make much difference to FFP. Might be wrong though, it's complicated accounting stuff I imagine.

Or probably Leeds.

Particularly from Burnley, it's about four changes

Or be allowed to. It was looking like they weren't planning to spend anything in this window to try to avoid very likely relegation, going down without a fight. Their owners might see the £25m as going a long way to covering the cost of relegation rather than gambling it on staying up.

His injury record seems good, he's played all but 9 of Burnley's PL games in the past 3 seasons.

Any of them who are available for loan (Origi certainly isn't) would have much more attractive options than Burnley available to them.

Yeah, watching his 50 goals for Burnley there are some really good finishes in there, and surprisingly few tap-in / headed goals (not sure whether that's a good or bad thing )

We have apparently and he apparently has no interest in joining us.

I just can't see them attracting decent players in their position and/or their owners being willing to pay the January/desperation premium.

It could, but I doubt it. They're going to find the same problems as us recruiting in January when they are desperate, facing likely relegation and everyone knows they have a wodge of cash to spend. That's if their owners allow that money to be spent, which is not guaranteed. I'm more concerned that it could bite us by handing 3 points to Watford when they play Burnley next week, because ultimately I think it'll be Watford that we need to finish ahead of to stay up. It's a gamble, but we need to gamble right now or we're going down. We need a striker and it doesn't look like there are any better options immediately available.

Not that much, Wood only played 8 more games over the past 4 seasons than Wilson. Wilson is a classier player, no doubt, but Wood is defiantly adequate cover for him.

He's outscored Wilson in 3 of the past 4 seasons he's played in the PL. Wilson has only got into double figures in 2 of his 6 past PL seasons, Wood has in all of his 4 past seasons.