The Prophet

Is this true this season?

Yes and no. Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of Fab, he's an incredible servant but he was genuinely poor for spells last season. I thought Botman was excellent early doors next to Thiaw, he's had a couple poor showings where the whole team has been pretty woeful and he's been dragged over the shop, but he's still the least of our problems really. But then after Brighton he was getting pelters for a goal that came about from rubbish play from Tonali, with some bizarre suggestions that he thinks he's too good for the club. He's certainly on the shit list with some.

Good post. Creeping polarisation. I jest with the "hound them out" nonsense, but football fans often forget these lads are human, capable of mistakes or a bad day at the office. Take Elanga for example, he seems like a good lad who blatantly wants to do well for the club, but his confidence is shot. Surely we've all been there in some form of life? An element of entitlement has certainly crept into the fanbase following the takeover, but I do think commoditisation has come in across the board. Fans don't support or back their team, they're customers who attend to be entertained, winning is the expectation. This almost certainly links into the first point about the dehumanisation of players too. Sadly, I think it's just the direction the game is going in. Capitalism has grubby hands on the working man's game and they aren't getting it back any time soon.

It feels like his performances are viewed through the prism of backing Isak at times. Schar put in some absolute stinkers last season and didn't receive this level of criticism.

We'll probably turn up at Marseille. Definitely think there's legs in the theory that we struggle to get ourselves up for the run in the mill games.

Can see football becoming virtually non-contact in the coming years. The fact fans are buying into the idea that incidental contact should be penalised tells you the direction its heading in.

He's made more appearances and played more minutes than Willock this season.

Oh boy, hopefully the fans get into him and his confidence ends up on the deck like Elanga's.

Aye, but "the last sensible squad building" was routinely criticised for at least a good twelve months. Tonali was banned and it was questioned if we should have been monitoring his phone activity. Barnes was behind Gordon and Tino behind Trippier, the former still gets criticised to this day. Hall couldn't get a game and there were suggestions he should be sent back to Chelsea. It's only in the medium term it's being viewed as a success.

Awful? Not for me. A centre back will always look worse when he's being exposed by the midfield, even then he wasn't that bad.

The penalty/red card decision. Dear me.

Aye, but Hall took twelve months to bed in. During that time plenty discussed sending him back to Chelsea.

We're way too easy to play against at the moment, particularly when we have the lead. Even players like Burn and Bruno are so passive, it has to be a mentality issue.

We absolutely should be competing, but it's not a guarantee, as Man United, Spurs and Chelsea have shown in recent seasons despite spending far more. I'm still pretty confident we'll be there and there abouts, plus cup runs will have an impact, but Howe should have more than enough credit in the bank to survive a season outside the European spots.

I do fear he'll be a victim of his own success. If we don't finish in a European spot the fans will smell blood.

Nah, his early performances were great considering the lack of service.

Typical of our fans to turn on one of our best players this season for a poor error when he was being dragged all over the shop.

Thought he was alright overall but completely switched off for the third, really poor.

I'd say one thing this signing shows is that it's futile paying a premium for a "PL ready" signing. I still think he'll be useful for us medium to long term, but he's struggling at the moment.

The away form is shite and we're not playing well, but I still back him to turn it round, he's earned it and then some.

I'd rather they play in a low block than press us.

Our patchy away form is down to our disjointed attack. It's not the direct cause, but having no threat from full back certainly compounds it.

He wasn't fully fit.

Largely agree. I thought we were just about worth a point at Brighton, but other than that we've been solid and organised without looking particularly dangerous

West Ham aside, I don't think our away performances have been that bad. It's our play in the finsl third that's letting us down. Obviously need to start putting results on the board, but I don't think we're miles away.