leffe186

Guess I’m watching this, but don’t really have a strong opinion either way. Who do you guys want to win?

I mean, if you get to choose a win and a draw wouldn’t you prefer it the other way round? Then you can still win both as long as you win the pens. If it’s a win and a loss, which would you take?

Scrappy as fuck. What has happened to Luton since last year? I know they’ve lost a couple of players but every time I’ve seen them they’ve been awful.

Nice new flavour of shithousing there.

That’s far too amazing to be true, surely? Surely? Can’t believe I’ve only just heard the Mazraoui news. Just really glad they’re being proactive rather than reactive.

Coventry piling it on here. One for the Little Things thread - wife, kids and in-laws have gone up to Scotland for a couple of days so I’m here all alone. Housework beer and football all weekend!

And also, that highlights another point. Us and the club have that question unanswered but we couldn’t really give the slightest shit at this point . If we’d fallen apart after Nuno left then maybe we would? But we didn’t. It didn’t really have any impact on how I judge Nuno and it shouldn’t. It still doesn’t make it a ridiculous decision.

But that doesn’t make it a ridiculous decision. It just makes it an unusual one. And if - as you both imply - a manager has truly lost the fans and the players then it’s an understandable one. I hope we’ve grown out of mistakes like that, and I know neither you or us would ever hire a JFK again, but sometimes one truly does fuck up and not correcting that fuck-up in time causes even more problems.

For the record, sacking Jose in Cup Final week was a ridiculous decision.

I mean, the problem I spoke of was losing games - the problem I didn’t speak of was the way we were playing. I’ll include him in both those problems, however long he’s been there. He was the manager. Sacking somebody so early is obviously shan, but the general feeling now is that it quickly became clear that we shouldn’t have hired him, so we got rid. Don’t know exactly why behind the scenes, I just know what we were seeing on the pitch. I agree that you can only fully judge a manager after a couple of years and, say, four transfer windows but for arguments sake, wouldn’t you rather have booted JFK in November? I’d love Nuno to have settled in, had a couple of transfer windows, got the team playing great football and been in a better place than we are now. Do you think that would have happened? I don’t. Neither did the club. I think that’s fair enough,

Sure, but that doesn’t mean it was a ridiculous sacking, it means it was a ridiculous appointment. The argument against sacking him has so far been that he’d won MOTM in his first month, that he’d lost the players (they forced him out), that he’d lost the fans (we forced him out), and that he didn’t get enough time. The first is whatever, the second and third are actually making the opposite point, and the fourth is fair enough until you consider (a) that the mistake was maybe appointing him in the first place and (b) what the results of sacking him were. 4th and Champions League. Nice guy, wish him all the best, glad we sacked him when we did.

No it wasn’t, don’t be daft . @Interpolic is right that he shouldn’t have been written off as a shite manager, but you’ve over-corrected the other way. It clearly wasn’t working on multiple levels, although I certainly wouldn’t blame Nuno. As I say, wrong guy wrong place wrong time. We’d been tonked by Palace, Chelsea and Arsenal in quick succession, then lost to West Ham and got battered by Man U. More importantly though. as you guys rightly say about Pardew, Bruce etc, fans from outside don’t see the whole picture. Saying it was a ridiculous sacking is just falling into the same trap.

I actually came in here because I just saw the highlights of the Man U match. How on Earth did the Fener guy not get booked for that pathetic dive to try to win a penalty? I feel like booking people for diving is one thing that VAR could be good for.

Nah. Nuno was the wrong (and arguably third or fourth at best) choice as a manager and did a poor job but never stood a chance. He wasn’t sacked because of the fans. He was sacked because he was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time and Levy fucked it up. A likeable guy who presumably went away with a lot of money and good luck to him.

I’ve not been paying attention. Has Wharton been injured?

Dunno - I can’t see Ange accepting a player who so explicitly sees us as a stepping stone and I’m with him on that. I get that it’s harder to be sanguine if you miss out on your other CB target (Guehi) but I’d totally understand if you truly refused to insert that clause. IIRC we were trying to get Tosin in last January and he turned us down - we presumed he was going to wait for the Summer then hawk himself around for the best deal. Sounds like that’s just what he did. Gets to stay in London, gets a long contract on a good salary, maybe gets that dream clause too. It’s done, move on. Didn’t it happen early in the window? Suggests he made his mind up early and Chelsea was always going to be the destination. The bigger concern is why you didn’t get anyone else in at CB in the remaining time. We’ve been left short in a couple of positions but the feeling is that it’s because Ange and the transfer guys are very clear on who they want. He’d rather just make it work with what he has than bring in guys he doesn’t really want who then clog up the squad. It feels like Eddie Howe has the same approach and I think it’s fair enough, you just need more options when Steve Parish fucks you about.

Yeah, they’re kind of built to exploit a team like Brighton, and they did. Liverpool worked hard to shut down Palmer and Chelsea struggled as a consequence.

The stats for the game are a bit bonkers. #ABA tbh.

It’s like losing to Skegness! I like that guy - he’s one of a couple with a little wit and self-awareness.

They actually are boring as fuck to watch, which helps a little bit. One of the guys on that YouTube comp asks the question - how do you make such a defensive side more defensive?

The first guy is always pretty good

It bears repeating again, if they want to stop getting red cards then they need to stop cheating . All that’s happened is they’ve started getting caught and properly punished.

I’m completely binary right now. If we lose I just ignore all football until we win. If we win I’m all over the popcorn. If we win and Arsenal lose I break into my Dad’s cellar. Not depleted it enough for my liking tbf. Edit: on reflection I guess that’s tertiary?

Kudus could have got two or three himself tbf

Was gonna say, one of the reddest reds you’ll ever see and without VAR it’s a yellow for him and a yellow for VDV.