Hanshithispantz

I know it’s proper ‘think of the children’, but the fact someone would burn what would probably be a few hundred quid table instead of just giving it to a local community/youth centre or something is appalling like

Bit of a difference between not paying £40m+ in buying a world class right winger and instead choosing to improve what we have, and giving away your only back-up number 6 like. But hopefully you’re right Kaka, and we still finish 4th, even though pretty much nobody has said we cannot.

We have nearly half of a season left though. It’s not just about the last 2 games. Wood has already played over 400 minutes and we’re entering the backend of the season when tiredness naturally sets in. Shelvey played just about every game available last year and would have been heavily featured had he stayed. He was hardly a fringe player. Going round in circles here so I’m bowing out, but any argument that Shelvey and Wood are essentially dead weight in this squad don’t really hold up imo (100% agree with the Wood sale however).

You cannot combat people gloating with flawed arguments though. You disagree with the negativity as you see it, so you’re retaliating by saying things like Shelvey and Wood wouldn’t make a real difference?

Like Anthony Gordon? Any new midfielder would have replaced Willock yesterday if they hadn't already forced their way into the side during the West Ham game. This isn't some kneejerk reaction to defeats either (from me personally), I'm only responding because I disagree with some comments here. I don't think we're completely fucked or anything, just gambled and made it a lot harder to qualify for the CL.

Like Shay says, it's about getting the ball up the pitch quickly, we can then set up to either counter-attack (if we win it) or counter-press (if they win it). Wood also presses well, if you dip into his bi-polar thread everyone on this forum was piping him off for it not too long ago.

His hold up play is terrible. You could probably have put any physical striker in his place and got similar or better results.

Wilson has just picked up his 4-5th injury of the season though. We have no youth strikers so will have to rely on wingers who we're also now short on. Shelvey's role isn't redundant if we have no other midfielders who are anywhere near as smart in possession. I feel like I'm having to make incredibly obvious points here, like both Shelvey and Wood would fairly obviously be good to have at this moment in time? How is this even debateable?

His statistics tell us otherwise though, he won loads in the air. 20p head or not Howe clearly wanted us to target him.

You're completely missing the point. Shelvey is massively underrated but Wood is obviously a shit Premier League striker, as I said in my post. However Howe never gave him 18 appearance this season for a laugh. If Wilson picks up another injury (or this one is worse than expected) we're left with Isak alone, nobody at all to tactically change things up top (think Keifer Moore vs USA) and an injury away from playing Anthony Gordon as a 9.

@Ronaldo touched on it yesterday I think like, but we lack a target up top to hit when we need to bypass midfield. Wood, as shit as he is allowed that last year. Obviously the money we got for him was too good to turn down, but losing both him and Shelvey will have a much bigger effect on the squad than people realise imo. Howe had no way to change the game yesterday once Gordon was forced on, both would have played a decent part (not saying we would have won like).

I think @joeyt succulently spelled it out a couple pages back We're doing great, but our striker and midfield situation is a pretty big fuckup. EDIT: Unless I've missed people saying he was a problem with the West Ham and Bournemouth games specifically like? Sorry if that's the case.

He played for Forrest yesterday and they believe they've signed the bald Pirlo. Having an experienced Premier League backup CDM on 80k pw for a year seems fine.

https://www.forestforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/jonjo-shelvey.51034/page-20

Keeping Shelvey improves our options in midfield massively like, I cannot see how anyone could believe it was a good idea to give him away.

Howe showed during the 1-2 year period from him leaving Bournemouth that he's able to learn incredible quickly. He went from being known as a defensive liability to being able to coach one of the best defences in Europe I cannot think of many managers I would trust to take us into Europe more.

Man Utd have a fixture pileup so hopefully we see the effects of that. Brighton look fantastic, I agree it's hard to see them dipping at the minute but once a team gets 'sussed' they tend to pick up a few unexpected draws and losses.

We were leggy and Bournemouth were really good, same as West Ham really. As disappointing as it is our results since the break aren't even THAT bad. We can still make top 4 and Man Utd, Brighton and Spurs will also go through more average/poor runs.

The only way FFP is impacted is if we buy poorly, which is down to bad scouting. I don't think Howe can take any blame really, what he's done with the squad is absolutely insane and he's obviously good at recognising players who he can work with, but he needs a lot more help.

Ridiculous you cannot appeal yellows like when they lead to a 2 game ban. 2 now he’s visibly won the ball and been booked.

4 midfields, one of which can pass a ball, and two strikers, one a sick note. It was absolutely stupid

Ref’s been absolutely horrible all game

Maxi is a fantastic passer in the final third.

Who else was he passing too?

Dyer sounds like he’s not doing well like