Hanshithispantz

It's a great move all round from Watford like, we should have done more to put the game to bed but sometimes you've just got to accept that they've scored a cracking goal.

It's Trippier's man like. Lascelles's man trips over and Lascelles, unable to grow 3 feet taller, gets beat by a great ball in. He's shite but the ball in and leap from J Pedro were both quality.

I'm not hanging into any if that. Rafa has worked at Madrid, Napoli and Liverpool. He will have a lot of ideas that could help any club tbh. He will have extensive contacts in the game too. He could no doubt help us in numerous ways but the main one would be identifying a midfielder, defender and a forward. Getting a proper scouting network in would be the best bet but I get the feeling the people running the club aren't too comfortable in picking that stuff out and won't be until the summer when we bring in our DoF. Hence I'm at the point of 'bring any cunt in who might have a clue' The fact we can all see the glaring shortcomings of the squad yet we cannot seem to identify any solutions to them should be worrying© to anyone. It's not going to miraculously fix itself.

Even when we had him the first time I wasn't particularly buzzin tbh. I mean I was, but you know what I mean, I always want free flowing football. It's great watching your team win but it's better being actually entertained. Howe seems a perfect fit if there's a top class footballing structure around him, it's just a pity he's probably going to get us relegated before that happens

Aye, like we know something isn't right. And we know that there's ways to sort it. We can all theorise what those ways are but at the end of the day we need to do SOMETHING Getting Rafa in some way would be something.

I'm just flapping like, tbh. I just want to feel like there's someone at the club who knows what to do

Wouldn't have to be a DoF though, would just have to work with Howe until we get one in. Whether Rafa could take on a DoF role here or somewhere else I have no idea. Just theorising here like, it's basically fantasy, but the idea would be that he helps the board with footballing decisions in any way he can and works with Howe in identifying players as we're in desperate need. He wouldn't be coming into training and telling Howe how to set us up. Again, just fantasy, but I don't think it would be some outrageous decision or out if it ended up happening.

How, we need someone in an advisory role of some sort. I think that was made clear when we paid £25m for Chris Wood. At the minute I think it's basically Eddie Howe, Jason Tindall, and some no mark scout?

I don't know if Rafa would work as a DoF or not but he has the clout and knowlege of the game for it. Whether or not we can bring in someone more suitable in the summer is another question, I deffinitely like the look of the Brighton lad. I think (and again im pulling this out my arse) if we were to just ring him up and say "Rafa, we haven't got a fucking scooby what we're doing here, we'll pay you a few million quid if you'll come and give us a hand. You've worked in several countries at the highest level, we know you have contacts, talk to Howe about his plans for the club and try and work out a squad before the window shuts. Stay with us until the summer and every single staff member at the club will personally suck you off." It's a win win for all involved. Howe would have to understand that regardless of how highly he may rate himself and his ideas he just won't have the connections and experience to be running a club like us without help.

If we could get him in a temporary advisory role or something I would like I've pulled that completely out of my arse mind.

What about *insert name here* though? From the *insert league here* that would be available for *insert price here*? He's on the radar of a lot of scouts across the globe, I bet he'd come. We're talking like we're a skint club in the 4th tier of Scottish football or something. There's obviously players that we can sign we've just done an appauling job of identifying them. Like a broken record now but to keep blaming January and the fact we're in a relegation fight for the fact we haven't brought in the players we desperately need is clearlly wrong. It can explain why we haven't signed a specific player, possibly, but not literally any player that improves us in world football.

We are also just chatting shit on a football forum, their job is literally to find us players.

Just seems mental to pay £25m for a striker if he plans on benching him. Don't get me wrong I hope we don't play both up top like.

I'll talk about Mitrovic if I want to like fucking hell

Mitrovic's all round play was good like even if his record was bad. If Howe wants to play 2 up top you want someone like Mitro alongside Wilson really, not Wood.

TRon there are hundreds of forwards out there who could come in for £25m man. It's the job of our scouts to find them.

No idea how much Ramsey has declined but I would be amazed if it was to a point where he's worse than Sean Longstaff

Gosens would be class like. Having him and Dummett both being flexible could be handy too as we can essentially switch from a 4 at the back to a 3 by tucking Dummet inside if Gosens starts left mid.

https://sport.sky.it/calciomercato/2022/01/15/gosens-atalanta-newcastle-calciomercato-news

Again not seen anything to suggest this is the case at all like, it just seems like something we're jumping to. His passing range is probably no worse than Kante's anyway.

I don't even think he's necessarily a left sided centre mid, that's just where he's been playing. I cannot see any reason why Shelvey gets in ahead of the defence instead of him? Like watching Joelinton play I'm just not seeing what others are apparently seeing that suggests he needs to be the left of a centre 3? I think Shelvey needs to be on the right of a centre 3 if we insist on playing him as he can drift wide to find space. Like Longstaff was doing yesterday

If he has a few yards he can hit a raker of a longball but more often than not he just blind hoofs it without even looking.

I disagree that Joelinton isn't a central midfielder like. I think he clearlly is.

Is it too late to hire a decent scouting team? Like we would save a lot of money if we weren't so fixated on a handfull of players we're going to have to throw over £40m each on.

Surely we aren't going to pay £15m for Phil Jones