Hanshithispantz

Well personally I'm going to believe that we bought a player we have a plan for and not assume we blew record money on a lad we had no idea what we were going to do with purely out of panic.

Because nothing has worked this season, we've been shit. Hopefully next year we can implement whatever system Howe wants us to play and all of our players won't look shite. We scouted Woltemade, we would have known about the "is he a 9 or a 10" talk.

Firminho at Liverpool probably, but we need our wingers to put up numbers. We obviously didn't just pay a record fee for a player we have no plan for.

Even if he doesn't cement a place in the starting XI he'll be the first player in the squad I would want to bring on to change a game.

They're 7th we're 13th, 5 points behind them.

If he plays like this every game he'll be a nightmare for the opposition. If he has space to knock the ball into he's unstoppable.

Bruno is just another level man.

Scored from the middle as I posted this He's been great this game tbf.

Should we not have just been playing Osula on the right this season?

NAWTY that by Osula

It ended up looking stupid as they just changed up their routine and won the game from a short corner, but Burn to defend set pieces against Arsenal is one of the few games I can actually see the logic.

Sounded like he'd had an argument with Howe, which reading between the lines would have been about him wanting to talk about moving to Bayern when we're trying to prepare for the end of season. Hopefully he's back, plays well and we get a good fee. I don't mind Gordon, but it's always been obvious he's all about Tony Gord FC. Hopefully he doesn't go on like too much of a cunt and I can enjoy him bagging a hatrick against Arsenal next year.

I reckon this is what it felt like in 7th century Salem when the town were dragging your nanna out the house claiming she's a witch. You just want her to have another season, but you're standing there powerless as people scream things like "she spends too much money" and "not even Bournemouth want the cunt".

We essentially had them penned into their own box for 45 minutes. One of the best halves of football we've put in under Howe.

Nick definitely needs to learn how to challenge for a ball like, I agree we cannot have a massive, fairly unathletic forward who cannot challenge defenders in the air outside the box. I just think that regardless of his many shortcomings, he still looked dangerous played up top.

He's made just as good balls when starting up top though, that's why it wasn't in any way a suprise he picked Wissa out. Woltemade's scored or created atleast 2 goals with his pressing too, Sunderland and Villa. I would imagine Gordon and Osula will have fairly similar numbers to that. I get why Howe would want an athletic, pressing forward, but I struggle to believe we wouldn't have been better if Nick had stayed up top instead of juggling 3 other players ahead of him there

How is it mad? Strikers being on penalties is an easy way to maintain form - your main goalscorer should always be on penalties imo. Gordon being on penalties has upped his reputation to the point Bayern are sniffing about. He may not have scored the 3 goals Osula has scored but over the coarse of the last few months of rotating everyone OTHER than Woltemade upfront how many have the other lot collectively scored and created from open play?

What is this based on? Woltemade does things in and around the box that causes the opposition massive problems. His ball to Wissa wasn't even surprising, it's the kind of thing he can do time and time again if we get the ball to him in the right areas (something he also needs to work on). He needs to get stronger, and definitely needs to work on his positioning and timing, but even in his current state I've seen nothing from Gordon, Osula, or Wissa to suggest dropping Woltemade from CF was the right call. He also should have been on pens instead of Gordon stat padding, even if he may have missed a couple more.

Absolutely shite Woltemade like isn't he

Ball was covered so it's not a red but Pope is absolutely off his trolley.

Realistically if we lose our last 5 it will be down to the players downing tools, in which case they can all fuck off and I'd happily sell the whole squad.

It's fairly obvious he will want another striker. If Gordon goes he'll want a winger. I think he'll try to turn Elanga's form around. Another central midfielder I would imagine is a must, not being able to win games without Bruno is worrying. A centre back. A keeper. One or 2 right backs depending on whether Livramento stays or goes.

Since when was "he absolutely must be sacked" slight criticism?

You're missing the point, I would swap Murphy for Ndiaye in a heartbeat and I'm sure Howe would too at this point. However Murphy has been able to provide the end product Howe wants from his wingers which is why he started almost every game last year (20 goals and assists), and the season before he provided 10 goals and assists in just over 1000 minutes as Howe subbed him on in most games. 6 in 1200 the season before. Gordon had 21 goals and assists 2 years ago, 10 last year (a bad year). Barnes had 13 in 1700 minutes last year. Kaka is constantly banging on about how we should have bought this or that player and how we're so bad at scouting, but it seems pretty obvious we're looking for players in the wide positions who we think we can get great output from, and chose to try for prem proven options. We chose Elanga which so far looks to have been laughably bad, but you cannot win them all (hopefully he improves).

I think people remember his goals alongside him making great one touch passes and threading through great balls every game tbh. He's not going to frighten defenders with his pace, and obviously is going to find it harder than someone nippier to get ahead of defenders, but saying he was bad there is something else like.