Hanshithispantz

That kit is awful. You would hope/expect we don't just get a generic training kit for our first Adidas strip.

He starts with "well he's near the first team..." then says "I think a broader look at this one..." and answers another thread of Bird's rambling question(s). His response was weird like, but he clearly segregates talking about Hall and our transfers in general.

Bird's question was all over the place like Why not just ask a simple question, "what are the short and long term plans for Lewis Hall?" ect

Cannot even wait until Barnes has had a half dozen starts for us before weighing in on who we should have signed instead

Nothing quite gets you in the mood for a Saturday like browsing a pre-game thread.

You've missed the point. And half of the players you've listed started as centre backs. I mentioned Saliba and Akanji as the kind of profile we would probably hope to replace Burn with if we were to stay with the current system. Technically good, physical, fairly quick, and great 1v1 down the byline. The likes of Akanji and Saliba just look completely different to the vast majority of defenders. There would be no point replacing Burn with someone like Tomiyasu, the rest are going to be costing over 50m.

Basically aye, and defenders of the Akanji/Saliba mould. He hasn't seemed interested in playing with 2 proper fullbacks for a while. Fuck knows when Tripper goes though.

To add, while Trippier is here, we'd probably be looking to replace Burn with one of those rebotic, highly technical and athletic CB/FB hybrids that would cost a proposterous ammount of money.

And even Targett struggled for minutes since we've went the psuedo back three route - even when fit, a lot of similar posts being made now were made about Targett as he was getting no minutes ('must be something wrong' - 'lost his pace' etc). Just pretty clear Hall was never signed for the reasons people hoped. We just saw an opportunity to get a promising player cheap, which is exactly what we need to do to combst FFP.

When Hall was signed we didn't have half a squad out injured. The players out injured will also return. We're being melodramatic again. Burn was always meant to be our LB this season, this is becoming increasingly more obvious now that Howe is still playing him despite the relentless fume. In anycase he's not going to solve a defensive crisis by replacing a solid defender with Lewis Hall.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that these are just people with jobs int it?

"He knows their strengths and weaknesses" Winter is such a weird bloke

Must have FM24 installed on his work computer.

Ban Ashworth

I really hope this 20m craic is purely down to their shite craic on deadline day.

The idea's to prevent teams hitting it long though. Having a physical back line while limiting space for the opposition in midfield, theoretically, leads to them trying to hoof it to a forward which the defence eats up. Burn is well suited to that, he's great at intercepting balls across the ground too, again, handy when the opposition is looking to find an outlet. It obviously never worked against Luton, and in general it's going to be more effective when we're pressing like we do when at full strengh, and have a sweeper keeper, but I'm still struggling to remember Semenyo taking advantage of it in the way people expected. Great strike for the goal though. 20 touches, 8 passes. No aerial's won despite being a physical player. Ogbene was a different story...

We're still unbeaten in 5 games though, and the only points we've dropped are in games we've started without a striker. We were good against Man City and excellent against Villa. Energetic and well coached 'shite' teams coming to SJP and not fearing us has shocked people a bit, but again, they know Isak and Wilson are out/unfit, we have a 17 year old (and the easily pressed Longstaff) in the middle, and a keeper rooted to his line.

We're 7th Last season people were stating a top 7 finish would be a dream. Maybe we're being a bit melodramatic here?

But their most dangerous player when Burn went off was that lad who replaced Semenyo down the same side. Livramento was bombing on and leaving gaps, he got in a couple of times - same happened against Luton. I wouldn't look forward to any of our defenders against Saka with how we are at the minute tbh

I thought Burn was fine today, he should have been closer for the 2nd but it was hardly a massive error. Botman got roasted again for pace today, Trippier went about 5 games where he was just gifting teams goals etc. We're going to be shite regardless of what we do as managers have fitter squads, we're seeing thst with how teams can step onto us at SJP, Livramento won't stop that.

All the best managers give into the fan backlash like. It's how Fergie won his titles.

We'd just be replacing Miley with Livramento though wouldn't we? As I said earlier, despite our squad being horrific at the minute we're still better than most on recent form, it is possible all of the suggestions people are calling for might actually make us worse.

Our midfield would be even worse.

Howe has made mistakes (again keeping Burn on against Luton was moronic). It's people consistently ignoring obvious things (like Burn dropping into a 3 and Trippier pushing on) to make the same points every game, and the absurd notion that Howe should be under pressure (not you) when he's doing no worse than over half of the managers in the league. Tino is clearly a better fullback than Dan Burn, Howe would have dropped him months ago if he thought he could play the same role.

But player fast, burn slow, tino win win