Ghandis Flip-Flop

MRI scans aren’t always conclusive guys, wasn’t until the second scan that my MCL and meniscus tear was picked up. You'd hope imaging would be always conclusive but it doesn’t work that way.

Pacy Centre half, genuine first team winger who is creative and a powerful and pacy CDM

It’s the young Brazilian lad Santos, who was on loan at Forest.

Physically he had everything, he did look good alongside Woodgate who had the footballing intelligence to help Marshall him through games. It all went wrong when his defensive partners were as equally brainless

I'd argue ability wise he was, just didn’t have the mentality to fully realise it

All of the players you’ve listed were full Internationals? They may not have been the absolute best in their respective positions, but they’re not mediocre players either. They all consistently played in team's that played in one of Europe's top 5 leagues. I think what has happened post-Fergie has messed with some people's minds over how good you had to be to consistently play for Man Utd too tbh. I think we are mainly arguing about definitions of what a "mediocre player" is tbh, clearly your definition, includes players with a hell of a lot more ability than mine.

like who? There aren’t many "mediocre" players that play at that level, never mind win them both. Maybe need to recalibrate your idea of mediocre if you genuinely think that’s true.

Well it could also be because a few of them were available at the £25-30M mark, which seams to be a similar level to which European talent goes for too. The fact we are fishing in the same pond as other clubs who can offer bigger wages, means we probably miss out on lots of players too. That’s the advantage of English players I guess they know our potential for growth better than those from abroad.

TBF he did win a CL and PL title, which is a medal haul far better than most ever achieve

A few talking about Aarons and Ranger, the youngster I really thought would push on every time I saw him at reserve level was Callum Roberts. He just looked miles above everyone on the pitch at that level, even when the odd senior pro dropped down. He'll not be the first who failed to bridge that step up to men’s football, but given how good he looked at that level I do struggle to understand it.

Jesper Blomqvist, not sure why with this one other than being a left winger myself, I just thought he moved with the ball well and could beat a man fairly easily when I saw him play. I remember us being linked with him before he moved to Man Utd, where it appears as if things stalled

Ricardo Quaresma Was another one, I remember him playing for Porto and Portugal U21's alongside Rapist Ronaldo, when they were just breaking through and was convinced that Quaresma was the greater talent. He certainly looked technically better at that age

Ian Bogie, yes I’m that old ?

Did we, when amortisation is taken into account? £25M on a 2.5 year contract, was at the club for a year, then loaned out with a fee and sold for £15M after 18 months of his contract. Pretty sure that at worst breaks even or possibly made a small amount depending on the loan fee

You know that GDPR malarkey, that’s made loads of extra faff for everyone at work? It would also make us delving too deeply into someone’s personal life, seriously fucking illegal. I really don’t get what else our club could have done tbh. I am sure there will be extra questions around gambling etc, with relevant contract penalties inserted going forwards.

Well let’s play this little hypothetical out shall we, if the majority of your workforce weren’t available for a significant period and you had to work your remaining team members like dogs to cover, would it be fair for your boss to chastise you for not being a fucking miracle worker? if those were your circumstances and you were threatened by the sack, I think any decent union rep would have your boss worried for his job personally.

And yet he generally managed fine last season ??‍♂️ where we 'checks notes' played a high pressing system. The whole team isn’t functioning well at the minute rather than individuals. Hopefully that gets corrected in the coming weeks

Please tell me you have no level of responsibility for juniors or safety, in whatever you do for a job. Maybe what needs to "just be fucking managed" is your fucking expectations

Well do you think Dan Ashworth is whispering into their ears saying sack him? Or do you think anyone who is rational and dispassionate enough to look at the circumstances we find ourselves in, thinks there's a fair bit of mitigation to explain our current predicament. I mean you harp on about how successful they’ve been in investments etc, do you achieve that by being reactionary and trigger happy? Genuine question, what has this ownership done that suggests they’re going to throw out our current blueprint at the first sign of adversity?

Well they better roll up their sleeves and start knitting new players then. If they’re as data driven and methodical as has been suggested, then I suspect they’re probably less reactionary than many on this forum

I hate to say it but as much as he was targeted today, it was successful because Gordon wasn’t coming back to support him. We’ve seen in the past how critical a properly fit and firing Gordon or Joelinton is to securing that side defensively. I’d argue Miggy being shot on the other side has probably had some effect on Trippier being exposed in recent games too. The sooner Murphy and Barnes get back fit and Joelinton gets back to match sharpness, the sooner we'll start to regain some of that defensive solidity back. Our wingers being able to support defensively has been a massive factor in that since Howe came here.

This 1000%, we got CL football probably 2 years and 4 windows too early. We are now victims of last season success, rather than actually still being relatively happy with sitting 7th or 8th in the league and able to actually compete in most matches. We didn’t have a squad capable of properly competing on all fronts, in terms of both actual numbers and certainly on genuine quality too. Factor in a ridiculous run of injuries and the whole Tonali situation; is it really any wonder we're hitting a period of bad form? I keep hearing lots of chat about how Howe needs to do x or y and that he might be getting replaced. If we do shift him on, it’ll be a few years down the line when he's got more quality to chose from and is still failing. Not due to our current situation when it’s basically the same 11 every game. Honest question, what is another manager going to change in that situation in reality? Park the bus hoping for draws? If this form continues when everyone is back fit, then that’s a different conversation. But if what we've seen since he arrived is anything to go by, I feel that is unlikely. Even if we don’t quite hit the heights of last year again this season.

You ever heard of mental fatigue? I swear clearly there are a lot of people on here who don’t have to do a lot of thinking at work, given the way they go on in here. Has Trippier dropped a few clangers because he's ran too far, or is it more likely that he's having occasional brain farts due to being mentally exhausted? Factor in a bit of loss of confidence on top and is it any wonder we've seen a drop off. People love to bump there gums but basically since the Dortmund home game we've played the front 6 who have been fit every week. Only the last 2 games have we had genuine options off the bench. I get the idea of having multiple ways of playing, but given our recent schedule I'm not sure they’ve had the time to work on that. I imagine they’ve probably been worried about breaking the fit players they have at their disposal too tbh.

Because it was a blatant two handed shove. How that wasn’t given as a free kick is beyond me

They’ve literally announced that we are one of their Elite Clubs in early December