Lush Vlad

Not sure those maths quite work not sure how it is enough said, either. Elanga has been crap and a waste of money so far. Hutchinson wouldn’t have improved us and would also have been a waste of money. They’re not mutually exclusive.

Not sure he is held to much higher standards. Look at his goal involvements outside of penalties in 2025. Absolutely pathetic and a lot of his performances have been as well. Then there is the fact he goes from being a 9/10 and running his bollocks off. To looking like he just doesn’t fancy it against a certain team or full back and half arses it.

Really? I know we wasted money on Elanga. But Hutchinson isn’t decent or what we need. He was mainly crap and out his depth for Ipswich. None of their fans seemed that arsed about losing him and thought it was decent money. I think it was £37.5m to be pedantic?

Looks massively out of place on the ball in away games. By that I mean he actually looks to take people on, drive forward with the ball and make things happen. Which makes a refreshing change from slow sideways passing, hoofs upfield and aimless crosses.

I used to watch other games as we were so uninspiring under Ashley, Bruce, Carver etc. It was a way to still get enjoyment out of football. But this season, I’ve found it hard to watch other Prem games. Especially when we’ve played before everyone else and put in yet another disappointing showing like the last two weeks. It just winds me up and I actually half pay attention to the league table now. So it is always on my mind how much further we are falling behind. Caring again comes with its problems

Would love that. But zero chance of it happening.

Have you not been reading this thread most the season?! Plenty of people are getting stuck into him for the shit performances. Myself included. You absolutely can ‘say anything against him.’ Why do people keep spouting this bullshit?! If you don’t get why people are protective of Howe or loathe to criticise him. Well, I can’t help you there. It’s fairly fucking obvious why.

Even worse that our attacking tactics still seem to be that passing triangle to work an opening for a low cross near the box. Then if teams sit off, just slowly pass it about sideways and then occasionally hump a loopy cross into 2-3 players who are massively outnumbered and are usually a lot smaller than the defenders they’re up against. That seems to be our attacking set up every week. It’s painful.

He had two promising games on the spin. But he was about a 4/10 at best first half. He was terrible, shrunk and then seemed to hide from the ball. The fact he came out after half time was a joke. Never mind staying on for another 20 odd minutes second half. That’s more of a gripe with Howe and his reactive, slow and predictable subs, mind.

He is one of our highest earners, yet has barely contributed all year. I don’t think the body language and application thing that gets levelled at him is being imagined. Considering so many people are saying it?! Howe can’t wait to get him in the side. Yet he barely scores or assists from open play. Then he genuinely does seem to decide what level of effort he puts in with his off the ball work. All whilst keeping a more dangerous player on the bench or shunted out to the right. Where Gordon should be playing if he’s not on the bench, IMO. But Howe seems scared to upset him or move him across for some reason. I don’t think Howe has helped with him at all. Feels like he’s enabled him and his perceived shit attitude His haircut and diving antics don’t help his cause, no being a scouser is irrelevant to me.

Can’t see it mate. The Everton result is an outlier and we hardly blew these away at SJP. Go back to Spurs away before that. For our last away performance where we won and weren’t playing someone completely shite. Southampton, Leicester and West Ham round out the away wins for 2025. A quick count has us on 19 points from 18 away games. Nowhere near good enough. Especially as we’ve already failed to beat two of the newly promoted sides away this season. Need to start being perfect at home already it’s gotten that bad.

Draw or a loss. How can you even be remotely confident of a win. Based on our away performances basically the entire year?

Agree with this. Although I’m not sure he gets to start next season if we carry on like we are. Nor should he, IMO. It is a results business at the end of the day. We’ll end up bottom half without an upturn in performances and results. As much as I love the bloke. I don’t see why he’d get more money and more time in that scenario The away form can’t be ignored and our play overall has been below par for a lot of this season. It all feels like it has gone a bit stale and predictable. More sad about it all than angry. As I don’t see where the changes are coming from for him to turn it around. Keeps playing the same system and the same underperforming players keep underperforming. Lost Isak, granted. But we’ve then spent a lot of money now to get worse as a side. We have spent a lot of money full stop since he got here. Yet we haven’t improved our control of games, meaning we are now incapable of seeing out wins and our chance creation seems the worst it has been since he’s been here. I do feel like he has been a victim of his own success for a lot of his time here. But this season has been poor whatever way you look at it. Performances and results haven’t been good enough and the away form spans all of 2025 now.

Leverkusen away we got a point. That’s it.

Isn’t he supposed to be our second highest earner after Bruno? I’m sure that was heavily reported when he got his new deal. Either way. He does not perform like one of our top earners. The effort and performance levels are like night and day game to game. Still more shit games than average/good this season. Or year, even.

The blowing smoke and blindly standing by him isn’t working. I’m at the point where I wish he’d do a bit of a Pep and call certain players out. Gordon turns up for games when he feels like it at the minute.

Needs to go back to playing central and usually the deepest. He’s been poor in general and our passing and build up isn’t great at the best of times. But it’s when our midfield has always looked the most balanced. Seems like we’re trying to be more interchangeable and fluid this season. But it’s just resulted in all of our midfielders struggling to varying degrees.

Yep. Howe has had long enough with no Isak to come up with something new in an attacking sense. But we never look like creating much. Other than Murphy putting in a load of decent crosses per game. Or Gordon looking threatening 1 in 10 and then when Barnes gets minutes. Making something out of nothing. We’ve gone from being one of the most fun teams to watch in the league. To one of the worst.

He’s shit and is costing us points fairly regularly now. Is he above a 50% save percentage yet? It’s nice to see what we might look like with a keeper that isn’t terrible on the ball. But it’s not like with the way we play it has added an extra dimension to our game. Not really all that helpful if he concedes at will, either. New keeper please.

I couldn’t see him turning it around after Brentford last season and he proved me well and truly wrong. But I really cannot see it this time. There is too much wrong with the team. No world class goal scorer. Key players who look awful compared to their best, Tonali, Gordon, Bruno (in away games). Big players who are or have been missing and are getting that bit older. Burn, Joelinton, Pope. New signings that for the most part, haven’t really done it yet or look wildly inconsistent so far (Woltemade). Throw in how predictable and scared we play away from home and the complete lack of creativity throughout the side. It’s not a great mix.

With every away game. We somehow manage to be more frustrating/shit than the one before it. Take your pick this season.

In some instances, maybe. But we either go out looking like we don’t have a plan. Just sit off and wait to lose. Or we play the same, predictive, slow patterns. Until we lose the ball or fail to create a chance, yet again. The away form has been bad for a good chunk of this calendar year. This season we’ve rarely been our usual selves at home, even. The buck stops with Howe, unfortunately.

He’s not doing himself any favours. Away from home, we’ve become one of the easiest teams in the league to play against. Soft at the back and through the middle. Create fuck all in attack. We’ll do well to finish top half. Never mind in a European place. We‘re not a good side this season.

Good luck with that.

Hall the only one that has performed so far.