Tiresias

I see Ten Hag spouting some bollocks that Howe is under pressure to finish top 4 because of the money we've spent. The gall from Man U most frugal of clubs...As far as I can see not heard even a whiff of pressure on Howe to achieve Champions league this season

I don't think it's hidden I'm sure I've seen it mentioned by both that Caulkin writes them from discussion with Shearer

Don't really care for mono club focused pods now though others are annoying too now since pretty much everyone hates us now. Tried Totally Football Show and god James Richardson who i used to like a lot just sounded bored stiff through every pod somehow, had no life in it.

Yep and soon will be the triple advertising hoarding. Why bother with fans in bottom row really just more hoardings

Barely deserved hah

Was Ayoze's glorious chip over Schmeichel there or at home?

I have no idea why anyone would be delighted in his career not going well. He was an excellent servant for us, no moving to be second choice elsewhere was a bit daft but I can understand not being happy being replaced and seeking challenge elsewhere. The Man U move was daft, but I fear this and that terrible goal he conceded at the Euros will be how he is thought of and will indeed end up somewhere else below his actual ability

You're not wrong actually I am just remembering him coming back from injury I think, he did have a few flappy periods but settled iirc

Dubs is good but did start slowly for us, needed to play his way into confidence and as such is never going to be ideal for being on the bench. Feel for him, was such an upgrade for us when he came in.

Bet thats why he couldnt score

I have a theory that a lot of dysfunctional transfer units at clubs are because the DoF or whatever executive is in charge of transfers ultimately fancies himself to have the best eye for players as anyone, and they may well have a very good eye and rose up doing that, but their scouts will have watched players for hundreds of hours and then delivered highlight reels to the DoF who will get a substantially poorer idea and will overrule those below based on less viewing time. Ashworth, with a demonstrable good track record of this is probably delegating properly and trusting the scouts more. Some DoFs I am sure will take credit for scouting loads of players that were just served up to them. Ashworth has to get the right scouts, set out what players we need to the scouts and negotiate with other clubs for signings. I am pretty sure I've heard this has been the problem at Man U, where they boast about how extensive their scout network is, they get loads of players and they all used to get passed up to Woodward at the top who would then go lol I'm going to just sign Pogba instead.

For all the doom and gloom on here, thought he looked on it last night, more minutes may have produced a goal.

I imagine Howe expected us to lose momentum at some point so he would shuffle the squad around and Target would be natural one to rotate in, then the squad never lost momentum. Feel sorry for Target he's not really put a foot wrong

Should probably have won by more but good result, good performance considering ring rust. Need to score more chances but happy with that generally.

Anyone else waiting for Adam Smith to score with his hand, it not be spotted by ref so there can be an 'invisible hand of the market' style pun of somekind

From replay think Willock was off and interfering, but madly late flag raising, especially considering Wilson clearly had spotted it

Was offside like

In fairness it's not a proper Schar performance without an early concussion scare

Just a warning I've had the kind of day when us losing 5-0 with multiple season ending injuries to key players at the end of it would be entirely in fitting

Missed this so far helping mum put up christmas tree we any good?

No I get that, it's just like there's clubs like Man U and Chelsea who shell out big money for players apparently ready to be world beaters but the impression we get from hiring Dan Ashworth etc is more we want to sign the players before they get that attention. I don't buy that this is bad, look at Chelsea and Man U of late, so many pratfalls spending that much on players like Werner and Sancho and Lukaku who flop despite expectation. I think we can be smart and compete with them. If I have heard of this Napoli chat probably means all the teams have heard of him, so our best chance is an inside track on persuading him to join somehow. The cost is one thing but we are not going to offer disproportionate wages compared to other super rich clubs for him based on our current roster. It seems a hmmm that guy probably got too much attention as is for us tbh.

We need to make money to appease the ffp gods so that means buying players with sell on value, if, as i suspect, he really costs fair bit over £50m it makes it dubious we will make a profit on him to some degree. I think it is players like Bruno who are a step below in cost for the foreseeable, could be wrong and Isak signing surprised me so who knows... How fucking weird is it to be linked to someone like that and think it even a possibility lol

Would be incredible but also considering the talk assumed he would be more a £100m one

Rice is good like but the fee he will go for will forever look ludicrous. I am sure even the club that sign him know they could go to europe find an equivalent defensive mid for £30m or maybe even a lot less, but with Rice they will get homegrown and a lot of shirt sales because of his high profile. They will also get a lot of engagement because they spent this much money on Rice and really the Man Us and Chelseas of the world do seem to enjoy signing players just cos it will get a lot of people talking about them

It's really sad that there can be no cuts to Maradonna making obscene gestures from the stands, would suit this game RIP