r0cafella

And Apologies, I know my post sounds hyperbolic but I truly believe our midfield excels at nothing. The fact Joelinton (who isn’t a central midfielder) is our best one speaks volumes.

Definitely, a functioning midfield is pivotal. The fact our midfield literally excels at nothing is a disaster. They can’t pass, they can’t dribble, they can’t find good space, they can’t mark. They completely hopeless. We would be better served getting 2-3 midfielders and just 1 cb rather than 2 cb’s.

Aye, it’s rancid. We must have the worst midfield in the league.

Disagree, if we are playing as DM we need him to be positionally disciplined and understand the actual role. It’s one of the reasons why Shelvey is so poorly suited to it.

They have that indoor warm up area now? Maybe they do part of it indoors.

Aye for an attacking player I do wonder what he’s good at. doesn’t seem to excel at anything.

Someone pays the release clause in such a situation. Either that or he takes his 3x salary In the championship for a season. In terms of potential trophies he would certainly take a hit but he’d be much richer it.

We definitely can, we just have to stump up in order to do so. Overpaying for fee’s, wages and include release clauses.

I certainly hope not. 1 game in 2 years and they have the nerve to ask for 15m

I’ve been pondering this most of the morning. The only way we change manager now is if we have someone who is literally ready to come in who is a significant upgrade and we are prepared to spend whatever it takes to get a functioning team. If that isn’t the case then we should wait and get the structure in place as you have said.

It hasn’t translated here yet which is of great concern. Fair play though, your entitled to your view and of course we have a boatload of mitigating circumstances but for me the bottom line is, the job was to come here and keep us in the league and from where I’m sitting this is looking increasingly unlikely.

In league 1 sure. Not many elite managers at that level mind.

But that’s the point right? We are comparing him to a manager who can barely be described as a manager and when we examine the results he’s not doing much better. I think Howe is a good coach, but in his last job he couldn’t turn around a sinking ship and he has no track record of going into a club and turning things around. Wrong man at the wrong time for me, although in fairness to the owners they had to get someone in before they could set up a proper structure and this is now costing us handsomely.

A lot of our fans hate him because of his comments regarding Ashley, I think he called him a nice guy iirc. I think when he made those comments it was more to clarify how he felt about his interactions with him. Nevertheless this caused a backlash on here in particular.

On the flip side, Howe knew exactly what he had to achieve and so far is failing to do so. As @ManDoonpointed out, if Bruce was a terrible as we all believe he is, shouldn’t Howe be getting more out of the team?

Aye, the only chance we have is if we go absolutely mental and in the rest of the window. Even if we do, who’s picking the players? The set up just isn’t in place taking this long to get a DOF in is really hurting us.

8. Really struggling to see the positives at this point. The football side of the club needs gutting from top to bottom.

Trippier seemingly wanted to come back urgently and had worked with Howe previously. I think people are more referring to Howe not being a big name in football (which is a reasonable POV)

It has been discussed in another thread. I think it’s important to understand his role was to help them understand how transfers are handled which has been done. He wasn’t identifying targets or taking part in negotiations.

Gerrard would also have been a massive gamble for us. The comparisons to Villa are a bit off, they’ve actually been investing for a few years where as we were being hollowed out.

Aye, he’s been a disaster for you lot. Nothing to be debate there.

Regardless of weather he’s to blame for the goal or not, I think it’s clear he’s not really good for enough for this level. He’s a player with limited ability and that’s about it. I will always have some gratitude to him though, he’s one of the few who actually gave a fuck when nobody else did.

Don’t worry, this place just likes him because he’s mental.

We need to wait and get a DOF In before doing it.

To be honest, we can attract these players it is easy. But to be clear, if we want them we have to pay them daft wages to bribe them in to coming. Remember, Coutinho stock is basically zero and Barca can’t wait to get shot.