HaydnNUFC

I understand we're not wanting to be utterly ripped off but it's January, we're known to be rich as fuck, can spend a lot, and are desperate. Just pay the prices or we're going to end up with no one and likely be unable to beat a Watford side at home who have lost 10 of their last 12.

We were, yeah. Him and Kamara.

Beauty and the beast

It's a term that always grates on me.

'Proven strikers' aren't really a thing. Look at all the top clubs, how often do anyone of them buy a 'proven PL' striker? Lukaku is the only one I can think of. We're going to have to take risks from abroad.

Shame. Hope we have another target lined up. FWIW, the owners are not completely immune from criticism. I am aware it's only the 10th January and of course they have the best interests of the club at heart but they can be criticised. It'll be very disappointing iyam if we don't have another in, especially a striker, before Saturday. Which is the biggest game of the season bar none.

Quite telling that in the reverse fixture, under Bruce, we battered them and fully deserved to win but we didn't due to not taking our chances. We also had no Wilson in the squad that day. A striker is a must.

We are only heading into the 10th day out of 31 for this window tbf. If you were saying this on the 23rd January, maybe. But although its hard to talk about owt else, 'links' are really just paper bollocks. Ones where there tends to be so much smoke for no fire a la Botman are the exception. Wood has only been linked by Edwards from what I've seen. Cantwell has come from SSN? I don't even know. I imagine we'll see reports of bids being accepted for players we'd never even imagined due to lack of paper links in the coming days.

Do agree. We need a Kamara type player to screen the back 4 more than an advanced midfielder. Adding Botman or Carlos is all well and good but them getting ran at ~4 times a game due to our non existent, terribly balanced midfield won't make too much difference defensively to us, as much as Botman and Carlos are upgrades on our current CBs.

He's a boy band looking prick in the James Maddison mould. Maddison in 10x a better footballer, mind. Can't see many of our lot overly taking to him should he sign and not hit the ground running for that reason though. I may well take him tbh, probably more so ahead of Wood. I'm aware that they're completely different players in different positions but we do need another creative player so not everything we do goes through ASM. He's the realistic only one we've been strenuously linked with in the window while we've been linked to far better strikers.

Cantwell has struck me as one not particularly fast but canny with the ball at his feet, good at dribbling, decent all round attacking footballer. Always thought he was a #10? We do need a creative attacker this window to take some of the pressure off of ASM, given he is both our only outlet and source of real attacking threat. And he's been off it more than on this season.

He's merely imo just someone to aim a cross or long ball at. He's not quick, just a lump up front who by some Burnley fans' accounts has had a poor 12 months. Surely we can get better from abroad? Dunno who, mind.

Don't get opinions like this tbph. People demanding unrealistic transfers, yeah, I get that. But that doesn't mean you can't ever be underwhelmed by a signing made under the new ownership or think we can get better.

Fucking hell, no thanks to Nketiah after that.

The way Jones had us playing was rancid, mind. Don't think I would've wanted to play in that shite. But still, he's had, from what I can remember, 2 decent games since Howe's come in. That's poor. And he needs to buck his ideas up and get his head out his fucking arse because with the position we're in I can't put up with another season of that shit. 2008-09 and 2015-16esque.

He'll be doing that in private, he'll always defend his players in front of the press.

It is a cup match tbf. Atmosphere is always going to be shite with people taking their kids etc and due to the atmosphere regulars tend to not bother. Will be far better v Watford.

I did think this, that maybe a good chunk of our squad are just losers. They're used to losing and accept it as the norm, hence one of the reasons why Trippier looked so head and shoulders above much of them. Only way that gets rectified is by simply winning games but again the only way that we can do that is through the transfer market.

Needs replacing medium-ish term as I've lost all confidence that he instilled when he was in goal. Shadow of the keeper he was from 2018-2020. Still our best but his fuck up cost us a goal today and almost cost us a goal v Man Utd late on too.

Also true. Not to take anything away from Cambridge as they worked their bollocks off but they created nowt. Their goal is Dubravka's fault and Schar's header just before it was awful. Their keeper was sublime and pulled off 2 great saves (also thought his distribtution was excellent) but we did enough to win the game in spite of how clueless we looked in the second half.

Probably true, but to claim that he's made 'virtually no impact' is utterly false.

Howe has improved us tactically, to claim otherwise is pure revisionism built upon post match fewm after one admittedly unforgivable, rancid result. We should've beaten Brentford, Darlow was a bellend. We should've had a pen in the first half at Arsenal. We went down to 10 men v Norwich after 9 minutes and still deserved to win the game and probably would've won 11v11. Strength of our 2nd half display v Burnley warranted the result we got. Leicester got a bollocks penalty at 0-0 which would've been a fair reflection of that match after 45 minutes, second half was poor but the game wasn't a 4-0 on the balance of it. A goal that is stopped in the buildup 9/10 times and an individual error v Liverpool. Clark being shit, individual errors and shite refereeing cost us v Man City which wasn't on the balance a 0-4 game. Man Utd we deserved to win. Today he deserves flak as the result is just purely embarrassing. Even though he's trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, he's clearly improved us tactically. Today doesn't change that.

You did, like.

Aye. He's a #10, always has been and has had his best games for us in terms of output there. But even still, when you can't do the basics against that level of opposition you need to take a step back think maybe the lad just isn't a great footballer. Which he isn't, as it pains me to say.