HaydnNUFC

It's the club themselves that have stated that they expect to be in Europe. And overall Europe is pivotal to holding onto our best players and convincing potential incomings that we do actually mean it when we say we're ambitious and want to be in the best competitions. And for me personally, I don't think it's unrealistic to expect better performances, or an improvement in them. As we've seen a continuation of a total lack of cohesion and tactical nous in away matches from last season two lacklustre home performances and it isn't good enough. The worst part for me is I can't see when or how it improves, which has me losing a lot of faith in the manager as I've said a couple times now.

Europe is a must. The club have stated that on the record in pre season. Think its been generally understated just how important this season is for us as well, this season dictates where this whole thing under PIF is going imo. The transfer window didn't help things obviously, but the team we have are far, far better than they've shown so far this season and for 13 months on the road. That's down to the manager.

Gives us more time to work on a gameplan for Saturday that gets ripped up at half time, I suppose.

My thoughts on the whole matter are that I saw a huge red flag immediately when Mitchell did his interview through the press rather than official club channels. Not that I disagreed with much of what he said. But it clearly hasn't been and currently isn't rosy behind the scenes either imo. I've personally lost a lot of faith that Howe is going to become the elite manager to see us through this next phase, mind. The showings on the pitch are testament to that atm.

Looking at match videos from past meetings for this wasn’t inspiring at all.

Yes it is, but the context goes deeper than that. We probably could not complain if we lost all 5 matches given the showings in each. Performances are lacklustre at absolute best and just aren't remotely sustainable. And we won't get away with it with our upcoming fixtures and the issue for me is I can't see a way out outside of blindly hoping that 'we might not be shit this time' when the next match comes around.

Man City winning title after title is awful but Arsenal are utterly heinous, reprehensible cunts.

Arsenal doing all the haram stuff that us footballing heathens did at the Emirates in January 2023. Be fine now, though. Wish we'd get that streak back, though. We seem to have totally lost it.

Hahaha horrible little dwarf

Would give up my salary to beat Arsenal at SJP in incredibly controversial circumstances.

Whew. Looks bad. Might get 26% possession on Saturday instead of 22%, now.

The maroon and blue hoops but with different shorts. Wore that down there in 18-19.

I've never said that I thought he was or he wasn't for a start, but I can't see this changing. I expect us to be shit away from home because we have been for a year and we've been shit once again. I hope that he can but there aren't even any straws to clutch at for me right now. FWIW, I'm losing faith that he will be one of the truly elite managers which I thought he would become at around this time last year. Elite managers make bold decisions and he frequently seems to avoid them, on the pitch and seemingly in the transfer market. (posted about that more post Bournemouth) Him making changes at HT is a start in that regard, but that tends to be because he got the setup wrong from the start.

To counter that, I atm don't see any reason how he can. We've been largely terrible away from home for over 12 months and look predictably naive at best tactically in every game we play this season. We've gotten away with it up to today but we won't with the upcoming fixtures especially.

He doesn't play one. Never really has.

2 seasons ago, really. Last season we were at least good at SJP, this season we've looked poor in every match we've played.

Bruno caps off a fairly atrocious performance, there.

How's he missed that

Our midfield is nonexistent out of possession. I think we should put a midfielder that we spent £60m on on the pitch to help out with this.

Onside

VAR