SteV

Stupidity. Regardless of how big a game it is.

Nunez and Osula on the pitch at the same time would be complete carnage.

Joke if Gibbs-White plays tonight. I don’t care what kind of protective gear they concoct for him, there’s no way you should be risking heading a football four days after splitting your forehead open in the manner he did.

He’s generally right in what he says though. Mass change, where you replace multiple players, is not really something you should be aiming for. However, sometimes you don’t have any choice, and as Forest and the mackems have proved recently, it can be relatively successful.

Whilst you’re right they weren’t close points-wise last season, there were still 16 better teams than them in the league, and it looks like being the same again this season. It doesn’t feel like that 16 turning into 17, would be some monumental event that no-one saw coming.

I know, but consecutive 17th placed finishes doesn’t scream being relegated as ‘being a once a generation’ occurrence. Agreed on the second point, obv.

This will be the second season in a row they’ll have finished 17th.

Pep does tend to fuck people off quite quickly if they say they want to leave mind (and I’m assuming Trafford will do that). £35m is profit on what they paid, so let’s all shake hands on that and move on with other business. Job done.

Stuttgart have announced he signing permanently.

We’ve played 35 league games and lost four of them by more than one goal. Whilst I would agree that many of the performances have been unconvincing, the fact remains we’re competitive in almost every game. Granted, that should really be the bare minimum, but it’s clearly not as catastrophically poor as some like to make out. The two major issues which have blighted our season have been: a) an inability to capitalise on taking the lead with further goals, especially at home (which we’ve previously been very good at) b) where that’s not been possible, an ability to manage / see games out in the latter stages No doubt there’ll be other factors causing these two issues (central striker problems being an obvious one) but they are the two massive things to fix IMO. Easier said than done obviously, but do so, and we’re back up where we want to be again.

If he’s been “completely figured out” why are teams going behind to us in the first place, let alone having to score goals at 90+ minutes to beat us?

Absolutely nowhere near.

That was the one and only instance where he could have let Woltemade have it, given the scoreline. But equally, I have absolutely no issue that he didn’t. It’s not Under 9’s. Trippier doing his dinger about it (albeit with good intentions) made the whole thing a lot more of an issue than it was.

Terrible for him, but if there’s ever a good time to do it, it’s about now if he’s going to back for the start of pre-season.

Forest’s team was equally as ‘weak’ as Villa’s mind. Obviously massive question marks about the application of most of their players that started, but credit to Spurs for at least being committed and motivated against them, as opposed to Chelsea against Forest…

Didn’t realise Jones was in that position. Gives a bit more credibility to the links perhaps. Imagine he’d be available at around the £25m/£30m mark, and not overly big wages. Maybe a bit too similar to Ramsey in some respects, and probably only a goer in Tonali were to leave.

Imagine he sees himself as a manager now, rather than being part of someone else’s team.

Theoretically, but not all the way down to 10th place:

It would do, but you’ve really got to be working towards complying with that anyway. Not really a sensible approach to think we’re not in Europe this year, so just ignore it, then when you qualify the season after, you’re miles over and end up getting in bother. *obviously not quite as simple as I’ve made out there, cos you have to stick to the PL rules, so you’re unlikely to go ‘miles over’, but you see the point I’m making.

Obviously quality-wise you would say yes, but it goes against pretty much everything that’s recently been spoken about in terms of changing our approach. 30 this year, would command a fairly hefty fee, would probably have to make him our top earner etc.

Not sure about low-budget like…