Thumbheed

You wouldn't have taken all that?

- 2 wins off 6th with 10 games to go and a favourable fixture list - 2 cup competition QF's with the cuntiest fixture run I've ever seen To get there. (1 minute away from a semi) -10 minutes away from knockout stages of the CL in the group of death Who's brave enough to admit that they wouldnt have taken that at the beginning of the season and why?

Mad what a few losses can do to a person

Eddie's exactly right with how he's handling Miley. You can't overload a 17 years old week in week out in a team that is çonsistently inconsistent and expect him to bare any pressure that that might bring. There's a pretty vocal crowd that's already turning on Howe, turned on Longstaff and Burn and after 3-4 poor games from Miley will turn on him too.

Joelinton, Bruno and Onana would be some midfield to have to play against - wouldn't get 2 seconds to yourself

Onana has the feel of a target we're long touted to sign whilst actually being interested in someone else.

Tosin Adarabioyo

The centre midfield was the cornerstone of our success last year so I'd invest there first and foremost. Followed very closely by a RW and in light of Howes comments about Hall a right sided CB whis good on the ball.

I am once again asking for us to sign a random young South American

Think another CM is needed as a priority irrespective of whether Bruno goes or not.

Imagine how good we're gonna be when we have a team and bench full of top quality players.

INAKI WILLIAMS IS SHIT

Aye just the mere half a billion pounds spent since 2021.

Wasn't their talk of Nickson moving on soon?

Some fans set their expectations and get riled up when we're exactly on course to achieve those expectations.

Ignoring the historic lack of investment in the squad, ignoring the lack of infrastructure, ignoring the shambolic training facilities, ignoring the significant improvement in a large number of the squad, ignoring the unprecedented injuries and absences, ignoring the imprived style of play, ignoring the position we were in when he took over and ignoring the 2 years of CL form, then yes, you'd be right Howe isn't doing as good a job as people are lead to beleive.

One more season of SBR.

Seen this mentioned a few times but I'm not actually sure what it means in relation to our counter press strategy. Lots of teams have maintained the exact same tactic throughout multiple seasons and not been "figured out" so what makes our press different? From what I can see we always seem further away from the ball when it's been turned over fro us, and more significantly I don't feel like we win as many duels as we perhaps did in previous seasons.

Our counter press doesn't seem as effective nowadays.

I can't defend this.

I dont disagree it'd be disappointing but I'm willing to attribute a significant proportion of the blame for that on our injuries. If you accept players have performed poorly then surely you must accept the limitations on a managers who's physically unable to drop them? As for people coming back and form, prior to yesterday we were unbeaten in 5 and who exactly has come back thst changes the dynamic of the situation we find ourselves in? We don't even have strikers who can string 8 games together.

Of course but not surprising considering the injuries is my point. If you can't physically drop poor performing players because you don't have a viable alternative then what can your expectations realistically be?

I always expected a drop off this season because of the extra fixtures so at the beginning of the season I'd have honestly said 7th would have been a realistic target, and that would have been with a full squad. If this team was in 12th place I'd have been majorly disappointed but honestly, not surprised. What about you? Do you think there's team above us who are overperforming and we should definitely be ahead of?

We are most certainly overperforming this season. Which team above us has a poorer squad? And which team below us has had worse injuries?

I dunno how you can look at our injury list and not say it's almost exclusively the reason for our poor showing this season. Man City's win rate goes from 75% to 50% when Rodri is out injured - that's 1 single player out, in one of the most expensively assembled squads in Prem history, who are managed by one of the greatest managers of all time. Pep's career win % is about 74%. A win % of 50% puts him on Pochettino's level. I don't know what more context is needed other than to say inspite of that we're still 8th, practically a couple wins away from 6th. There's no doubt there's been some mistakes made by Howe this season but if anything, he deserves credit for still keeping us within touching distance.