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Wasn't their talk of Nickson moving on soon?

1 hour ago, Toon1892 said:

I’m not sure everything went our way last season. We had the 4th highest injuries in the league. Often to key players such as Isak and Wilson. (Key last year). https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/premier-league-injury-table-22-23-liverpool-chelsea-arsenal-man-utd
 

We also had some unfortunate suspensions at key times to Pope and Bruno. 
 

If Isak and Wilson weren’t coming back from injury slightly out of form we would have won that cup final.

 

Proof of bold- I’m a chartered accountant so I just looked at the accounts. But a quick summary which isn’t entirely accurate but still demonstrates the points- https://www.givemesport.com/premier-league-wage-bill/

You shouldn’t really look at net spend since the takeover. That only compensated for the lack of net spend under Ashley. As a chartered accountant, the far better measure is gross wage costs to compare budget to budget.

 

The bottom line is Howe has done an incredible job since he took over. I don’t believe there would have been many managers to have been able to do what he has done.

 

Unfortunately fans then set their expectations based on the amazing work he’s done. We’re now back in line this season with our gross wage ranking. (Still pretty amazing given the amount of injuries and fixtures and suspensions we’ve had this season).

 

Stay patient and keep the faith…

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. 

2 hours ago, Gawalls said:

People have figured us out, have changed their game and come prepared where we do the same time and time again.  We caught them off guard last season where this season they’re catching us off guard it would seem.

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.

14 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

If we end the season behind Wolves and West Ham that'd be a bit of a disappointment. 

 

I think I'm more concerned that despite now not having European or League Cup fixtures to contend with and players gradually returning from injury our form has shown no signs of improvement. As I said earlier we have a friendly run of fixtures coming up so there's still time to change the narrative.

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. 

5 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Being outside the top 10 would surely be looked on as a really poor season ? 

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? 

5 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

Where do you think we should be then, with injuries etc factored in? What wouldn't qualify as over/under performance? Not looking for an argument, just interested.

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?

17 minutes ago, Ronaldo said:

Wolves will likely go above us today and you think we’re over-performing because 32 year old Callum Wilson in injured as per? Have a word. 

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. 

If you're expectations were for us to be 6th or higher minimum then I can understand why you'd ben questioning Howe's future both short and long term but I'm going to question how grounded your reality actually is, especially with the injuries we've had this year.

If you were happy with us getting 7th this year and felt that was a realistic acheivment, then you have to accept the performance that come with getting that position.

We're 8th.

Meh.

If the club employed him (and Howe) in the first place they'll find someone just as good. 

Things I think are spoiling the game:

Fan ownership rule: The club belongs to the town, city and people it's in. Having private owners do whatever they want to a club against the wishes of the local fans is crazy to me. The 51% rule would kill the strength in the PL but as a concept its miles ahead of anything we have. If not 51% then some other sort of meaningful accountability to the fans.

Scrap FFP: Owners are to provide collateral to offset any financial mismanagement which jeopardises the future of the club.

Scrap VAR: It's hard to ignore the obvious benefits of it but it's made the game so sterile and not being able to fully celebrate a goal is just ridiculous. I also enjoy the controversy of sports. Keep offside and goal line tech though.

Diving: I want more leniency in the game. Tired of the stop start nature of the game and how the most minimal of infringements are deemed fouls which constantly ruin the flow of the game.

Handball: I just don't know how to manage this. People say penalise deliberate handbills only but who actually deliberately handballs? And how can you tell the difference between an accidental one and a deliberate one?

The rules changes so much for a reason. Maybe make it more objective and say any handball is a penalty on the basis that irrespective of intent any ball that strikes the arm changes the potential outcome of a phase of play and should warrant that penalty. Only exception to this would be if it bounces of a body part onto your hand. Harsh but fairer than the current mess.

37 minutes ago, cubaricho said:

I’m just glad Eddie doesn’t see it the same way.  
 

More important would be a creative CM in a #10 ilk to feed Isak and the wide forwards and chip in with 8-10 goals. 

 

 

 

I think him playing Miley in that role in order to free up Bruno to play further forward suggests a significant shift on the matter from Howe.

Think a dedicated number 6 is our most important requirement  next season, followed very closely by a RW. 

16 minutes ago, reefatoon said:

Naa, not disciplined enough to play the role he is in though  
 

Leave Bruno where he is as he’s class.

Let's let him carry on doing do all that, just further up the pitch?

Can understand why our press has been poor in recent games but no idea why we've become so sloppy with the ball. 

Almost feels like we've forgotten our basic patterns and are just making it up as we go.

The worst 8 goal game I've ever seen.

5 hours ago, Lush Vlad said:

Against teams that play a high line and/or we are looking to play on the counter, then yeah. He is tidy with his link up play. But not sure how he would do against a team sitting deeper and getting bodies around the box. 
 

Might find out on Saturday. 

His movement looks excellent. I reckon he'll have knack of finding space in tight spots too, plus he basically played up front for England and I imagine alot of teams sat deep against them.

I'm convinced he'd be just as affective up front as he is out wide. 

Just want a random South American tbh

17 minutes ago, Turnbull2000 said:

 

Anderson is still six weeks away, is he not? Barnes injury is highly susceptible to reoccurring, and can see Willock dropping in and out of availability like Wilson.

Hadn't realised it was still 6 weeks but we've been in this situation before with Shelvey. If anything there's more cover in the wide areas than we there was after we sold Shelvey, from memory. 

Gordon

Barnes

Murphy

Isak

Willock

Anderson

Ritchie

Hall maybe?

I wonder if Howe would look at that and think we can possibly muddle through to the summer?