Thumbheed

If this boy had better decision making skills he wouldn't be playing for us. Imagine an equally dangerous winger on the other side though....

Shades of Shola

Really pleased for him. Said it in another thread but he's done brilliantly to galvanise the squad under these circumstances.

Really good win today with some excellent individual performances, hope we can build some momentum from that. Think the most pleasing thing to see was the team spirit, everyone was really fighting for that win. Said it for a while now but we do desperately need some attacking players in.

No idea what to do within 30 yards of their goal, otherwise not doing too badly.

Perhaps, and we're likely never to know but I do think we offer a completely different proposition to Everton as we're one of the few clubs in the world without a glass ceiling. And as for structure,we'll don't have it yet, but it's clearly something we're looking to address. Our public pursuit of Dan Ashworth helps that's narrative. Final point is he's clearly prepared to go down as he's essentially I that position every season (or should be) with Brighton.

I think Potter could be tempted. I honestly think we missed a trick not pursuing him. In hindsight of course.

If Howe was allowed to take us down, I think I'd be massively disappointed.

Why would the loaning side ever entertain this? Seems like they only lose from this.

How does a loan work if you'd be out of contract by the end of it?

I thought about this too, but if ESL ever took off again we'd still not be invited anyway.

Yeh obviously like to avoid it, but I can't envisage a scenario where we wouldn't be able to recruit with enough quality to get us straight back up. Then once we're back up....

Obviously can't speculate on that but I'd be massively surprised if there's anything that could be legally done that could ever restrict our ability to complete on any level, if that's what you're implying.

I mean I'd love to avoid relegation but if we don't, pride aside it would be fun as fuck.

It appears the recipe for survival is basically: More defenders = less goals conceded More strikers = More goals scored Is it just me or is that not the most basic interpretation of how football works? What about the midfielders??

But there's an argument to be made that he wouldn't need as much time to get his ideas across or to get to know the squad in the 1st place as he already knows them all.

We haven't been watching the same team in that case but if we're taking the long view, who do you think stands a better chance of winning something? Because that's the criteria that should really inform your opinion.

Rafa's managed Everton for 9 more games than Howe has Newcastle. What have people seen in those 9 games - or the 10 that's Howe's managed - that makes them think that Howe is emphatically the better choice than Rafa? As for "we shouldn't go back", well why not? I've not heard a single decent reason that doesn't border on just plain superstition.

Drop Joelinton?! He's looked very good against very good opposition too.

He's also the starting point for a fair few counter attacking moves we've seen these past few weeks too.

Sick to fucking death of listening to commentators refer to his goal scoring record every single game. Would like to see him in the role Shelvey plays if we're not getting a specialised DM anytime soon.

Shelvey is not playing bad to be fair but a combative DM who plays his role would make a big difference to our team. He's always there or there abouts when defending that area, and does apply pressure quite well but doesn't have the skillset to dispossess like a true DM can. A CD, followed by a DM should be our absolute priorities, but a RW should be in the mix too to give us a bit of attacking balance.

He's done poorly at Everton, no doubt, but the same set of players finished 10th with one of the greatest managers of all time at the helm. That to me suggests there's something terminal at Everton which goes beyond tactics, formations and management style. I'd wouldn't think twice about taking him, either way, I'd fancy us more in the championship with him than with Howe at this point in time.

I think he'd have us playing to our strengths for a start.

Second point of note and arguably the most infuriating, is that he has actually had this team looking very dangerous on the break, but rather that build on that, he's continued to try to force an ill suited style of play onto us which is costing us games.