Armchair Pundit

Tino again? Do we feel that some players have given up on us and are already looking at the interest in them elsewhere? Gordon to Munich/Liverpool, Tino to City, etc.

Seeing rumours of Conor Gallagher from Tottenham again this morning, to be fair, even though he's not been great for them, I'd give him a whirl at ours. Under Eddie I think he might get back to his best, if Eddie's still with us. Would certainly add strength in depth I guess, for a relatively low price... only thing is, we've got other areas that need improving/bolstering first imo.

I think the last time I watched Bayern properly was when Man Utd beat them in the final in the late 90s. I don't think we've ever played them have we? Why has nobody pointed this goal music out to me before???

That goal music is just pure brilliance, I may make Bayern my second team just for that

And so they should, they main uncertainty around Eddie is being encouraged by the media themselves! (Barring a minority of Newcastle fans who actually want him out).

Yep, and the other thing to bear in mind is how drastically poor the squad was when the new owners came in. I imagine £400m net since 2022 is a relatively small amount to bring the team up to the point where they've competed on the fronts mentioned, as well as winning a cup. The only thing £400m since 2022 tells me is that Eddie's done an amazing job to achieve what we have in a short space of time, having to rebuild massively and keep up with other top half teams outside the the established cunt clubs. The fact we now have an aging, thin on quality squad at this point, after spending £400m since 2022 seems indicative of us not being able to kick on in every transfer window, due to PSR, messing about with DoFs and probably an reasonable element of other clubs knowing our desperation and then assuming we're loaded due to the ownership or such.

I think, with the new signings, there has to be an element of their struggling being down to not having much of a pre-season with us and also a complete lack of reasonable, sustained training availability over the season. It seems to me that we haven't really had much chance to get them up to speed with how we play, not when with the far busier than usual schedule and not when we've had to throw them in at the deep end from the start for large portions of the season, due to injuries, not planning for the aging first team players and the lack of quality in depth.

I can't help thinking I've somehow been transported to a parallel universe sometimes, where fans have forgotten or just seem to ignore all the contributing factors to this season: We had massive ongoing, disruptive issues around the Director of Football position, involving Ashworth and Mitchell. We lost our number one striker during another massively disruptive, shit-show transfer window, along with our established backup striker. We didn't get any replacement strikers in until the end of said transfer window (one of whom didn't play for well into 2-3 months). We haven't strengthened for the long-term, either last summer or this winter, while letting a squad age to the point where we have multiple 33+ year old players being used as first choice. Haven't taken into account the affects of a much heavier game schedule on the aforementioned thin on quality, aging squad, some seemingly missing the ridiculously small amount of sustained training time between matches that we've had, which has also meant that any new players haven't been easily integrated to our setup. I get that Eddie's substitutes have become predictable and sometimes (like today) poorly timed, and that he's tended to use limited tactics, for both of those I would like him to do better, but that's all - the rest of the issues, mentioned above, aren't down to him and only serve in making his job infinitely harder. Where we find ourselves is largely a product of overachieving and thinking we can do the same every season, to some it's become an expectation, but you can't spread yourselves that thin, without something giving, especially when there's been several important issues go against you in that same season. There's a lack of practicality and realism by some, I'm not saying Eddie is completely faultless, he isn't, but we still managed to get to the latter stages in several competitions this season, even with all those extra problems - the club need to back him, because losing a guy who's been one of the best managers I can remember would be a huge mistake imo.

Eddie looks like his energy and enthusiasm's taken a massive hit in recent months - it can't be easy to manage an aging squad, thin on quality in depth, after a previous nightmare summer transfer window and non-existent winter window, especially when the incoming players from the summer were all last minute emergencies, not first choices. They haven't been able to assimilate into the team and training for the whole squad has been at an all time low due to increased game volumes and expectations from overachieving in previous seasons. Basically, we went from being shit to being great in a very short time, with very little consolidation of talent in the team or strengthening for the long term. Common sense tells me to still stick with Eddie, until at least into next season, providing he's backed properly in the summer and we have a normal pre-season... but they way things are going I don't think he's going to get that, I think he'll be hounded out before then. I can already see elements of our support becoming like Chelsea's, where everything is expected now and if it's not delivered, regardless of any obvious mitigating factors, then an endless churn of journeymen managers becomes the norm. That's what I mean when I say that people have already forgotten where we were, Eddie deserves more support all round.

There's bigger overarching problems with this team than the manager, but sure, if people want to blame everything on Eddie and think shipping him out will fix the problem - no doubt we'll wait another seventy odd years for another trophy when the owners bring in some journeyman coach who doesn't give a flying fuck about the club. It's sounds like that sort of culture is already developing for some anyway, judging everything short-term, because that always works out well.

I've said several times, as have others, so I'm not writing it all out yet again - I'm sick to the back teeth of having to explain the obvious over and over again tbh.

Question him maybe, get rid of him, no. There's been too many issues outside of Eddie control to blame him outright. Mind you, I'd love to know when we became divine righter fans from where we used to be - the way things are going, we're getting an increasing number of people in our fanbase who'd prefer us to operate like Chelsea or such where we have a new manager as soon as there's any difficulties, no wonder we've lost that 'together/family' feel at the club.

Fuck sake what? I think you lot calling for Eddie's head won't be satisfied until you've hounded out the best manager we've had for years and we get back to where teams like Spurs find themselves now. We need to make changes certainly, but the manager isn't the main problem, we might as well be back to having Ashley in charge and Bruce as manager, you'll realise what you've lost then.

Fuck sake, here we go...

I knew I was right to be worried about Botman...

Been a slow, steady half. Boring, maybe, but relatively solid considering what appears to be a lack of confidence being worked on. If we get through the first ten minutes of the second half without too much bother I think we'll push a bit more, using some more attacking subs. There's obvious pressure on the team and Eddie, especially with all the constant nonsense about getting rid of the manager, which doesn't help anyone, the lads need to convince themselves they're capable and trust the process to get a reasonable finish to the season. Whinge-arsing and knocking every little iffy decision, slip or miss isn't going to encourage improvement, if anything it'll just beat any spark of a revival out of what we have.

Not sure if Wissa gave up on us tbh

We've missed Miley and it's great to see Osula finally settled.

The lack of confidence is there, contributing to not taking many risks I guess. Still, we've taken it slowly until we've got something.

No, but you can roll them in glitter

They just said this week was the first time we've had twenty players training together since last August, but I'm sure that makes no difference, according to some.

Our boys look like they're holding back a bit, not getting too stuck in or going for the attack. Hoping we'll step up a gear when we need to.

Looks a bit breezy there

Worried about Botman playing, worried Miley will be rusty, worried that Murphy's on the right. I'm guessing we're playing to try a smash and grab with subs in the second half.

It's not the same when you've had a massive impact from losing your established striker and end up making emergency replacement signings as late into to window as we did, it's why pre-seasons are so important. Add to that where most teams that get into Europe tend to strengthen already established squads - we needed to do all that, even before things all got disrupted by the Isak saga and we never caught up after that.