Kid Icarus

Ref, unsurprisingly considering who he is, has been shit.

We've been absolutely fine ffs

And if they were starting that would also be a problem...

Osula brace incoming

I know the claim is that there's little argument about it, but the reality is that no one talks about it, barely at all, let alone in comparison to the endless criticism and discussion there is around Howe. It's night and day. The PIF thread doesn't get bumped when we lose or one of our signings has a stinker, there's no Twitter movement who focus all of their criticism on PIF's mismanagement last summer, or YouTube channels who focus on them either. Howe's biggest mistake was agreeing to bail them out in the summer imo, because not only has he bailed them out of doing their jobs, he's bailed them out by being the fall guy. I'd need to see the Ashworth stuff tbh, I know both have said in interviews since Ashworth left that they worked well together. I agree that something will change, but I think a big part of it will be mainly because we just have the right people in place now.

He clashed with Paul Mitchell, but if the multiple reports are true, Mitchell clashed with many more people at the club than just Howe. Maybe you'd accept that if he was a maverick who got results, but he was also shit and did literally nothing as our DoF. There are no reports that Ashworth clashed with Howe, there are however reports that when Ashworth was at Man United, he wanted them to go for Howe rather than Amorim. Staveley leaving might have been necessary, but Eales being on sick leave for a year and us essentially being rudderless at executive level for that amount of time is terrible mismanagement of the club imo, none of that is on anyone below PIF and Reuben.

I'm gutted football's back tbh, that 3 weeks was pure bliss.

£8m

We got £20m for Almiron didn't we? Wilson is the one where the point stands definitely. Can understand the reluctance mind, what a striker he was, but yeah we needed to bite the bullet there, or buy better than Osula beforehand.

I'll try to ask this without sounding like an antagonistic cunt , but if that's the overriding point...why cite Trippier and Joelinton? Is it a case that we should be such a slick operation that we should have cashed in on them and had better players lined up? Or is it just two examples off the top of your head and there are others you could have chosen? (I think I'd have chosen Wilson personally)

Also not a situation that would have been a given with Livramento at the time (or even now) tbf. Every decision and non-decision will have side-effects wont it. If we'd sold him, would we be sitting here bemoaning the impact of that decision? I think what we got out of Trippier in the meantime (particularly the cup final), you take what we got as a very likely net win.

Whatever we got for Trippier vs what he gave us doesn't seem like worth worrying about, no? We signed him for 12m, what were Bayern offering again? About the same? I back keeping him in that situation and you could argue that he paid it back for his cup final performance alone, but that aside I'm not sure worrying about fees that low is worth it anyway.

Even if this were true, none of this happens in a vacuum. In other words, not having a CEO and DoF in place doesn't just mean that the only other thing that changes is that Howe gets the players he wants, and that's it. Even in a situation where we just go for Howe targets, it also means: a lower chance of getting those players - the people in makeshift CEO and DoF positions aren't experienced in those roles, and potentially don't have the contacts, skills, expediency to pull off the deals that say Ashworth and Staveley could. This is exactly what we saw, with multiple targets missed, particularly strikers. Howe, Nickson and A.Howe's work capacity is compromised, meaning that not only does their effectiveness in their makeshift roles suffer, but their effectiveness in their existing roles suffer. It then impacts whoever else needed to step in for them, and on and on. Those are just the two off the top of my head but they're huge imo. As I've said loads of times before, Howe being put in that position wasn't like some sort of reward that he should be thankful for, it was a poison chalice that was thrust upon him, that he, Nickson and A.Howe did to pull us out of the shit, and that we should if not thank them for (though I personally think we should) at the very least not blame them for, when it was PIF and Reuben's lack of planning that was at fault.

It's a funny one, I think Woltemade and Ramsdale were maybe the only definitive pivots within the window itself, but because there were so many players before we signed Woltemade it was very much needs must and not ideal. Thiaw was a long-term pivot from Guehi and I'd say has been a success. Ramsdale was always a poor choice for me but for a loan and a small fee it wasn't the end of the world. Ramsey was opportunism I think and he's looking better and better. Elanga has the biggest question mark over him, but I still have hope, and he also seems to have been signed with Isak (or similar) in mind. Wissa has been a failure, no question. I still don't think it was a poor decision at the time though, just an overspend. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he had a good season next season either. Will be an interesting summer for sure, I'm not sure whether we'll double down on the above, plus some others (new 'keeper, midfielder, right back etc) or draw a line under some of them and start again.

I think we did in the end tbh. Just rather by being forced to after missing out rather than choosing to beforehand. It's all hypothetical but I don't think the makeshift recruitment team we had in the summer would have had much luck getting the likes of Isak, Tonali, Botman, and on the flipside Ashworth or Staveley might have faired better in stealing the march on say Delap or Mbeumo. All I know for certain is that the setup that we had in the summer was as a result of gross incompetence from PIF and Reuben, at least imo anyway.

The approach was fine when we had a DoF and CEO who could get deals done. We didn't last summer.

The Brentford result was perfect for us...

Shola did I think.

JFC man That's an unbelievable way to describe what happened.

Just seen the Arsenal score.

Who is it on here who loves Balkan midfielders almost as a general rule? Might be pons, or Tooj or Disco. Either way, one of them will be buzzin'

It's literally just the one that lass is wearing that was posted earlier. It's not AI.

I'll take any deal in exchange for Howe staying tbh.

Tbf the Bruno AI one is switched around and much better too. Aye, it would be incredible if we had that come back.