Kid Icarus

She was yeah. Quite often one of us is on the interview panel for senior roles as well. Everywhere is different, but there's also a big difference between running it by me and me actively getting someone hired though, which I think was the insinuation. Do you think Man City or Liverpool under Klopp would hire a DoF without including the manager in discussions? Us getting Mitchell without involving Howe and without letting him know until it had happened strikes me as much more unusual, especially based on Howe's reaction to it.

My view on Howe is based on the 5 years and more of evidence we have. I'm not really open to changing view on him when I think you'd need to ignore that evidence to get there.

More standard process for that sort of situation then, rather than him having an active hand in him bring hired?

Saying Howay isn't an argument. I don't believe you on having an issue with Howe's methods when we were winning. Like everyone else I would imagine you accepted them, at worst warts and all. Just being honest. I basically won't change my stance on Howe unless it gets into hypothetical fantasy territory or it's clear that he's had enough.

Link?

It needs to improve, but it's Howe that's set the standard in the first place. I'm incredibly confident Howe will turn it around providing he's given the time to, as he well should be.

Still waiting on where anyone reputable has said this.

Mitigating circumstances effect everything because they take away time and resources from your ability to do or prepare your own job properly. I think it's something a lot of us will have experienced in our own jobs. If you don't think a huge squad turnover, selling the focal point of your attack, having no CEO, no DoF, and being told to sort out the transfer window isn't going to have an impact on the time, thought, and effort you can put into your own job, then I have a bridge to sell you. You'll have had absolutely no problem with Howe's same methods when he had us winning. Now that we're not winning, that same person's methods are inexcusable? Right oh.

Think any keeper of Ramsdale's reputation is going to get questioned if they get their hand to a shot that still goes in.

Everything that happened in the summer, not just with players but backroom staff. Howe was left to bail the club out of its situation and is now getting the brunt of a lot of the criticism for that.

Bit selective to include 2 matches from a previous season where we got into the Champions League mind. We definitely need to sort ourselves out, I just don't really buy this idea that despite all of the mitigating circumstances that the root cause of our situation is the manager that until now has been continuously successful and had us punching above our weight.

I think this applies with players because of how many are out there, but I think it's stretching it a bit when people have a very detailed and thought out opinion on Howe, all of his perceived faults, what he should be doing differently, and whether we should keep him or not, turning the club upside down in the process - then right at the point when it's time to make a suggestion on who else we could go for, they suddenly don't have an opinion and its the DoF's job. It's 'I don't know, but I'm guessing there's someone better and available based on nothing, so I'll just excuse myself' really.

That stumble shot says it all about where he is with his self belief at the moment. It was very reminiscent of Joelinton falling over and his shot hitting him in his own face...and we all know what Joelinton turned into for the last few years. The problem for him and us is that at the moment we have too many players in that same mindset and I think they're all feeding off each other. One of the big risks with the sort of turnover we had in the summer I think.

Yeah, I thought this too. Last night wasn't one of Gordon’s trademark disappearing acts, and that of all of the front line it was Woltemade who offered the least and affected us all as a result. Hindsight is easy but I think it was clear that Wissa needed to come on much earlier and not with a complete reshuffle at the same time.

Yeah, I don't dispute that at all, it was time for him to go. I was more just disputing the idea that our attack being great over the last few years was down to Isak. There's basically no evidence for it from during the time everyone else was playing well and we had a striker of comparable suitability to our setup.

Worth remembering that Isak started 17 times in our highest league position under Howe. Wilson was a brilliant striker for us.

I get what he's trying to do because so much of our midfield's play breaks down in the middle, but when it then inevitably goes wide and is crossed in, he needs to be miles better like. His instinct seems to nearly always be to be there for the cutback. I can't think of a time I've seen him run front post.

It was a symbiotic relationship like. You only need to look at how we've struggled and he's completely capitulated to see that.

...because his talent, how it was used, and the success we had wasn't limited to him. Howe and the other players are very much responsible for its success, and taking away the focal point of our entire attack has had a big impact - not least because it felt like we spent 80% of the summer dealing with him and trying to replace him.

Are you trying to say we'd be better off wjtg Paul Mitchell? Mitchell left on the eve of the transfer window, there's absolutely zero chance that Howe planned for that happening.

How's it a contradiction? We didn't play the way we did and get success out of it solely because of what Isak got out of his own talent.

The end of the season man. Honestly, what a joke some of you are.

There are plenty of very easy excuses to grab for Howe tbh.

That's a proper 'hold my beer' on last week's pathetic decision like. 'keepers handle it less than that during saves.

Would have been the first time anyone's done that in 41 years.