Dr Jinx

The release clause is fairly standard in most other countries so not too worried, does seem a bit low though.

I just don’t know why the info would leak quite so easily though.

I'd like to see him as the focal point in attack.. he's rapid enough to get onto some of the balls that he's providing for Isak or Wilson

i noticed a few times where he was open for a pass and it was the pass to make, only for Bruno to sort of do that slow down stand on the ball thing and decide to go down the right side. The team are not involving him enough.. it's obvious he's got passing range and is creative.

A few of our signings under Howe have looked like square pegs. Gordon and Tonali being the obvious ones.

The issue is balance. We had a very well balanced side last season and anyone coming from the bench slotted in just fine as well.

Trippier, Bruno, Botman and Isak just came in and instantly made us better. It was obvious.

I understand we’re not going to do that each time with a transfer but we now have a few Joelinton situations we’re going to be debating these players for a year or more before they come good, or not.

Great point and very hard fought. Both sides were absolutely shot by the end of that. They had the bulk of chances but we probably had the best strike on goal. IMHO if that falls to Barnes or Wilson it goes in.

Theyll be hurting in the next league match but a slog like this will do us good for fitness levels.

Slight concern about Bruno limping.. the whole midfield aside from Longstaff looked like were running in treacle for the last 15 mins.

Thought Isak was a bit off it tonight. Gordon did well again, I think Howe is getting closer as how best to use him.

We got better as half went on but we were overall quite poor. They’re now on a few yellows, they can’t be quite as aggressive in second half.

But something seems to be missing. Not quite sure why Wilson and Isak can’t be on pitch at same time.

He’ll be on bench maybe for weekend game and then back for Milan.

13 hours ago, TBG said:

Got to give him credit for getting the ticketing system correct.

 

If you ignore all the good done in the past couple of years following 14 years of running the club into the ground, and remember the Man City tickets aren't on sale yet, is there really anything separating the two ownerships?

His ticketing system worked because there was fuck all demand. We could sell another 20k seats easily now 

3 hours ago, Doc said:

Eh, no eye contact??

A tit with gnashers giving you a blowjob and you’d be happy to make eye contact with the owner while it happened? 

56 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

Please tell me Im not the only one thinking of a titty blowjob.....

Then you’d have to make eye contact.. that’s a no for me 

4 hours ago, Colos Short and Curlies said:

I take it you mean the version that MTV couldn’t play?

 

and I’d raise you the same vintage for Junior Jacks Stupidisco if that’s the case

It's decent alright but the sight of a relatively unknown Emily Ratajkowski upstaging 2 other beauts is something else altogether.

It was a total shitshow to release that right at the start of the MeToo movement but that makes me like it all the more. Said model/actress was quick to slag it off despite it launching her career.. there’s definitely a level of hypocrisy around the whole thing.

Best music video ever made ?

I’m comfortable with the ownership structure, I don’t think they’ll be around forever though. Maybe that’s why.

My lasting thought is that no matter what happens, or how long they stay, there’s no turning back for us to the Mike Ashley days.. soon we’ll be a club valued similar to Spurs or Arsenal with a better infrastructure than both. We’re never going back to those dark days.

I don’t think anyone who posts on here is sympathetic to what Saudi do. We know the score like.

The question of sportswashing is a murkier topic. I certainly don’t see a vanity project with our club in the same way as the boxing has been or say wrestling events. That shit is fairly blatant. Yet they seem to get way more of a pass than our club has gotten.

For as much as people are correct when it comes to Saudi, there’s an equal share of double standards and hypocrisy. Where are these people when Iraq was being invaded, or scientists being murdered.. or how about a cover up of why dozens of people burned alive in a tower block. You’d swear every other country apart from Saudi is squeaky clean.

Hopefully this settles any and all uncertainty.

He doesn't drink so it'll be food that's his downfall.

I thought he came back from the summer a bit pudgy.. the club will sort that in coming weeks but his form mainly is down to not finding the balance with Tonali yet. One of them needs to sit.

Day-to-day running costs. All these new high-level staff won't come cheap. Our nonplaying wage bill will have increased massively over last 12 months. Wouldn't read too much into it other than club still needs regular cash injections to stay afloat at the level we are now.

Wishing him a full recovery. He’s a decent guy and he’s worked very hard to position himself for the second phase of his footballing career.

On 04/09/2023 at 17:27, Vinny Green Balls said:

Good luck convincing any decent managers of this. SAF was always 100% the boss, and not told to leave for half a year to have a rethink. This is just crazy, dude.

SAF wasn’t a sucker for loyalty. Even if things were going pear shaped, I think Eddie Howe would stick with his tried and trusted staff.. it’s commendable and I cannot for a second fault him as a person but I just can’t see him getting in any way mean or ruthless when it’s a true requirement of the job.

He’s far too polite to be a cunt.

The problem is that half decent managers are rare.. there’s fuck all of them. You have 3 or 4 truly great managers and then a handful of best of the rest. Eddie is that tier.. he’s got potential to grow but I don’t think he has the imagination to try something so new that it’s almost impossible to play against (aka Pep)

So the tactics and subs will get more and more predictable and the results will more often become poor. It’s the way I see it going. Something needs to change.. whether it’s a new coach coming in idk ?‍♂️

I really want to be wrong.

So the first goal.. yeah it was a bit of a lazy lunge for the ball and he turned away from the shot. But the initial lunge he was never getting that ball with the bounce of it.

Second part is harder to defend.

But first goal was a comedy of errors.. the way Trippier threw himself to the ground didn’t help either. He always seems to get a pass when others don’t.

2 hours ago, jackyboy said:

I wonder if some of the transfer talk and contract wrangling have distracted him?

Wasn’t that always the point of the baseless story coming out in first place.

Players should be a little more wise to it but they have phones like the rest of us and read the same bollocks.

He’s had a few off games but overall I think the message from the manager is confusing more than just 1 of the players.

We want to be a pressing counter attacking team or we don’t. We can’t do possession if that’s our plan. In possession we get moved around too easily and suddenly holes are everywhere.

Liverpool were able to do it with 10 men.. let us knock is about aimlessly and then got us out of shape and ripe for a few errors to be punished.

You can’t blame that on individuals on the pitch. They’re just doing what’s being asked of them.

11 hours ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

That was a wacky time in Liverpool's history. Confounding as hell when it was announced.

They shared the job at the same time. My suggestion is slightly different, you just have a different coach to come in and keep things fresh.

I’ll explain my line of thinking. When keeping much of the same squad, take Leeds back in the early 00’s as an example. George Graham was in there and had a well drilled defence but with a side with little flair. O’Leary came in and added that, yet the side didn’t lose the defensive fundamentals.

It takes about a season and a half for a squad to forget what a previous manager had implemented. Yet can pick up new idea fairly quickly.

It’s nothing new, Man Utd did this for years. SAF wasn’t a coach and didn’t do any coaching. He was a shop steward.. he ran everything aside from the playing bit. He gave more responsibility to coaches and took the credit for their work.

He also knew exactly when a refresh was needed. You have to give him that.

Trying not to overreact, we sound like ungrateful shits to complain about a few L’s.. am mindful of that.

Bit like you all I spend a lot of time thinking about what am seeing going wrong, more time thinking about why.

I’ll be honest, I think we were lucky to get top 4.. you have 3 teams who massively underperformed (Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs), so much so in fact that we didn’t need to be amazing to get over the line with it.

So if those mentioned clubs have sorted their shit out and we’re still treading water, then we’re going backwards before we start.

I think we can all agree we didn’t have a transfer window that was for the here and now.

So where are we at?

I think a sort of rot started setting in once we got to league cup final. Yes we had some great wins in this time but overall form was patchy.

We’ve carried that into new year. Teams have figured us out to a degree. Villa looked good against us until Mings got injured. Result could have been different hypothetically.

My point I guess is that there’s a case to be made that it’s not a knee jerk reaction but more of an overall realisation that we’ve run out of steam a bit and tactically we’re exposed.

Can Howe turn it around? Yes, but he needs to dig deep..

If I was a club owner I’d have 2 managers who rotate every season. Slightly different attributes etc.. and let each one take time out from the game to up-skill after every second season. Howe would benefit massively from this. And would keep things fresh.

My alternative to Howe would be maybe someone like Potter.. a coach who seems more comfortable training them to keep the ball.

Or you could have the other manager coach the reserve team every second year. Imagine the young players getting that sort of education.

Something is amiss and at the end of the day, it’s down to him. He’ll be under massive pressure.

Imagine shutting up shop at 3-0 down. Fuck off man. Do better.

Aye, best of luck to the lad.

There was something that always troubled me though.. when Rafa was here, he made a point of talking about the difficulties with his family situation, he had a sick child iirc and was doing lots of travel as they were getting treatment in London. It was a serious consideration to leave at that point.

But then Bruce came in and he signs a long term deal.. it made no sense unless he was happier with the easy training.