Dr Jinx

My info is sort of the opposite of Ando.. no concrete plans yet but they are having initial discussions with some developers and other parties about acquiring land. A small extension is one of the options listed, but there are 4 identified.

You’re probably looking at Feb/March 2025 before he’d realistically be back and available to play.. and two transfer windows even if our spending is limited, you’d have to say he’s probably kicked his last ball for the club 😔 Yes had some limitations as a player but he has improved massively when called upon in last two seasons. The only blemish on his record was defending Mike Ashley in that interview, aside from that he’s been a model pro here at the club and some leadership in the dressing room and on the pitch when we really needed it.

I’ve made no secret of it that I don’t think he’s the right person to take us to the next level. I still like him though, it’s not even comparable to the tossers we’ve had in that role over the years. But the way we’ve fallen off defensively has been and continues to be shocking there’s been no improvement there for months. So yes, he’s accountable for those soft goals we gave away. West Ham bottled that game yesterday and Philips coming on was the catalyst. 2 moments of absolute brilliance saved us.. (Isak's pass and Barnes’ strike) - how much of that is down to Howe’s coaching or were those players already well capable of doing that before they came here? I didn’t see any masterful tactical change that turned the game. Did you?

He’s been bailed out by the players yesterday, in fairness to them, they looked like feeling sorry for themselves and heads had dropped.. so there’s obviously some amount of team spirit there to regain that composure. But we were shocking for 50 minutes of the game.. as bad as I’ve seen us since he arrived. Piss poor at the back, even when Lascelles was still on the pitch. And as much as the subs had a positive effect. (Hall was great), if West Ham hadn’t brought off their striker to replace him with Philips.. I’m not sure we’d have had a sniff. They gave us encouragement to attack them. You can’t not celebrate winners like that yesterday but many cracks/papering over is still the case.

Wow!

He kicks his leg. Deffo pen

We’re gonna have to score 3 or 4 today to scrape a win.

I know someone at the club, can’t say much more than that I’m afraid. They don’t expect Man Utd to pay 42m, but that’s the point. They want him after the summer window.. it’s 21m.. if not.. enjoy your garden Dan. It’s fairly straight forward.

No, the 21m is to get him after the summer transfer window. If they want him before that, it’s more than double. The club are playing total hardball with them which is great. Fuck em

The argument is over when he’s released from his contract. They’ll pay the 21m but want him released straight away. We've told them to fuck off in no uncertain terms. They are more than happy to keep him on paid leave for the duration.

50 bets over the course of 2/3 months isn’t really that severe for a full on gambling addict. They’d be in a bookies betting on which fly could crawl up a wall which is often the case with all that virtual shite that does be on in the mornings. Was he hooked in? Yeah absolutely.. but is he still at a point where he could just drop it and fill his time in other ways? I’d be fairly sure that’s the case. How does the club keep tabs on that though?

I’d be fairly pissed off if I was Botman reading those quotes today. Regardless of what happens, the manager must always shield blame from a player unless it’s something absolutely mental.

Am I right in thinking that part of the line ends there? If so than you have a point. Monument or Central isn’t much of a walk

I’ve been told they have had that report for over 2 weeks now and one of the major sticking points (as well as planning permission issues) of a large redevelopment of SJP is the existing metro infrastructure. A lot of different parties would need to come together in agreement before anything could happen.

He said anything can happen? Hardly handing in a transfer request. A player basically saying who knows what will happen in the future is fairly standard in media responses. He’d look fairly stupid if he said no way and then we sold him. Has he ever been fully fit since he’s been here? Imagine having him available for 90% of the games we play in a season.

So what you’re saying is, it’s not Howe or the medical team to blame for all our injuries, but our groundsmen for laying a shitty pitch 󠀠

He’ll go some day but hopefully not this summer. He’s intelligent enough to say the right things to the press but I would not be surprised if he’s having some doubts about the project he was sold. If it’s another window of austerity and treading water again in the league, he’ll be off in January. He’s too good to be wasting his best years.

You can criticise the medical team but ultimately you have to look further up.. some of these decisions were also made by Dan Ashworth as well so he’s also in the firing line alongside Eddie Howe. The buck stops there really. It has to. Someone made a call to leave the decision of having surgery or not up to the player himself which looks so amateur, a player will always want to play or come back with the least amount of downtime. It’s been a massively frustrating season where I think the manager has come up short. Did he deserve the chance to have a go at it? Yes absolutely he did but how long does that good will last for? How much of a pass should he get?

There’s a difference between a knock, ie a bruised shin or something and a potential ACL tear. Even to a layman it was obvious that Botman wasn’t right on his return. Howe should have held him back.. this season was pretty much a write off by the time he was returning anyway so why take that risk.

Don’t think he eased Tino in due to injury concerns, he does that with all players at the start. Only Isak got hoyed in the first game. I’ve been negative toward him this season and I genuinely think he’s hit his ceiling with us.. last season his intense style of play ran the players into the ground too to a point where our form dipped. We got away for some warm weather training which effectively saved the season for us. This season we’ve had none of that.. we had a more hectic pre season, and despite a bright start we’ve been found out more often than not. We still need to work much harder than any other team to get something from games.. that’s all down to his ethos and tactical setup. He's not willing to change, or maybe he’s not capable of it. Either way we have a squad of players running on fumes and picking up serious injuries. I don’t get how he’s so immune to criticism.

I said he was way off it since his return. Is that also incorrect? You haven’t answered any of my questions. So you think the manager hasn’t left injured players on the pitch? You think he hasn’t ran them into the ground leaving them open to serious injury? And you think he hasn’t rushed players back before they were ready?

Yeah I’ve read it. He got multiple pieces of advice and the club gave him the option to do either. He hasn’t mentioned anything that I’ve brought up in that post. I don’t think Eddie Howe is doing right by this squad, short term fixes for long term problems. No other team has to physically work as hard as us to win games.

With respect, what has that got to do with this thread? And what comment in relation to Eddie Howe are you disputing? Has he not left injured players on the pitch? Has he not run the squad into the ground?

It’s not quite the career ending/altering injury it once was but it’s still one of the more significant ones a footballer can get. I really feel for the lad as he’s a top player. A couple of weeks back it was obvious that Botman was miles off it… now at that point as a manager who should be able to notice these things in fucking training.. what do you do?.. leave him in and roll the dice or give him extra time to rehab and build back to the point he was beforehand, or as close to. Eddie Howe has been running this squad into the ground over the course of 2 years, nearly every single one of them are walking on ice in relation to picking up serious injury. Fatigue is a massive contributing factor. There's also been several instances of players being obviously crocked and being left on the pitch for 10/15 mins before being subbed. He’s done this repeatedly. If any potential new signings or existing players that the club should be doing everything to keep have any level of intelligence, they’ll be thinking “playing for this guy is going to shorten my career”.

Jesus fucking Christ. He’s not been right since he returned but this is the exact injury they thought would be better off “healing naturally” Absolute blame on the manager and the medical team for this. They got it so wrong like countless other decisions this season.