Dr Jinx

2 minutes ago, Shadow Puppets said:

He was. But he was very good vs Man Utd a couple of weeks before. 
 

Compared to Longstaff and Willock, he offers more / something other players can’t do.

 

But I agree the options are awful!

Man Utd don’t press. Shelvey has always looked good against them because they don’t hassle him and he can take his time to pick out a pass.

I also think there’s a degree of him raising his game against the so called bigger teams 

Leeds work ethic and effective pressing, far superior fitness levels, and we have Jonjo Shelvey in the middle who’ll think it’s a good idea to pull shirts when he’s already on a yellow.

Thats why it’s 97.5% sure that we’ll lose today. Anything is possible but when you weigh up what we’re up against and what they are up against, it’s very hard to make a case for us.

My advice would be to lump on a home win, can get prices as good as 10/11. It will lessen the inevitable rage as 90 mins comes to a close. And then if we do magically do something you won’t mind losing it.

7 minutes ago, nufcnick said:

Lascelles has always had the speed and turning circle of a WW1 battleship, fucker always looks like he’s running in treacle 

Turning speed yes but he was always fast enough to at least keep up with players.

He was either trying hard and just not able to run, or wasn’t trying and didn’t give a fuck if he caught up or not.

I’m not sure what is worse to be honest.

Doing our own thing and there being a disconnect with KSA would be a bad thing.. if we go down we need to ensure that they are invested enough to make it work. A successful trip could well add much needed funds for last minute transfers too, it’s a PR exercise but so be it.

4 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Well thats Howe’s job to play with a tactic the squad’s fitness levels allow them to play. Trying to play high pressing football with unfit players is as naive as Norwich under Farke trying to tikitaka with shit players.

Why are they so unfit though? That ball over the top last week when Lascelles seemed to be running in slow motion was the worst thing I’ve seen all season.

We are actually the worst team in the league. I knew we were bad but I always sort of thought there were a few just a little bit worse, not this season though.

20 minutes ago, wyn davies said:

Listened to Talksh*te this morning, had on interview with Eddie Howe , was questioned about transfers, he stated that we have got two in and were looking at getting others, but if we don't then we are where we are, I gained the distinct impression he has more or less gave up as he mentioned that half the team had been there a long time and were good enough to get us out of trouble, kept on going about how moral was high etc etc , I'm not so sure.

That’s simply not to shit on the players who are going to be playing against Leeds. He’s not stupid.

He repeatedly said it in the press conference too about the most important players being the ones already there.. trust me, he’ll replace every single one of them given time.

Once Thursday afternoon passed by with no major progress, they’ll have backed off.. if they can agree a few deals after the weekend would be way better to bed them in before the next game rather then the mayhem of the Leeds match?

Players like Lingard and Dele Alli are icing on the cake type players, they are not going to cover the cracks of having Shelvey and Longstaff sauntering around the pitch aimlessly.

We need to be looking at players who can protect the defence

32 minutes ago, gdm said:

 

Strange that a player of that quality would be available on loan, his contract runs out in 2023 so maybe would be a better idea hoy a bid in.

West Ham were linked with him a few weeks back, the price was £14m, so probably 30 for us..

5 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I don't think £10 would be spurious to that grasping fat bastard. 

I mean the claim that she violated an agreement, i can't remember one instance where she criticised him. Saying she couldn't wait to get rid of the SD signage would be impossible to link to a personal criticism, she said the training ground needed an upgrade, again stating facts, not a personal criticism.

I think it's a case of him being butt hurt over the way the removal of the signs was teased on social media, as yes it does paint SD for being an eyesore, but again, not a personal criticism so impossible to prove.

Seems spurious. She's gone out of her way to thank him for helping the takeover to go through.

Lingard looked good at West Ham when Declan Rice was cleaning up everything in the midfield and playing simple passes through the middle for him to run onto.

We have nothing like that here.

Aside from the new signings, every single player in the side minus Wilson and ASM needs to be cut loose.

Its like having black mould on your walls and only painting over a bit of it.. it still remains and will spread quickly.

It’s mental that literally nothing has happened this week

The more the season goes on the more it seems like Steve Bruce sabotaged us from pre season.

It’s not just one or two players, it’s the whole squad.. whoever is playing, we’re running on fumes from 70 mins.

So what can Howe do about it, he has no chance to rest players before building up their fitness.. players are literally limping from one week to the next.

Lascelles running in treacle last week, he was never that slow before, clumsy yes but never that slow.

So what is it?

a) unreported covid outbreak in pre season? Players with long covid symptoms.

b) vaccines did something to them

c) trained so badly in pre season it’s affected them for the whole season.

d) they’ve downed tools knowing they are eventually going to be replaced with a core of the players happy to take us down as it might extend their careers here (far fetched but not impossible)

e) Eddie Howe isn’t much better than Steve Bruce? ?‍♂️

1 minute ago, xLiaaamx said:

 

 

Howe is very predictable and PFM like. 

Jesus Christ man, have a word with yourself. Eddie Howe is not a pfm, he’s falling back on England based players because nobody wants to deal with us in this window. The playing side of the club are in a shambles and most of the players who could be truly regarded as upgrades won’t come right now because of the league table, the ones that are here seem happy with extending their careers here if we go down.

Cant think of a harder job in football right now.

I’d be happy enough to have Dummett at LB if he could stay fit. He’s way better than Lewis or Ritchie.

The issue is that he’ll play a few games and then be out for months, so if Targett is basically a Dummett who can stay fit then I have no issue with that.

He supports West Ham iirc, that’s the move he wants, they just don’t seem to have the money right now. If they finish top 4 that will change obviously. He waits I reckon.

When Abramovich bought Chelsea, he hired Kenyon from Man Utd within 3 months. Knocked a chunk off their share price and ended up pinching several deals they had worked on. It was a fairly solid short to medium term move.

The consortium should have done this earlier, not necessarily Kenyon but at least he would have had the experience of a similar project and would be far more used to negotiating with other clubs than our highly inexperienced current setup is.

The comments Emery made are probably accurate, there may not be a clear objective/vision right now, or at least it’s not being communicated as well as it could.

I don’t think it’s a case of egos at work that they haven’t been decisive here, but just that the threat of relegation is stifling everything and that in itself is making relegation all the more serious.

We need to catch a break.

He was at least a foot onside.

I suspect Federico being available has also strengthened the negotiations from our side, I mean having to get the deal done before Leeds. They are on a clock too.. they’ll have to replace him so the pressure is on them too.

Sevilla are literally going for the league, only 4/5 points off Madrid.. if I was them I wouldn’t sell either, or if I was I’d be making sure I got what I wanted from the deal.

We will keep haggling until time is against us, which it almost is by now.

Everything else that’s popped up over the course this month is agents trying to drive up interest in their underperforming overpaid dickheads. We’re stupid to fall for it 

Just now, Alberto2005 said:

Bet he picks him.

Not after the last game.

1 minute ago, McCormick said:

Can understand why Arteta was happy to offload this chap; nigh-on useless in a possession based system.

 

Really need to figure out how to effectively counter-attack in a low-block, as our team just fall apart when defending the lead. Can only really see Willock’s utility in that type of setup tbh.

The team have consistently fallen apart from around 70 minutes all season.

The fitness and conditioning is so poor, Willock is another example of that. Looks overweight compared to last year, slower, lethargic, clumsy on the ball.

If we assume this is down to how Steve Bruce prepared them for the season, how can we undo all of that mid season?

5 minutes ago, HTT II said:

Carvalho for me over Terry any day of the week and Rio had it all, but needed another top-class CB alongside him as he had brain fog moments in him. I’d say Woodgate is quite similar to VVD. He transformed our defence and anyone who played next to him when he signed. 

Good shout on Carvalho, superb player.

Ah if Woodgate wasn’t made of glass.. what could have been. Selling him at the time seemed like such a step backwards but he wouldn’t have played all that much. We just never replaced him