Whitley mag

Yeah, Vieira used to play alongside a defensive midfielder in Petit, obviously games moved on but Kamara looks the perfect ball playing partner for him. Where this leaves Joe Willock now is another matter.

Real shame but history tells us he’s made of glass. Luckily for us it’s happened with the transfer window just about to open.

Good shout might suit all parties.

It’s a weird one for me, is this a flash in the pan or have we genuinely got a world class midfielder on our hands. I’m leaning towards the latter based on his undoubted work ethic, he seems to have gone out of his way to get a personal trainer and clearly analysed his own game. In Germany Nagelsmann seemed to rate him and used him in a withdrawn role, I like to think he has always been a 40 million player who has been criminally mismanaged under previous regime. Time will tell but looks very promising.

It’s going to be a replacement for Wilson not to play with him unfortunately. Getting a good striker at the best of times is difficult, when it’s the January window and you’re bottom of the league it’s a massive ask. Be interesting to see how they approach this, it’s going to take big big money to get a proven forward when we’ve also got other massive holes to plug. They could take a punt on the lad from Blackburn or that Cabral from Basle who looks good, but neither are guaranteed. Will they go nuclear and make a huge bid for a Sarr or Vlahovic, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out going to be very interesting.

Rashford has a good record against us so I can see why he played. I like Sancho but i haven’t seen enough evidence to suggest he would have changed the game by starting last night. Also if Wilson hadn’t gone off I think we would have got a 2nd at some point, so swings in roundabouts.

At this point with Wilson and St Max’s injuries where in need of the next 2 games being cancelled. It’s admirable Howe saying they want to play at Everton, with their form and absentees I can see the temptation aswell, but looking at the games played column it’s bordering ridiculous. Only us and Man City haven’t had a game cancelled, we need to be streetwise here and play the game.

Loses his man all the fucking time ball watching, absolutely zero awareness needs replacing as a priority.

Willock and Ritchie haven’t been great, so I’m not sure Krath and Longstaff can be considered much of a down grade. If anything I think we might be more solid in central midfield, Longstaff’s first start under Howe let’s hope he steps up.

Absolutely spot on I was over the moon when we signed him, one of the biggest disappointment’s in recent years in my opinion. Absolutely fucking anonymous, I don’t buy any of this his work goes unnoticed.

Yeah folk need to be realistic with this window. Realistically if we splashed 40 million on Botman, 15 on Trippier and 10 on Kamara and a couple of loans it’s pretty unprecedented for a January window.

Dembele is pretty injury prone these days, however if they are both just loan options as back up to Wilson it’s hard to turn our noses up in our current plight. I get the feeling the majority of expenditure will go on defence and a midfielder.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, not expecting Haaland etc but certainly think we’ll see some very good players through the door.

City’s current sponsorship with Etihad is about 50 million. Realistically we’d be looking to at least match that when we replace fun88. There just seems so many intangibles we could argue in terms of market value. We could argue that due to our new profile in the Middle East our previous deals are no longer representative of our new status. Funny that they didn’t invent any rules when Ashley was blatantly ripping us off with Sports Direct. Realistically we could be looking at a stadium and new training ground sponsor early in the new year to test the waters on this.

All these rules brought in to stop one club growing and under the pretence of an independent company deciding it. Only one place this is heading and I suspect we’ll win again.

Always used to get spicy around Pink Lane after the match with this lot.

A lot of these big name directors of football sound great on paper, but I would also imagine they come with big egos aswell. They’ll want someone to fit with their ideas on how club should be run, the last thing we need is someone trigger happy fella who wants a new manager every 6 months because they disagree on signings etc. This bloke would seem an ideal fit with Howe, I’d be delighted with him.

This is my major concern with Howe and I’d hoped during his time out of the game he’d have looked at this. Early days though and it’s hard to argue that he’s working with a pile of shite presently. If we still look bad after investment though, his job will be on the line simple as that.

Yeah, the inability to play simple passes and keep the ball has plagued us for years. The lack of intelligence and ability to play a killer pass in the final third is also crippling us. A couple of central midfielders are as crucial as defenders at this point.

Would love us to get a real target man to play up front with Wilson. I even think in a 4-3-3 he could play as a wide forward. Get Vlahovic in with Wilson alongside him and we’d start to look a real threat in new year.

I like Howes philosophy and with the right players I think the football will be very good to watch. What does concern me is the lack of any improvement in the defence. This has been laid at his door before as a weakness, the evidence so far suggests it’s not definitely not a strength. Clearly the personnel has aged and regressed since Rafa had them drilled, however at times 3 centre half’s and protection in front of the back 4 have been required. He’s got a free pass at the moment, but I think the pressure will ramp up if we still look a disorganised shambles at the back after January signings.

We can’t just accept defeat before any game now, Villa nearly nicked a point against these the other week. Every game counts with better luck we could have got something last Thursday.

He’ll have the next 2 weeks to rest when fixtures are cancelled. I’d rather have a half fit Schar over Clark.

Still no excuse for Clark ahead of Schar though.