Whitley mag

Doesn’t play with a holding midfielder, or a creative one, our midfield shape is all over the shop. When Staveley talked about not being able to afford any mistakes in the transfer market, he’s now feeling the brunt of it and worryingly seemed set to compound things further last summer. I think the appointment of Mitchell was timely and Eales was right he should concentrate on coaching the team. Always said a manger is only as good as his transfer business, the season Pardew finished 5th was testimony to that, Howe had a great 18 months but nobody really knows whether he’s reached his level at this point. He’s got some very good players at his disposal, but i think everyone bar Hall has regressed this season for various reasons. This was meant to be the season with no distractions where we pushed on again, it’s looking very underwhelming at the moment. Ultimately the best thing for everyone is that he turns this around and under Mitchell we become smarter operators in the transfer market, if he leaves knowing our luck he’ll end up at West Ham, or Everton and win a trophy and we’ll look like cunts again. If I had to call it though I think where in Howe’s last season and we’ll end up with somebody like Amorim in charge next season, the January transfer window will probably be a good indicator of where this is heading.

All Staveley’s texts confirm to me is that Ashley was a cunt, who as we all know tried to move the goal posts on price and could easily have lost the deal due to his greed.

That’s very telling and confirms how we are so predictable.

Even Southampton seem to have a full stand behind the goal all standing now, was even over 60’s and women standing, be uproar from the locals if they had to stand for anything other than going for a piss/pint at SJP.

Howe signed 8 of the starting 11 yesterday he’s responsible for having a midfield you can drive a bus through, laboured and unimaginative build up play and the centre forward being isolated all season.

I’d give Howe till after xmas period if where out the league cup and hovering mid table, I’d make discreet enquiries whether Ruben Amorim would take the job, if he would I’d press the button before he goes elsewhere. There was always the risk that you go backwards when you don’t spend in the summer, but ultimately he seemed to have tunnel vision on Guehi and the less said about wanting Elanga the better.

Think it runs a lot deeper than simply saying we dominated today and were unlucky, we look very predictable and not sure we have personnel to fix this easily. My gut feeling is that Howe has taken us as far as he can, I thought he made right call today dropping Barnes, but ultimately every manager is judged in their transfer business and spending circa 100 million on Hall, Barnes and Tino wasn’t the right call and it’s biting him on the arse. In comparison the business Emery has done at Villa looks much smarter and they currently look streets ahead of us.

Needs a goal lost his confidence.

Big test now couldn’t break down the fucking wombles a couple of weeks ago never mind this lot.

Get more out of Barnes bringing him on though if we need a goal, completely ineffective starting and poor defensively, think Howe’s made right call.

Barnes is an impact sub he’s been far from impressive when starting right move.

Name a good right sided forward available that’s the problem and was in the summer, we either unearth someone from the continent, or we’ll end up going for someone like Dibling.

Downtrodden, small time I mean we might be a few things, but in relation to them those comments are laughable.

It’s certainly not the most spectacular stadium but if we are looking at building in Leazes Park for example and need to convince planners, it shows how a 70k stadium doesn’t need to be a towering monstrosity, I’m sure the Saudi’s would be more than happy to camouflage with it green paint as well.

If we were relocating to Castle Leazes and wanted the building to blend into it’s surroundings better, the SOFI Stadium design in LA would be a good blueprint of a modern stadium. Think a more landmark building towering over the City appeals to me though.

Prefer the Vikings stadium myself big fan of the glass window at one end to frame part of the City’s landscape, could work well for us in a future rebuild.

Remember when we bought him he’d apparently ran rings around David Dunn in the U21’s for Portugal, Dunn was being hyped massively at the time, as you say 8 million was a lot then and was quite an exciting signing at the time.

This would certainly seem to be an opportune moment to drop a new sponsorship deal on the PL’s doorstep, I’m not sure they’d know where to fucking start. I could see any re-writing of the rules taking months, could they really just put sponsorship deals on hold and would they be legally confident of rejecting any when their rules have been deemed unlawful.

The whole trip was brilliant think Ajax were playing Inter the night before in Amsterdam, some right characters from days gone by followed us over there was a great away following 3k Mags all up for it.

Looking more tricky than a few quick amendments, city have them on the ropes.

Aye, was a few people tumbling over seats when the winner went in that night. Think it’s the goals where you truly lose it like Kelly against Portsmouth and any goal against the unwashed when you remember what it’s all about. Back on topic though Viana had such a cultured left foot, real shame he couldn’t get to grips with PL.