andyc35i

I can’t understand why Lewis doesn’t come close to getting a game in this side. Granted he needs to improve defensively, but Ritchie’s poor defensive awareness and positioning has cost us many goals since he started playing at left back / wing back. He has an engine to get up and down the pitch as well as adding some pace to the team would be something a new coach would see as something to work with

I find it rather strange that all the PL clubs have voted to enforce rules that mean the top clubs can never be caught. To grow commercially, you need to buy top players to help market the brand around the world and also to get better on the pitch to further increase your global brand appeal. Nobody has a chance to catch the top four commercially if they can’t be allowed to spend money to get a higher profile. I don’t want us to be like Chelsea and Man City, but I don’t think it’s fair that the league is now a closed shop. There needs to be a happy medium and this proposal is not the way forward

Fair point. Although these new rules coming in are going screw our commercial plans just as hard. Although I look forward to seeing how we get around this. How fun will it be when we sell the naming rights in advance of building the new training ground and then once it’s built renegotiate the deal.

Yeah I watched that. He was trying to wind up the Everton fan, but I think he does genuinely believe that Rafa would come back if seriously offered the job. The Everton fan did make some good points about how the FFP rules have pretty much screwed them over even though their owners are loaded. They have money, but can’t spend it - this is the scenario we will face ourselves soon I’m sure

We never do well at Brighton so I’m already writing that one off. We just need the new guy for the full two week international break so that we can essentially reset the season and start to think about winning some games

I don’t see why Rafa would want to come into the club again mid season with so much pressure straightaway on stopping us spiralling down. I know there’s a bigger picture here and he would be able to see that, but I just don’t see him wanting the job right now

Just goes to show you that nobody knew when the takeover was going to happen the way it did because Mourinho and Rafa would have just waited the two months to take on the job

I would look to sign both Kessie and Kamara, but it’s a tricky one because they could both be had on pre-contracts. We don’t pay the stupid fees for players that are free in the summer, but we need quality straightaway

Agree, but the bigger picture is that we will need 11 wins from 29 games and that seems a tough task given the start. Plus you can pretty much write off 7-10 as losses which makes the task even harder

This FFP stuff is just ridiculous. You have a team that can’t spend money even though they have it because their commercial revenues aren’t sky high. So all it does is keep the top teams at the top because they have the most revenue and can spend the most. You can’t grow commercially without getting better players and spending money, the whole things is anti-competitive and needs a major rethink

None. We conceded possession and so many clear cut chances. There was no attacking intent and we were simply set up to play the counter attack which didn’t work from minute one. The positive is that at least Jones has identified that we are so bad on the ball and wants to work on that

Guys, we were still abysmal today. Beneke had a bucket full of easy chances, I mean he hit the post from inside the six yard box (it was easier to score), had an easier one-on-one and also hit the bar from another free header. They also had some other clear chances too and we were just rotten again. I sound negative because the performance was just that, but we took an undeserved point and that could prove vital later on in the season

The only team worse than us are Norwich, but I’d still back them to beat us if we played tomorrow

Mandy crying there, she sees the job she has on her hands

Observations from today’s game, but it isn’t new and has been like this for the last two years. You guys could probably add to this as well: We can’t keep possession of the ball anywhere other than in the back line We can’t seem to pass more than three passes without giving it a way, panicking and kicking it long / losing it short or kicking it out of touch We can’t defend set pieces We can’t defend crosses We can’t stop crosses coming into the box from wide areas We can’t defend the long pass in behind We struggle with our offside line We can’t attack set pieces very well We don’t seem to work on corner or free kick routines We always seem to end up offering the opportunity of a quick counter attack where the opposition look more likely than we do to score from our own corner We always seem to lose the ball from our own throw-ins In fact, the only tactic we seem to have from throw-ins is a long throw and the guy who takes it can’t even throw it that long We are slow to react to everything so the press is always weak We are never as fit as the opposition we make the opposition look like Barcelona in their prime Whoever becomes the new manager has his work cut out big time

Every player has been shit not just ASM

Saka’s dad supports us so that’s pretty much guaranteed that he will be here at some point

Let’s hope so. But I actually think they just wanted to give him the 1000th game in the end. They knew that they couldn’t get anyone in right away so decided to be nice so that the media wouldn’t have overreacted about sacking him on 999

If we can somehow sneak a win on Saturday then everything just looks so much better

Must be getting an announcement on the new guy within the next few days then given that the club says “recruitment is underway’

What’s the point of football now if new owners can’t invest in their business to make that business more successful. In order to sign these bigger commercial deals in the future, you have to spend money to get better players and become successful on the pitch. You can’t get better without spending shit loads of money and no matter how morally corrupt football is now, you can’t just draw a line in the sand and be done with it - that only benefits the richest and top teams and closes off any competition

Disney, Facebook or Uber won’t be sponsoring us, it’s not about their minority stakes in global companies. It’s about kicking us in the gonads and stopping major Saudi companies being used a way of pumping money into the club to get around FPP. It’s completely uncompetitive to stop commercial opportunities and the whole thing will get messy when end up with Aramco on our shirts next year

True. But I think there’s more of an issue around the lack of tactical awareness, organisation and generally just adapting to the opposition. If you look back at Sunday, we all know that the Spurs left back loves to fly forward and he was terrorising Manquillo. Instead of trying to counteract that by getting someone to drop in and help out, we just let it happen time and time again. I know that you can’t just set up a team to nullify every threat, but in our current position, you would have thought that trying to stop a better team exploiting us so easily would have been something to either prepare or react to during the game.

The central midfielders are a huge problem because we are so open when we push forward as they have no legs and the only one that can make recovery runs is Willock. These problems can be fixed by organising the shape of the team so that it’s not so easy just to play through us with one pass

Agreed. We just need change straightaway and then whatever new setup comes in then we need to get behind them because this season is going to rough