Holmesy

God knows! I suppose what i mean by smokescreen is not us releasing the rumour, but us not denying the rumour when it does surface. It doesn't do us any harm at all if other clubs, whose players we might be interested in, think we're considering other high profile options as well

Would the league have gone to the trouble of having all teams vote on whether or not it was ok, if there was nothing in it?? Just playing devil’s advocate. Seems like a lot of trouble for something with no reasonable basis

It makes a load more sense when you consider the FFP tightrope we're constantly walking. Given how careful we have to be, £40m is a serious chunk of change to pull out of an already tightly management squad transformation budget. It's also arguably more exciting signing players with potential than finished articles. I wonder if there's an option to bring Minteh back from his loan early?

That's why the Saudi loans seem to make more sense. I don't know how realistic Neves is on a straight loan but it would surely be a more attractive option, if available

I think we're probably allowing the Philips rumour to act as a smokescreen while we work on other deals. Philips as a player makes sense to us but his profile and price tag don't, and I don't see the board sanctioning the £40m purchase of a player we might get 2-3 decent seasons out of. I just can't see us deviating from our transfer blueprint to that extent. I'd like to see him here and it's not my money so i don't really care about that, but it would feel very out of character.

Maybe it's old habits dying hard or maybe Eddie is telling the players to do stuff that they're too mentally fatigued to do consistently, but even when we sat deep, we undid ourselves by everyone piling forward like school kids in the playground. Could we just be too engrained in our old way of playing to effectively do something different for 90 minutes?

Team's analysis departments are so good these days that what you did one season rarely works as well the next, hence why a number of tactical approaches, multiple game plans and effective in-game management is so important. That's where some of this criticism feels warranted. Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City can get away with largely doing the same thing season in, season out because their resources in terms of player quality are so much better than everyone else's. But even then, City have changed a lot over the years though - they now combine that technical tika-taka football with a more direct approach when needed. That's why Pep is the best in the world. We don't have the luxury of fantastic quality in depth, so we have to be smarter. To an extent, what we're seeing is other teams having identified our weaknesses and negating our strengths. Any unknown elements eg. Tonali/Barnes have been taken away from us and obviously the intensity that was so effective last season can't be employed to the same degree this season. But that's where EH has to earn his stripes. We've been worked out to a degree, so go again - find a new effective way for us to get results with the resources and energy reserves we have. We can't just have one tactic in our locker - that's only one more than Steve Bruce had. I've no doubt he's capable of it but where are the signs Eddie is learning from his mistakes? Where are the signs we're looking to employ a different approach to manage the players' low energy levels? It seems we spent the entire summer working on one game plan, that revolved largely around what we did last season, and now we can't use that approach we look clueless.

The naivety of our approach, given the current circumstances around player availability and fitness, is concerning. It's like EH is stuck on one setting and everything we do has to be based around that setting. We continually push everyone forward, despite a chronic lack of pace, and leave ourselves vulnerable to the counter attack 4-5 times every game. That isn't a difficult thing to change and yet, it isn't being addressed. Dan Burn at left back is a disaster at times. Every team knows to target him and gets plenty of joy out of doing so. I appreciate the Hall transfer hasn't worked out but Livra at left back and Krafth at RB would've been a comfortably better option last night. The ease with which teams play through our midfield, with one simple pass, leaving us on the back foot is embarrassing. When we're so one-paced as well, it's just tactical suicide. And yet, game-in, game-out nothing changes in this regard. I'm definitely not in the Howe out camp, but watching this shit happen every game and getting dominated by the likes of Everton, Forest, Luton etc. is wearing very thin. None of us expected to win last night but we lost exhibiting the same glaring weaknesses that cost us against those lesser teams. 'Fatigue' has so far let some poor management off the hook, but how long will it be before that forgiving attitude changes?

Hopefully we don’t have to endure Almiron in the starting lineup for too much longer.

Hall must be really really shit!

Still pissed from Christmas?

Caught on the counter from our own attack again. It happens multiple times every fucking game! This is simple shit that should’ve been addressed by now. It’s so fucking naive!

This has nothing to do with fatigue. It’s just utter crap all over the park. As good as Liverpool have been, we’re just gifting the ball back to them time after time.

That’s being kind

One again a simple pass takes out our entire midfield. Its too fucking easy

Longstaff’s having a shocker so far!

I totally agree. The injuries have been mental and it’s clear our intensity is nowhere near the expected levels. I do think the fatigue argument has papered over some poor management, but EH has earned a shitload of leeway so as long as we come back strong and he and JT learn from it, it could end up being a long term blessing.

Eh?! What’s that got to do with the question?

When will fatigue cease to be a reasonable reason/excuse for poor performances in your eyes? (and other people’s eyes as well). Our next few games are nicely spaced out, so next few weeks, until the injury crisis completely clears up, end of the season? For the record, I’m not being antagonistic. I’m genuinely curious.

Rot is a very strong word and I don’t think it’s correct at all. I’ve been critical of EH’s lack of tactical flexibility and inability to make impactful in-game changes, and they are justified criticisms, but he’s the kind of man and manger who is unlikely to let it happen two seasons in a row. If he does, the criticism will grow and he’ll likely be on his way, but he’s got a lot of credit left in the bank before anyone should start questioning his position here.

He could maybe lie down in front of them to cover more surface area

They were talking about him on the radio the other day - apparently he leads all the presses at Chelsea and consistently tops the stats for miles covered, players closed down etc. So in that respect, he's right up Eddie's street. I don't really see what he offers that we don't already have though. We arguably need a proper #10 and/or a proper DM and Gallagher is neither of those

Knock what off?! ?

Only if we're not given permission to do it. You'd think a player would be willing to give consent for personal information to be used if he wants a transfer to go through. If he doesn't consent, alarms bells should ring.

Jackson for Chelsea is terrible. They definitely haven’t signed him for his intelligence and decision making. He’s like current-form Miggy but even shitter