Holmesy

It’s 1000% a penalty. The guys a fucking moron.

Dubs is terrified and terrifying in equal measure. Just come for the fucking ball you plum!

Is this Longstaff’s worst performance so far?

Darras?

Always been a big fan of the 12 man formations. Seriously underrated!

They must have some of the highest commercial revenue in the PL with that new stadium? If that's the case they'll be less hampered by FFP than we are i guess. It'll take a few years for us turn that around

Could Anderson do a job at RW?

Injuries you say?! Fuck me, why didn’t anyone mention them before?

I’m too pissed to know either way. I’ll revisit in the morning. 😂 This is the video of your pal Elon though: https://youtube.com/shorts/WY73exaVpyw?feature=shared

Well, if you change your mind and you need a hand…

It wasn’t an example of good management. It was an example of some normal bloke/girl bringing something to the attention of a genius, that they themselves hadn’t considered. And it turned out to be a great idea by all accounts. But us normal folk know nothing apparently 😉

Last season we had the best defence in the league, this season we have the 5th worst. Eddie’s PL record suggests this season is nearer to his norm than last fwiw. And I know, injuries (before you say it). Honestly, belittling the knowledge of football supporters is such a cliched shit thing to do. We get enough of that from Parlour and other brain dead cunt pundits who think because you haven’t played the game you know nothing. Supporters know football. We see the game, we dissect the game, we fucking play the game and we understand it more than prick pundits and Joe bloggs on football forums give us credit for. If I say to that Almiron always cutting inside is really predictable and makes he easy to play against or Jacob Murphy’s decision making in the final third is mostly shocking, is that meaningless because I’m not Eddie Howe? Or is it true, even though I’m just a football fan who said it? Look, Eddie is a fantastic manager and clearly an unbelievably talented coach but there are things he does that could be improved. He’s just a bloke doing a job at the end of the day. He’s great at certain bits of it and clearly need to improve in other areas, just like any other bloke doing a job. And like anything, when you’re deep in something, sometimes you can’t see the obvious. Just to highlight this, did you see the interview with Elon Musk in front of one his rockets, when a student asked him a question about something he himself hadn’t considered and he then implemented it?! I suggest you watch it. If you genuinely think the following is good management, let’s just agree to end this discussion: - Dan Burn knows that regardless of how bad he plays, he will start every game. Every game!! - Conversely, Tino knows that regardless of how well he plays and how badly Dan Burn plays, he will not start. - Lewis Hall knows that it doesn’t matter what he does, he will not start. He could have the game of his life, make Maldini look like Paul Dummett and score a hat trick of worldies - makes no fucking difference to his situation at all As I’ve said all along, I want him to stay but he’s left me with serious doubts this season. I’d hate to see him go before being given the chance to put it right though. and yes, I’m now pissed

It is, it’s very frustrating

Dude, have a look at that photo and tell me you can’t find a simple solution for a fucking opposition player running unopposed the entire length of the pitch from our own set piece. How’s about leave the full backs on the halfway line? Fuck me, sometimes my tactical genius astounds even me! Tough one though! Had me stumped for a while

They couldn’t afford me

What about the other 10 or so games where there weren’t multiple changes?

Bowen running right through the pitch unopposed is a basic system-issue and one that is so easily fixed. We’ve been undone like that so many times from our own set pieces this season. We should just give the opposition the ball back instead of taking corners. Just boot in out of play and get back in shape.

I’m not sure, probably not. Let me give you a scenario though. Steve Bruce is managing Newcastle. We have one player who is creating and scoring 90% of our goals, just one and we’re reliant on him (despite having a squad full of other players). Key player gets injured and we go a losing run. Bruce comes out to the media and says ‘of course we’re losing games, we’ve lost x player. We can’t win without him” Do we all just accept that Bruce not trying to come up with an alternative plan to create goals in this player’s absence is ok? We just accept we’re going to lose games because obviously we can’t expect the manager to do anything about it? Of course we don’t, we go ape shit because it’s a clear demonstration and essentially an admission that he’s not very good at football management. So Joelinton/Pope get injured and we just accept that without those players the only option is to accept conceding 3 goals per game? There’s no other alternative? Eg. Changing the system to mitigate the loss of those players? Playing different players etc. Nope, Joelinton’s injured, we can’t defend for shit now!! Get out there and score 4 again lads! Honestly, I’ve heard some nonsense! It’s literally the man’s job to find solutions to these problems. At the moment the solution is score more than three goals. Yesterday it worked great - happy days! Sometimes it won’t. But it would seem that conceding fewer would give us a greater chance of winning games, and it would give me a lot more faith in the man for the future if he demonstrated he could do that.

But the understandable reasons are things that Eddie can influence and isn’t doing. The defending is that shit every single game. The only conclusions that can be drawn from nothing changing despite us conceding 3 goals a game are: 1. Eddie is ok with it because he knows we can score 4 or 2. He doesn’t know what to do about it 1 is less concerning than 2, but neither paints a brilliant picture. Am I missing something? Seriously?

I’m not suggesting he’s not trying. He’s a relentless workaholic. I just don’t see anything different that he’s trying defensively. Maybe I’m missing subtle changes, but we’re still conceding 3 goals a game, so I’m not sure subtle changes are enough even if they are happening

I’m 45 mate, I don’t play computer games. 😀

Other than Joe Willock coming into the midfield, I haven’t seen anything to suggest that he’s changed/changing anything. And Willock isn’t even a defensive change, he’s a midfield one designed to provide more cover to a porous defence. The defence, however, is still porous. Have you seen anything to suggest that he is?

I convinced myself a long time ago, using nothing but my eyes and a fairly average brain, that dropping Dan Burn would alleviate a lot of our defensive issues. Put some pace in there and give opposition teams one less focal point to exploit, and we’ve addressed two of our problems. We saw how it worked against Villa - they started targeting Burn and had loads of joy, so we brought Livra on at LB and they had to change plan. We tightened up and saw out the game. Just do that more! It has already worked!

You’re absolutely spot on, but also remember this is the pinnacle of club football. The elitist of elite sport. We should b making these analysts have to really earn their money to come up with a plan for creating chances against us, let alone scoring. For the past few months, leaving a pacey player on the halfway line when we have a set piece will get you chances. As will putting your fastest player on the right wing and continually running at Dan Burn. The effectiveness of a plan as simple as that should leave our entire supporter-base horrified, but most seem ok with it. Honestly, some of the shithouse managers we’ve had made it harder for them. Our only saving grace is how good we are going forward (and Eddie deserves as much praise for that as he does criticism for making us so easy to score against).

Name one team that has won a cup or league in the past day 20 years conceding an average of 3 goals per game?