Holmesy

Anyone know where I can watch highlights? I missed the second half ffs!

Imagine these guys worrying about the possible impact of Bruno and coming up with gameplans to negate his impact and then Howe starts him on the bench. Instant boost for them. Get him in the starting lineup FFS!

I honestly wouldn't wish him on any set of fans. He should be kept away from football and other professional sports altogether. The man is a destructive parasite and the game doesn't benefit in any way from his involvement

He's clearly got some psychological issues. His behaviour and the fragility of his character is not fucking normal at all

Fair enough.

It was said tongue in cheek, i didn't think he was actually world class. I think you're doing him a disservice though because he was very good under Rafa at times, both defensively and going forward.

Totally agree

Neither approving it or denying it

If only we could have the Rafa version of Schar back. He was world class.

Some of the huge clangers he's been dropping recently completely negate that aerial ability though. He's a constant worry during games

Outside of ASM, our current options are Willock, Almiron, Fraser, Ritchie and Murphy. The gulf in class between Lingard and that lot is huge, bang average or not

And still arguably our best CB, Fede will be sat on the bench

When?! I haven't seen him do any or no decent ones at least. Murphy offers so much more (despite still being Championship level)

What am I missing with Fraser? Is Howe just picking him for nostalgic reasons?! He offers absolutely nothing!

I would have the confidence in Wood to score some goals if we had any supply to him at all. Who is going to put the ball on a plate for him? Bruno is capable of playing balls through but to who? Wood doesn't have the pace to get on the end of them and Wilson is crocked. Creativity should've been given equal priority to defensive reinforcements in this transfer window and i really hope it doesn't come back to bite us

Fraser has definitely regressed since his Bournemouth days and Wood is arguably past his best as well.

Barca still desperate to shift Dembele and PSG have walked away.......

Likely know he's a moron?? It's pretty fucking hard to miss

What Sky Sports should be is the TV version of The Athletic What it is, is the TV version of Talk Sport and that's why Merson has a job

I don't think he'll drop Shelvey and rightly so at the moment. He's involved in most of the goals we score (which admittedly isn't a lot) I think he'll go with Bruno behind Shelvey and Big Joe. Fraser seems undroppable at the moment as well, despite being crap, so i imagine he'll be on the right

If Howe can coach the terrible decision making out of Almiron he might still have a future here, but speed of thought and quick processing of situations isn't something that's easy to coach. My gut tells me he needs to play under a Hodgson/Rafa-type who will give him very clear instructions - run here, play this ball etc. Give him a longer leash and you get the Almiron we're seeing now

Going into the second half of the season with just Wood and Wilson as striking options and no new creative players would make me very nervous. We've got to go all out for Lingard if Ekitike deal is dead

He came in for a couple of games and we instantly looked more solid than when Ritchie was playing. He needs to get his confidence back going forward but defensively he improved us. Depends what you want from a full back, but Dummett gives us nothing going forward and Ritchie is shite defensively. Lewis has the potential to be good in both directions and could learn from Targett

What?! That's a shit piece of business. We're finally in a position where we have two reasonable left-backs and we let one of them go out on loan?! So an injury to Targett and we're back to Dummett or Ritchie deputising?! FFS!

That's more like it! When he has highlights like that, why put together a compilation of scrappy deflected goals, scuffed penalties and run where he just bundles through players, like the one above?! Baffling!