Holmesy

Played 5-a-side last night and former PL referee John Moss was playing just before us. He’s an absolute baller! He was miles older than everyone else on his team but he was class. Played up top and just bullied the defender. I just assumed all refs would be shit footballers

I thought it was universally known that they want him out. He's a notorious tightarse whose penny pinching has held them back from moving beyond where they are now. I'm sure they'd all give up the new stadium for a team that actually wins stuff. Their transfer activity under him has been terrible as well

No player hides completely for 90 minutes though. It's about if/when you do hide. If you never show for the ball when you or your teammates are under pressure, you're hiding when it matters most. I suppose passing backwards and sideways thing is a moot point but it's another characteristic of the type of player who hides from the ball

His stats will probably tell you he rarely gives the ball away and has a 90-95% pass completion rate. However, look at him playing with your eyes and you see a guy who almost always passes sideways or backwards, rarely contributes to any attacking move, doesn't score, doesn't assist and won't take the ball under pressure. I'd argue any league 1 or championship midfielder could do the same in a PL team. There are similarities with Scott McT (especially looking at that video) - if he's not prepared to take a pass under pressure to either get his teammate out of trouble or move the ball forward quickly with a one touch pass, he's essentially hiding from the ball.

I'm sure there's still a very decent player in there, but for any team with Champions League aspirations this would be a horrible move. For £20-30m we could \ get someone up-and-coming, injury free and 22-24 years of age, with their career in front of them rather than their best years behind them. It's an Ashley-era type transfer rumour that would never materialise because AOC would want more than £15k per week

This rumour is like a turd that won't flush. Might have to resort to drastic measures, fish it out by hand and stick it in the neighbour's wheelie bin.

Fair enough, but Wolves barely score any at all so his contribution is significant. Given how toothless we are from crosses and corners, i'd say adding goals from another area of the field should be a priority. We're almost completely reliant on our strikers to score every game. If they're well marked we're all but out of ideas

He'd be a great signing, a huge upgrade on Longstaff. What he lacks in pace he makes up for in 5-10 thunderbastards per season

Could this be the year we dip into the free transfer market to balance out the FFP stuff? There's some top talent available, the likes of Tielemans, Jonathan Bamba, Asensio, Zaha, Ndicka etc. If we could fish in that pool I can see us signing 6-7 in total, with the same number leaving

Give him 70 minutes then and bring Wilson on or 20. Just fucking start him!!

I can't see Dan Ashworth sanctioning the purchase of McTominay when we have aspirations of playing Champions League football on the reg. It'll just be bullshit paper talk or his agent trying to drum up interest.

Mount is nowhere near as dynamic as Madison. Madison can create, score, cross and he's a bit of a snidy cunt as well. Mount just seems like a poor man's Lampard unless i'm missing something? Of all of the creative midfielders in the England camp, he's the one i'd pick last.

He didn’t give the world’s best striker a sniff at goal today. His primary job is defending and he did that really well today. The misplaced passes aren’t good but saying he had a stinker when he basically kept Haaland from having a shot seems a bit unreasonable.

Botman?! What game are you watching?!

And that’s what happens when you don’t finish your chances. Such a shit time to concede as well, that was a decent spell by us.

Likewise. Risky! Shame he’s taken Gordon off, he’s looked bright

Do you think Wilson goes into the dressing room and apologises for a clanger like that or it just won’t be spoken about?

We’ve done alright there to be fair. We’ve opened them up a few times, Gordon has looked very good and on another day we could be level. Botman has been excellent against Haaland as well. Definitely a few positives to take.

Might be time to send him to the glue factory. That was terrible!

I imagine you could improve on that conversion percentage fairly significantly by signing players who can actually head the ball. Or even coaching players who can't head the ball, to head the ball. We seem to do neither but continue to hoy the ball into the box regularly.

He's only 29!! He should be looking for better than 3rd choice, even if we are the best club in the whole world.

Probably best!

They didn’t need to, that’s my point. They created 2 and we created none. Game over!

That’s kind of the point I was making. We did alright possession-wise but did nothing threatening for 95 minutes. Man Utd had hardly any of the ball, scored twice and soaked up whatever we had to offer. As I said, a tactical lesson. Having the ball and doing nothing with it isn’t “playing well”

Fair play to Man Utd, it was a tactical lesson that I really hope we learn from. What defines Eddie Howe’s reign is not what has happened up to this point, it’s what we learn from this going forward. We have No plan B and haven’t had all season. “Intensity is our identity” is all well and good but when you have no backup it’s just words. Physically we should be frightening but we don’t impose ourselves in that way. We just roll over. In all honesty, I expected us to lose today but I didn’t expect us to lose so gutlessly. This final came too early for us but going through 95 minutes with zero shots, given the quality of players we had on the pitch, is a massive disappointment. I really hope everyone who went today had an amazing time. I just hoped for something, anything to cheer about.