Holmesy

Take a bow Lewis Hall! What a performance!

I stand by this statement! Great finish though.

Jacob Murphy is a wank footballer!

They do love a Chelsea cast off but I reckon Ten Hag would be even more Spursy.

Is it ‘it’s too cold up north and these lads won’t let us have the ball’?

Spurs are so fucking soft. Fair play to Rangers, they just want it more and Spurs are shrinking as a result.

It would be a massive risk, but there's clearly a player in there. The weight of expectation at that club has buried a lot of players, Sancho included, and look at him at Chelsea. Maybe a fresh start is what he needs to get his career back on track. That should probably be abroad and out of the spotlight tbf but stranger things have happened

Theyre the only ones I can recall as well, and they were nowhere as persistent as the PL links. Whether that’s down to more concentrated agent chatter in the UK, who knows but there definitely seems to be something in this ‘PL preference’ thing.

The PL targeting thing isn’t just based on players we’ve signed, it’s also the players we have clearly had an interest in given the persistent links - Guehi, Elanga, Mbuemo, Calvert-Lewin, Gallagher etc. How many persistent links have we had to players outside of this league in the past couple of seasons?

Under Ashley, we did it purely for profit and even sold players on using us as a stepping stone. Although the fundamentals are the same - find players with potential and profit potential - we'd be developing and using the ones that are good enough for the first team and shifting the ones who aren't for a profit. Chelsea have been doing it better than any other team for years, using one of the most prolific youth systems in the league as a revenue channel. It's pure PSR gold

There are clearly thousands of them and plenty of other PL teams seem capable of unearthing them. Hopefully under Mitchell we can as well but it's whether that sits well with Eddie. Brighton are the blueprint we need to follow obviously but as others have pointed out, Forest have signed some belters for relative peanuts. Yes, it's higher risk but the rewards are far greater when it works. The idea of signing Elanga for £50m or Guehi for £60 just seems nuts in this current era. Forest signed Murillo for a reported 12m Euros, and Brighton snapped up Adingra for £6m and i'd rather have both of those two than the former. Of course for every Murillo and Adingra there will be duds, but two stars and two duds for less than one Guehi is an acceptable risk. Hopefully Mitchell gets free reign to rip up our current scouting setup and start again. And if Eddie happens to be the collateral damage from that happening, it's unfortunate but i'd say it's a price worth paying.

I really wish this rumour would fuck right off.

Sends the wrong message to strip someone of the captaincy when he hasn't really done anything wrong. Honestly, I don't think it makes a world of difference who wears the armband on the pitch. It's rarely a transformational role, unless you're Roy Keane or Steven Gerrard

You don't think we've got that covered now with Tonali? Or push Tonali into Bruno's position and fill the #6 gap with someone else?

I think at this stage we need a mini rebuild. It's difficult to imagine the team without players like Bruno because he has been our talisman and standout midfielder for a couple of years, but if we replaced him with a quality #10 and bought an effective right winger with the proceeds, it could be the catalyst to kick us on. It's hard not to be sentimental in these situations but we'd move on quickly if we started climbing the league again

There's only so long you can hold your tongue when you work for a total c*nt. Radcliffe wants all the power without being challenged - hire the best people and that won't happen. He wants to be surrounded by yes men. Ashworth is clearly very good at what he does but he also needs the right working conditions and structure to thrive. He didn't find it here and evidently he didn't find it at ManUre either.

So, we could've ended up with him and Kelly, two positionally shit defenders?! Half a bullet dodged

His stock his risen significantly since we were linked in the summer - full England international now and performing well in the PL. I can't see Chelsea selling him now and I don't think we could afford him anyway, which is a shame because I think he'd be the perfect signing.

Isak proved in the last game that he has the craft we need around the box to capitalise on other player's movement. Controversial take but until we can sign a proper #10 (we may not even be in the market for one tbh) maybe Isak is our best option behind Wilson up top. Thinking back to when Keegan dropped Owen deeper and played Viduka up top - that proved to be an inspired move.

Low blocks work, that's why teams employ them. But consistently leaving yourselves vulnerable to counter attacks by throwing everyone forward against them clearly isn't the way. I've no idea what is the way with our current squad but it's not my job to find one, just to criticise

I know I sound like a broken record but this raises the plan B question again. Against teams that attack us and go out to win the game, we are very effective. Against lesser teams that sit back, nullify our strengths and then hit us on the break we are shite. If we can find a way to be more effective at breaking down stubborn defences we'll be flying.

There have been countless times in the past 6-7 games where our play around the box has been utter shite, and it highlights how much of a different proposition we would be if we had a proper #10 with some craft and guile. Someone in the Odegard mould but obviously not as expensive. That little ball Isak played through to Hall is exactly what I mean. We need someone clever we could base our movement around who can do that every game. Isak has it in spades but he needs to be the one on the end of those balls ideally. It would break our existing 4-3-3 setup but I don't think that's a bad thing if it gave us a new attacking dimension.

Add that to the stonewall penalty we were denied by a shit, blind ref and corrupt VAR team! We should've had the 3 points. Ref's call my arse!

I don't think there's another CB like him in world football. He'll be such a big miss when he finally retires. Genuinely one of my favourite Toon players of all time.

Narrative!