Holmesy

Why have we chosen to pay tens of millions for an uncapped, unproven, almost 30 year old CB when we could probably pick up half a dozen current PL defenders for that, or the best of the Championship. It doesn’t seem like a good business at all this one. If it was £10m, ok. But £30 odd?!

He's going to love playing Hull City, Blackpool and Luton etc. on a rainy afternoon.

We're going to get bummed in this one - they'll run through us, round us and over us, and our pedestrian league one plodders will just stand there and let it happen

Our lack of pace and movement in the centre is criminal. I bet Longstaff is in the top 5 slowest CMs in the league. Just a bit of pace and dynamism in the CM area would improve us immeasurably. They don't even have to be very good, just mobile

We're getting knocked back by clubs, which isn't surprising given it's January and no one wants to lose their players. We're likely getting knocked back by plenty of players as well because we're pretty much certs. to go down. Absolute worst position we could be in

FYP

Fucking League 1 Lascelles. That was embarrassing even for him

He’s not exactly had the best service

Time to bring Murphy on for a bit of counter attacking pace

Trippier steps up to play offside and the rest just fucking stand there staring. Get the lot of them replaced FFS - thick as mince!

Why isn’t someone telling him to do something different? Swap sides with Fraser, play one twos, try to buy free kicks. Anything is better than doing the same shit time after time when the defender has his number. He’s like the personification of groundhog day

We’ve got to start putting chances away. We don’t make enough to be wasting them

That's fucking tragic

What?! Is that actually a thing?

Maybe, but that doesn't account for him hoofing the ball over the bar every time he shoots and letting passes run through him. Something else has changed. It's most likely confidence but it could also be ASM playing shit. Everyone looked more alive when ASM was firing, now they just stand there and watch him run himself into cul-de-sacs

As technically superior as our players might be (at a stretch), they lack pace. Bournemouth had pace throughout the team and that's one thing you can't coach. I'd take lesser players with pace over superior plodders any day of the week in this league.

Arguably our players have played better this season under Bruce than Howe (with obvious exceptions) and i'm wondering if it's because a system where they don't have any clear instructions suits their lack of ability and intelligence, over Howe's approach that relies on tactical nous, following instructions and retaining information? It was just a passing thought but one i've never really considered before. Can a manager come in and be too technical and tactically demanding for the players he's working with, so much so that they play better under a potato who just tells them to run around a lot?

Seems like the Chairman might've kicked some ass at the weekend and just told them to go on a spending spree to sort this shit out. He's travelled over twice now and seen us get battered by Spurs and humiliated by Cambridge. Poor bastard!

I can imagine 'front foot football loving Eddie Howe' crying at the prospect of Dummett in his starting 11 but i totally agree.

God, that team is absolutely mingin' but what can you do?! Our squad is dogshit! With Wood up front I think you've got to swap Fraser for Murphy. It's like swapping a ford Ka for Fiat Punto but at least Murphy can deliver a good ball 1 time out of 4. Fraser doesn't seem to offer a lot of anything.

Looking forward to seeing a photo of him pointing at a random sponsor on the shirt

He’s a notoriously terrible trainer. Howe would never accept it. Total non-starter

Out of interest, how much do we think it would’ve cost to buy Mitrovic back? More or less?

Pragmatic signing. Not sexy at all but functional and proven at PL level. We have one of the best crossers of a ball in the league and now we’ll have a unit up front to get on the end of them. And if we go down, he’ll boss the championship. It’s a lot of money but it’s not mine so I don’t give a shit.

Have a read back through this thread. I think you might be in for a shock