St. Maximin

Did he call any of them a cous cous nonce though?

Mount now playing Grealish’s role despite being ineffective for England… why not, err, just play Grealish there Gareth? I’m sure it’s not that risky a move.

Mount is a good player for Chelsea without doubt, but bang average for England if that. There is no reason he has to be a regular in the team sheet - I’ve said before it’s a typical English attitude in sport to be favouring the model pro and conservative options while being cynical of someone more maverick. For all Southgate has got right (quite a lot imo), it was pretty clear Grealish and Foden (and perhaps others) should have got more pitch time ahead of Mount in the Euros. Grealish is brilliant and his stats back that up. Not sure why some people are so keen to show he’s overrated.

Now he’s getting sacked we can just move on and he becomes irrelevant rather than a continued target of abuse. I don’t like or rate him and wish he’d walked ages ago, but I still don’t feel comfortable about abuse, at least now he’s going and won’t be our problem anymore. Can you really call out social media and it’s followers when celebrities take their lives but justify abuse when it’s your manager really? Find this a pretty conflicting issue because I can’t stand the bloke but at the same time he’s still a human.

I feel no guilt but I like to think I’m a pretty sympathetic guy, so I find it hard not to feel sorry for the likes of Hatice Cengiz or other victims of the human rights abuses when I see Saudi investment celebrated like this. However, this is ultimately about business and not the Saudi state becoming heroes. They gain something here and so do we. I’m not sure how much involvement PIF will have in the day to day running of the club, but they could well be decent people involved in it as I imagine most Saudis are. They may not all have the moral compass of the Bin Salmans and the PIF is ‘separate’ after all. Seeing MBS as the PIF chair makes me feel a bit more uneasy but he may have nothing to do with us. I also don’t really agree with the sports washing narrative. To an extent it’s true but I feel the investment raises our awareness more of human rights abuses once these countries become more involved in western society.

Well said, I agree with all of this. Saying that (while knowing very little about the organisation), I also don’t want to be in a situation where everything to do with the Saudis is negative and we act like everyone associated with PIF supports the barbaric human rights abuses or that it’s all blood money etc. I don’t really buy this ‘sportswashing’ narrative AI like to keep referring to also. I feel the investment of countries like KSA, UAE and Qatar in sports has led to far more media attention on their human rights records, so I’ve learnt a lot more about them and to be honest, it’s not positive. At the end of the day we should neither feel guilty about the PIF investment, nor should we see them as our heroes. Like other countries they are simply investing in businesses as both mutually benefit. Staveley and the Reubens are the heroes here and I like to think that’s how this has been perceived by the fans also.

Having lived a few places growing up, I lived to Newcastle as a fan in 2008 for uni and stayed all the way until 2020, then moved to London during a pandemic. I’m all about timing.

He’s stuck around long enough for the Saudis to come in and sack him before it gets even more hostile. Played a blinder.

I don’t like Bruce at all but has he really pretended to be one of us? From the interviews I’ve seen he’s mentioned it being his boyhood club, basically admitting he couldn’t care less since becoming an adult.

As someone of minimal knowledge to this case here, I feel this whole ‘proving separation’ crap should really be irrelevant. Irrespective of Bin Salman’s role, we’d be owned by the state; just not directly. It’s the decision to make a whole state a ‘director’ I find weird though and I don’t see where the basis for this is for unless they wanted to make this really difficult for us. If it’s any relevance, I work in the fun anti-financial crime world and so I’m very familiar with the phrase ‘ultimate beneficial owner’ that I’ve seen used here in relation to what the PL wanted the KSA state to be. From what I’ve seen a country shouldn’t be the UBO. Maybe that’s all a bit irrelevant here but does seem interesting the PL makes it’s own idea of a UBO seemingly when there’s an awkward takeover situation for them.

While I agree on losing key players and would say only a few teams have significant depth, the back-up players of weaker teams look like far more competent Premier League players than our options like Gayle, Joelinton, Hendrick, Clark etc. Even Brighton, for example, were in a similar position to us last year and had nobody at ASM’s level, but I’d say far more reliable options across the field and on the bench when they beat us 3-0. The likes of Burnley and Southampton have several striker options even if they aren’t the best etc. Then even when we have a strong starting XI, it’s a pretty underwhelming selection of options off the bench at the best of times.

Are we really mid table on paper though? Starting eleven you could argue, but there’s a real lack of depth in the squad with too many Championship players. Lose Wilson and ASM to injury (inevitable) and we have Gayle and Joelinton playing. Wouldn’t say there’s enough depth elsewhere either tbh. Given the injuries we had 12th was an overachievement last year. We just happened to be terrible for most of the season and over-reliant on luck. Those things can’t last forever.

Probably asking a really basic year old question here… but what’s the issue with the KSA being director anyway? Why would they not pass the test? Or maybe I have completely misunderstood stuff

Those missed sitters are pretty entertaining tbf.

Being sacked by Derby three times is pretty impressive mind.

To me that’s been the obvious formation for ages but never gets tried. Wilson up top, Gayle if/when he’s injured… ASM and Fraser/Murphy on the wings, Miggy in CAM with Joelinton as cover in those positions also. Shelvey nowhere near the pitch. Makes a bit too much sense though tbh.

He was more talented yes, but there are multiple reasons he didn’t fulfil his potential and I’m sure his attitude is one of them. ASM is a ‘better’ player in that he’s more effective.

Maybe they just have a different opinion? Or should they all be thrown into the idiotic gammon category because they don’t have your insight? It’s highly possible to appreciate some fine things Southgate has done as England manager, respect him for the top bloke he is and also criticise him for his errors. In my view it’s hard to argue with his record but he also got a lot wrong at the Euros given our attacking talent and home advantage, in particular the final.

This is true but inevitably you will need adequate cover for injuries and our options were seriously poor when the few genuinely great players were injured. I think there were plenty of other decent players in those teams and also the likes of Palace and even Fulham crazily 17 points below us (was thinking Ings for example as this was last season), but those aside I think these teams had so much more depth that weak PL players could slot in without looking too badly exposed. Our starting XI I’d say is top 12, but we had players like Shelvey, Joelinton, Ritchie, Clark, Carroll, Hendrick and Gayle getting way too much pitch time for their ability, at times with a few on at the same time. I appreciate coaching and tactics did have an issue in not helping their performances. 12th isn’t an overachievement on paper for our squad, but given the injuries we had I think it probably was given how much we rely on Wilson and ASM, plus our better centre-backs. The performances were of course dreadful by and large and perhaps Bruce and his team contributed to our injury problems, when you consider how much better off we were under Rafa.

Yeah I would say so too but I think when you consider our whole squad, it’s still worryingly thin in terms of adequate cover. Take the star players out and you have Championship at best players covering. I still don’t think we’re much different to the weakest teams - even the likes of Wolves, Southampton, Brighton et al were below us last season and had plenty of players we’d love to have in our starting line-up/bench. Not defending Bruce’s bizarre/non-existent tactics, but 12th was an overachievement last year when you consider that ASM and Wilson missed plenty of games each. It’s only a mid-table squad in the same way the six teams below us could easily have been also.

We do? It stopped working quickly. No real strikers and no real wingers. If we had Pep Guardiola and his Barca attackers then fair enough, but not with ours sadly. Even if it means not playing Miggy as 10, I think we’d have to resort to a more simple 4-3-3 or like what Rafa had when we signed Miggy. He wasn’t a number 10 exactly for him either I thought. Bruce (and maybe Jones too) has tried a range of formations that showed some initial success before becoming confusing and ineffective. At times the ‘Rafa tactics’ worked well. He tried a back four and we thumped Bournemouth. He played the split-strikers role and we blew Everton away. He played the current formation at the end of last season and we had some great results. Eventually they all stopped working, with the lack of organisation and plan becoming evident as well as the players’ limitations being exposed. Sure we will try something else soon and expect a similar trend

Perhaps, but not for that Greenwood goal. Overture that and you’re rewarding a dive surely.

In Bruce's defence (yeah I know), playing Murphy and Ritchie at wing-back worked out pretty well at the end of last season. Murphy isn't the best defensively but I think did a job as a RWB (as opposed to RB), whereas Ritchie payed a key role in our revival last season and isn't normally this crap at LWB. Playing those players alongside that back three was asking for trouble though. I didn't get it - were Lascelles and Schar injured? Clark and Krafth are Championship at best. We have Dummett who plays LCB well, but is injury-prone. Aside from that we had Lejeune, but let him go without replacing him, which is crazy in my view.

Imagine getting all upset because people went to a match anyway It’s just bizarre. They aren’t the scumbags here and have a right to do it.

Yeah, he’s always looked very suspect defensively, but gets away with it because he’s a ‘grafter’. I’m pretty terrible at football but I’m sure there’s more to defending than grafting. Today though he was a new level of rubbish. He is a leader though and I think helped the team out in the relegation fight. However, he shouldn’t be playing there regularly in any Prem team. Crazy we haven’t upgraded.