Abacus

On a different point though, if the rules weren't sufficiently well drafted, that too presumably opens another route for all sorts of appeals.

I would have thought a lot worse of him if he'd agitated for a move or put in a transfer request. Whatever you think about the amounts we were prepared to have bid for him, I like his character, so it shows we're doing something right. Edit - the ball is now indeed in his court as to what he wants to do next.

Ace posts thread here we come.

Parish was entitled to hold out for what he wanted, tbf, even if it was way above what we deemed fair. Playing it out in the media, however, is his mistake, not to mention his daft hair, which was also caught on camera. Fine if you just want more money, but not fine if you don't want to unsettle the player as well. Then again, if there's any truth in the Gordon to Liverpool for a wild swap thing, we've done quite a similar job ourselves. So, you know. Schar is back soon anyway, so hopefully this thread vanishes till January at least.

I feel the best cartoon bear isn't even being discussed in amongst all this other nonsense.

Not having that, I think Pep is in charge of every bit of how the first team works there, and probably the academy too, as I think he's a similar control freak, hence hiring all the Barca people. But, I agree with large parts of what you're saying. Good to see you back btw, even if we disagree on a lot.

I've been talking to other fans after the game and it's ridiculous how negatively some people are seeing our start to the season. We're not firing on all cylinders yet, of course, but we've beaten Spurs with the only two bits of genuine quality in the game, and conceded one goal today by a mistake from our back up CB. Held our nerves in the penalties in the League Cup too. We're going to channel that and steamroller some teams now.

I wondered, though, whether he could be trusted to be the person to do that as well, with the right support and advice. If you have to think outside the box, then perhaps he is the maverick to do it. Somebody needs to be able to make the tough decisions, and he's probably the one who understands this team the best. You don't get to be the best with decisions by committee all pulling in different directions. Pep, I think, just to add to the other examples, is probably in complete control of who they buy and sell, whilst delegating the admin. Apologies if that sounds like word salad - I just don't know who else has the vision now.

He is irreplaceable. God damn, he's a lightning strike when I thought I'd learnt never to get attached to a footballer again. He's our captain and then some.

I have been wondering, what is so wrong with an "outdated" football model which would allow the likes of a Ferguson, a Wenger, or even a Klopp to run the club, instead of running everything by a committee. If we have to think outside the box then, just maybe, we have found ours. We didn't play well in spells, but found a way. It's what all the best ones do.

Darren Eales on his phone sat next to Yasir. Give him a big hug like Amanda would, you melon

All over these, need a goal soon

Also happy to give him time - not sure what his main role is re recruitment. If it's unearthing players to improve the overall squad, then great and he should be given a free hand in that. If it's negotiating deals with teams that don't want to negotiate, that's a daft position for him to be in. The main demarcation then is about what happens re the first team squad, and where the gaps are. The transfer window hasn't been great on that, but I'm finally on board with not signing players for the sake of it, or overpaying in a panic. We'll lose a lot of the fringe squad next summer anyway. I'm kind of hoping that this transfer window concentrates minds to give us a chance to punch upwards, and also that if we recruit in January it's either opportunistic or where there is value abroad. With Botman hopefully back by then, our short term CB crisis should be less at least.

I'm not really convinced by him yet. This is from the i when he was appointed; Eales recounted to the Jed Hughes podcast earlier this year that he built Atlanta United’s fanbase “pub crawl by pub crawl” – drinking with supporter groups and applying the personal touch to the issue of fan engagement. Indeed, he was so regularly pictured out drinking with supporters that when the club ended up looking for a picture of Eales for an MLS presentation, they ended up having to Photoshop the pint glass out of his hand. This may well be unfair and a hit job from them, but I didn't like that at the time and think he was doing a different job at Atlanta, which was to build fan engagement, yet he's already got that here. And that he also built them into a "commercial juggernaut", which we're yet to see here, maybe because he's working in an altogether different environment compared to the MLS. Then there were the comments about letting Eddie concentrate on what he's good at, which I don't imagine would have gone down well for someone previously involved in everything. Cloth eared at best, if this was really sprung on Howe. All complete and utter speculation and time will tell, I suppose.

I have very much enjoyed all the late night angry fan fiction being posted in the last couple of days. I myself am thinking of dreaming up various scenarios where everything is terrible later on, it's just going to be difficult to come up with something new.

Re the last however many hundred pages, has this place turned into Talksport now?

Good to see - this has turned into an NO Christmas special.

There were various rumours that any big deals needed to be signed off by PIF. In that respect, if that was ever true, I wonder if it leads us to being less agile and slow paced in decision making, such as in this transfer window. Amanda seemed to have a hotline to PIF to keep their attention and was a good bridge between all other camps within the club as well, so maybe losing her is a bit more of a blow than we thought. Just putting an alternate theory out is all.

Just re the no Europe thing, that surely only kicks in a couple of months into the season when other teams need to juggle their squad through tiredness or injuries, whereas you get a chance to train and plan between games, imo.

Yeah, I was only thinking he's not had any competitive minutes for nearly a year. So, I guess the other way to look at that is that there's only one way to get them and so to start him.

I'd guess maybe Tonali starts on the bench - he'll be chomping at the bit to get a good half hour / 40 minutes and will get a huge ovation when he comes on if so. Happy either way, just excited to see him on the pitch mainly.

It was the perfect response and as ever shows why Howe is the perfect ambassador for the club, on top of everything else he brings. I spent a few minutes drifting into a parallel universe wondering how some of our previous recent managers would have dealt with the same question. I think only Hughton came out of that particular thought experiment about as well in my mind

Or a second choice goalkeeper

Let's just buy both, and then sell the worst one to Palace for £70,000,001 in January.