Nine

Ridiculous amount of unfortunate injuries this season

Will be more than fine next season if he stays, good player. Not sure he ever justifies the fee and wages though.

The greatest

No circumstance taken into consideration, not logical at all.

The injury just derailed what was already a financial mistake. We gambled on this guy hitting the ground running and holy shit did that backfire. This really was last minute desperation.

An NOism

Stale support is never far away

Actually yes and we have the same strength in depth? Non conversation

It’s going to be enjoyable, one way or another

I think with the nature of the system and the circumstances of this season we need a full summer reset and to go again, I see no reason why it can’t come good again with Howe. It absolutely can. The question marks are more mid-long term for me, how far can we go under the current set up?

Indeed. Howe is strongly against that, I think it’s pretty short sighted sometimes but I do get the thinking behind it.

Wasn’t trying to paint anything as a positive as it’s been a very poor response and I think everyone would agree, and that’s the worry really. Howe has always pulled us out of a bad run way before it’s got to this point, we had a rocky point in 23/24 during the CL schedule then managed to stabilise it (decimated by injuries as we tried to press our way through the build up, this was an awful idea). Of course other clubs were in range of Europe, they have been both other times we have secured CL with Howe and it’s to be expected. We’ve fallen short this time. We managed the schedule better this time but it’s still to much for this squad, to stay inside the top 8 and play CL group games would be a huge ask no matter how we set up. Same happened with Villa last season, only they had a strong start and strong finish which we have not and got 6th. At all.

We played the most games across the top five leagues in Europe this season until we exited the CL I believe, this makes for another conversation on how adaptable the current set up is during a busy schedule of course.. as it’s far from ideal. The flexibility isn’t there. There are definitely circumstances here, the Barca/Sunderland game is unfortunately where we went off a cliff but before that we were still well within a European spot shout again.

It’s not that he can’t, it’s just his method. It sets a standard across the squad, a bar that they all must be above. It’s pretty clever actually in its own right (however when form dips, it can be a double edged sword as on the surface it looks like he won’t adapt) finding technical beasts that also meet these requirements and fit within PSR is the issue it’s not that Howe doesn’t know how to use them. Wolte being a bit of an enigma as he came in as a striker when I personally believe in the PL he’s gonna have to be an AM/#10 more time and we couldnt adapt to that yet, which I think is fair although of course you could argue the money might have been better spent on a different player. Up until a couple of months ago it was working and you’d have been singing the praises just like anyone else on here. Given a fresh summer and some better recruitment than last year there’s no reason at all we don’t come out firing next season using Howes tried and tested way. The age of the squad has to be lowered, and maybe we go through a bit of a transition next season along with that.

It was improved, considering the opposition. But it was still very lacking especially in the final third, best chance was spunked by a 55m striker who doesn’t play.

Came here to say this Hes got the wrong shirt on out there, as sad as that is for us

That such a rusty, no confidence swing

What a ball Wolte

Has he ever gotten one of those right?

Has he ever got one of those right?

That’s the spirit

Thiaw

Incredible finish

Let’s see how the first 10-15 pan out

He’s going man for man as he’s done before against these, it’s worked before but who knows