TheBrownBottle

Woltemade was in his mid-20s and a full German international when we signed him - Tomasson was coming off a good season for Heerenveen. The German top flight is a harder one to excel in. That’s why there was a massive disparity in transfer fees - Tomasson was misused and thrown in when he was raw. Woltemade should be far closer to the finished article.

Tomasson was much younger, was cheap and was thrown in far too soon. There aren’t any real similarities.

Yep, that’s true. They never started moving backwards at a rate of knots though. I’m struggling to think of any examples of a manager recovering from a nose-dive like this. My suspicion is that a combination of PSR and ownership incompetence are the only things keeping the manager in his role at this point.

Also, unless I missed a season I don’t remember Arsenal ever looking close to this shite under Arteta

Yeah, completely agree - nowt wrong with non-technical forwards as long as they’re good; our forward line is fucking dreadful

A little from column A, a little from column B

Yep, at least Elanga - unlike Wissa - appears to be a good pro

Plenty did predict that it wasn’t a good signing mind. I can remember writing on here that I was relieved when Howe’s interest in 2024 didn’t end up amounting to anything. It was completely foreseeable - it was an unimaginative signing carrying massive amounts of risk given the fee. Howe and his nephew don’t get off the hook on it.

Gordon and Elanga aren’t technical footballers either. Elanga is just a runner; Gordon is a more effective runner. That we’ve played more crosses into the box than any other side and have fuck all to show for it speaks of the footballing intelligence in our play, our wingers, and our coaching / coaches. Just endless, aimless lobbing the ball into the box with little to no outcome. It’s like watching Franz Carr all over again. Bruno and Hall are the only two really adept technical footballers in the side. Woltemade is more like a technical footballer, but not a particularly good one. That’s not close to being good enough given just how much money has been spent.

I don’t think Howe’s current style is similar to pre-25/26 Howe. There’s almost no ‘intensity’; the gegenpressing has been dropped. There is no discernible style of play at all; we don’t play a passing game nor a pressing game. It all looks flat and frankly we don’t look like a coached side.

He might be better, but it’s definitely not a ‘no brainer’ that he’d be great. I seriously doubt the lad has it to be great in the PL.

As someone who did exactly this more times than I can count (with my dad and my uncle as a kid in the late 80s / early 90s, then with mates through the 90s), the football this season has been shite - expectations are geared around investment in the team. We’ve spent the money and this is the net result. It’s not good enough.

Technical players to me are about ball control and vision tbh - all our wingers are ‘head-down’ footballers. They have neither the control nor the vision to be good technical footballers. Tackling is more often than not the consequence of poor positioning. Shooting is a mechanical function.

I’ve never seen an NUFC as mentally weak as this one in terms of closing matches out. We’d have dropped points last week if old Minty didn’t miss an open goal. It’s went beyond being annoying and arrived at being hilariously expected. It isn’t bad luck, it’s bad coaching. If Howe’s here next season, the first priority signings should be new backroom staff - get some new ideas and new faces into there. Whatever is happening on the training ground and in the dressing room isn’t working.

They played their biggest game in forever two and a half days ago and still had enough in the tank for a late equaliser. At some point that ‘Eddie needs one game a week’ added benefit should be kicking in.

He shouldn’t be criticised for not picking him - he should be criticised for buying him

The fact that this team can’t score goals makes it easy to judge him as well, mind. It’s his job.

I’m going to touch wood, but we look a lot more like ‘us’ so far

I do like Osula’s directness. Not entirely convinced by the lad, but he does drive the ball well.

Happy to agree to disagree - just to add I agree re this, I think a lot of it has to do with level of control he wanted to exert at a club

Ferguson shut down the press after he’d won a boatload of trophies. He was in a position to do that because of what he’d won and his job was safe as houses as a consequence. He didn’t shut down the press in the 90s.

No, I am aware that some journalists have an agenda. I’m perfectly happy with the manager being held to account on some level. Ferguson went on like that because he was a bullying cunt. If you the implication is that Man Utd won trophies because of that, I’m unconvinced.

Yep, comfortably makes my all time NUFC XI.

More the notion that asking difficult questions leading to problems for an interviewee shouldn’t be the concern of a journalist in something as trivial as football What is the gain? Knowledge, insight, explanation, justification - could be anything. What could be lost? Control of the narrative if you’re the manager. From a fan perspective - not much. I don’t see why anyone who supports the club would have any issue with a manager taking accountability / justifying their actions. You’d think they would have justification for any decision, even if others may think a better result or consequence might have arise if another decision had been made. The manager is the one who ultimately spends most of what the paying punters put through the turnstiles or spend on overpriced clobber with the club crest on it - I don’t see why they should be wrapped in protective blankets when a local journalist asks them about why they’ve dropped a particular player or their reason for signing one.

Problem is, we’ll have to play in Europe again the season after that. Nightmare!