TheBrownBottle

They want to fix European competitions before even thinking about it. Next year’s European Cup just looks awful. Various iterations have been tried before, and they don’t work because the quality isn’t even close to being there, and most of the clubs have zero appeal in Europe or South America. The European clubs won’t risk their players in every game and will treat it like glorified friendlies. It’ll last less than a decade before being killed off, only for another revival of some sort a few years later.

Crackers, isn’t it? We’re sixth in the table with half a squad to come back. If we were sixth bottom at this point I’d understand probing questions being asked. At the moment, it feels like creases to be ironed out, not massive gaping problems caused by a shite manager!

Likewise mate, I agree completely. The unknown is PIF, and I doubt they give a solitary shite what people think. That’s the only worry about this - that there is a chance that they take a different view of current form and take an opportunity in the coming months to go and get a ‘name’ manager. Personally, I’d rather give Howe time and space to develop his squad - he’ll make mistakes, but let him learn from them. I think he’s made errors this year, but I’m looking forward to seeing how he rectifies them (I think he will). But the money at the club may have a different view. Who knows?

Ashworth clearly is a smart operator which is why Man Utd are meant to want him, and the lure of a bigger club makes sense to me - that’s why he’s here and not at Brighton. I don’t get the ‘we’re more attractive than Man Utd’ crack. Just sounds delusional to me, ‘project’ or not. I don’t think it’s the end of the world if he leaves, and I think questions over the summer signings are perfectly valid.

Yep, that’s my thoughts though you’d know better. I think they’d be perfectly to watch Radcliffe make Man Utd successful and passively count the money coming in. They’ve never struck me as having Champ Man fantasies.

Agreed, and I don’t think it should be. It’s not Ferguson’s previous mind. Besides, Howe hasn’t had three finishes in four outside the top ten. I don’t think he’d survive that, and I doubt a single person on here would want him to stay if he had.

Robson deserved to go and was sacked far, far too late. The players turned on him as much as anything. Piss poor away form, indifferent home performances and some bad signings finished him. NUFC’s poor timing and even worse idea of a replacement was the issue, not showing Robson the door Agree that we don’t know PIF’s thoughts though. edit: also, no-one ‘hounded’ Robson out, regardless of what RTG says. People didn’t stay for a lap of honour vs Wolves, after we chucked away 4th. Neither did I, the beer wasn’t going to drink itself.

Ferguson wouldn’t have got six months in the PL era, they were different times. And I’m not sure that simply sticking with a manager who’s failed because they’ll come good because Ferguson did isn’t that strong an argument. Besides, Ferguson’s Aberdeen won two league titles and won a European final vs Real Madrid. The bloke had previous. (This is not an argument for getting rid of Howe. Any talk of the bloke being under pressure atm is crackers).

Likewise - though I find myself curious as to what the bullshit story is

True, Luton have only 5 points from 24 at home. Which is shite and relegation form. Newcastle’s away points this season? 5 from 24. Which is shite and relegation form. We’re in for a classic!

Howard Wilkinson at the beginning there - a man who was in the original version of the ‘We’re in Milan-io’ song, long forgotten in terms of the song (which no longer works without the second part of the verse: ‘we’re in Milan-io, Sunderland’s going down yer know, we’re in the San Siro, they’ve sacked sgt. wilko’). Wilkinson was sacked while we were there. Never thought that chant worked quite as well without the second part.

That’ll dee for me

Cheers haha - and all because I’m irrationally irritated by the nonsense use of numbers to describe positions And your explanation of numbering in Brazilian football simply added to it - the numbering system changed in different football cultures. So I get annoyed at the obvious pretentiousness of describing a ‘6’ in English football, when that number never matched the position described (while arguing against it in the most pretentious way possible)

Yep. Trippier was an incredible signing, and he was a boost and played really well in his six appearances that season - but he was injured in early Feb when the table looked like it did below. He definitely didn’t keep us up ‘single-handed’; I’m not keen on re-writing history. We were still in the clarts when he played his last game that year.

That makes sense that Brazil would have that number sequencing - W-M was in use when Brazil first adopted numbers. So: 11 9 7 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 And W-M was often really a 3-2-5, which makes it clearer: 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 So they would have moved the left-half to left back, so the 6 is the new LB. The inside right is moved into midfield, because in Brazil 4-2-4 becomes the norm in the mid-50s after W-M loses favour. In England, the numbers were first introduced when W-M was somewhat established, but many teams would still line up in the only formation football had actually had for over half a century - 2-3-5 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 In England (UK generally), the centre-half (5) first slotted into centre-back, then when W-M became 4-4-2 in the late 50s, the 6 (left-half) also became a CB, with the inside right slotting into midfield - usually RCM. So the 4 & 8 were your centre mids TBF it was mainly in France and Germany were the ‘6’ was a midfielder and the ‘4’ a centre back. Which is why football hipsters love wanking on about ‘number 6s’ - as if a defensive midfielder who can play a bit is an invention of mainland Europe. Therefore, anyone who calls a defensive mid a ‘6’ is immediately suspicious and should be treated with extreme caution (I’m joking!) edit: for anyone who actually managed to get through that and somehow is curious as to why the team numbers seem to go backwards, that’s because football formations were usually shown in the inverse of what they are today - often in the program the two teams would be shown as if they were on the pitch against each other. So: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Aye, the poor bugger probably would at the moment

Best thing about football - the disappointment doesn’t last because there’s always another game soon after

Also, hopefully if Trippier plays, he channels what another great NUFC right back did at Luton instead of fluffing a clearance …

*sigh* back to the grind of league football Could do with an away win to cheer me up before Xmas. I think we’ll get it, as well. 1-3 for me

It’s more that the reason that Hall’s transfer is permanent in the summer is to avoid FFP restrictions in the current football financial year. So his permanent transfer doesn’t hit the FFP books until the 24/25 season. Cancelling his transfer will have zero impact on what we can spend in January, as anything spent in Jan will be on the 23/24 season books. FFP doesn’t run by calendar year - it’s not rolling in the sense of a moving 36 month window

We’re all guessing because Howe isn’t likely to come out with what he thinks on it. But if the lad isn’t getting mins when we can’t field a fit XI, then there is absolutely a rabbit off.

Hall not signing in the summer doesn’t free up any FFP funds in January

The injuries aren’t coincidental nor are they bad luck. We haven’t adjusted our style of play particularly well to accommodate the fixtures. We go hell for leather at home and cower away because we’re fucked. This can’t continue - we could spend £400m in the summer but if we have the same number of fixtures the same thing will happen again.

Yep, those injuries keep racking up. It really, really does need looking into.

Playing like this for 90 mins is just inviting this sort of thing happening. Our away form is just incredibly poor