Matt1892

If this form continues in to next season then the pressure will come from the crowd, I don’t think the club will let it go on that long though and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them move him on in the summer if we carry on like this.

The perception of us would have been set by how we handled Bayern’s interest in Trippier, rather than someone behind the scenes.

I know this is harsh but what I’m hoping for is for someone to come in and oversee us poaching youth players before they are about to sign a professional contract, so they sign their first one with us and we pay their old club compensation. Liverpool have done this really well over the last few years and it is a way to boost the academy in the short term.

You would imagine his contract will not only contain a long notice period, but also restrictive convenants within his contract including not being able to work for a direct rival for a period of time of up to a year once his notice period has finished, as well as a non-poaching covenant regarding NUFC employees for the following 12 months. The above things are standard in most employment contracts at executive level, which is why compensation will be more than paying off his notice salary.

They are levels above those clubs in terms of the players they can attract and afford though, so more often than not they buy big name ready made stars at the high end of the market. They won the FA youth cup in 2022 with Mainoo and Garnacho, these players will go on to be better than anything Brentford have ever produced from their academy. This isn’t to say these things cannot be improved, more that it is more difficult to make a significant impact than if you are starting out with the basics like he inherited here.

I doubt our academy or scouting network are anywhere near their level, the women’s team certainly isn’t.

I remember Ronaldo complaining about it but you would imagine it is still far superior to what we had at the point of the takeover, where players were using wheelie bins as plunge pools or whatever it was.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t informed the club of his desire to move and is supporting the club in securing a replacement. I don’t think he has had much of an impact here but from what the Athletic have said about his time here, which all fall outside of things included for FFP, you would think it is going to be more difficult for him to have an impact at Man Utd, based on them having all of those things far superior than us anyway (academy, training facilities, women’s team) yet not have the financial leeway for improvements.

I am not sure he has done anything of note thus far to justify being upset about his potential departure. Any idea of the competition we paid Brighton for him?

We would be lucky to get our money back on Joeinton.

Another team that will try and hit us with pace down Burns side on the counter, it could be either Tavernier or Semenyo down their right hand side.

There are a lot of similarities between Billing and Joelinton in the centre of midfield. I think we overrate Joelinton as fans on his ability in the middle, the best we have seen of him here is wide left with Willock filling the left central midfield slot.

Fully onboard with the club picking up some free transfers to pad out the squad, as long as they are the right profile. We can then sell players under contract to boost first team signings.

I thought he was booked for waving the imaginary card rather than the foul.

I think we are at a point where we need freshen things up and not just add to the existing group. If we can move 2 or 3 on and bring 4 or 5 in then that should give us the quality and quantity needed if done right.

Our run in isn’t too bad at all, we should be looking to win 10 of the remaining games if we sort ourselves out. 6th should be the target but we need others to fall apart if we want 5th.

Pointing out the historic failings of another clubs manager would be a pointless unless he hasn’t learned from them, which it would be difficult to argue that Pep hasn’t considering he us put together the best side in world football. Slight difference between that and continuing to play Dan Burn against quick wide men knowing the opposition manager will target him as a weak link, then failing to learn from it. I can change the language to one less likely to hurt your feelings but the point still stands.

I think it’s a fair comment to make about how the Saudi’s will react, if people don’t say it then it won’t make it less of a reality. I have a lot of time for Howe and want a successful club with him as manager; however, we have to be able to discuss his failings and hope he can learn from them.

Stop being so negative.

I can see us going for Lloyd Kelly at left back on a free transfer, who is currently linked with Spurs and Liverpool. The only concern about him is his injury record.

Other than on match day when emotions are high, this thread usually consists of people making fair criticisms or voicing concerns they have about the team, tactics or results. The opposite side of that is people who don’t seem to be able to handle such opinions being voiced and get defensive about it, they don’t challenge the opinion but the fact someone has had the audacity to raise it, who wants to paint a picture of everything being perfect after we pick up a victory and that those criticisms cannot be valid due to us winning. ”Go and support Man City then” Fucking hell.?

I went to the Notts County vs Gillingham game last night, then stopped the night in Nottingham before driving to Lincoln to watch their game with Fleetwood this afternoon.

I don’t think it’s a case of being a Champions League team at announcement and the other one wasn’t, there is a feeling that PIF want to make us one of the most successful clubs in the world which is why Adidas wanted in, which will be reflected in the deal and comes at a cost. All I’ve been told is that a lot of work went in to securing the deal with us by adidas and that Nike were also in contention, that they worked hard to keep the news from coming out. Where as with Villa it was an unexpected opportunity that came along.

We should beat these comfortably, they have only won once at home in the last 3 months in all competitions in normal time. Included in that they were taken to penalties after extra time in the week by a mid table championship side and drew with a league one side. They are shite.

I don’t think we are many bad performances away from the crowd turning on him at home. If we hadn’t pulled it back against Luton it would have been hostile at the end.