Maggies

Like watching a different sport compared to the crap seen in the Premier League. Then along comes VAR to remind you how crap modern football is.

I’ve got £386.7m of successes (49.1%) Successes are: Isak Tonali Gordon Bruno Livramento (he scraped in as his fee feels about right for his performances) Botman (first season alone) Thiaw (only just) Hall Burn Trippier Pope Minteh (due to resale value) Kelly (due to resale value) Targett (loan part) Hall (loan part) I haven’t added Barnes as not convinced he’s achieved 44m and 7th highest signing levels.

More than likely would have conceded a late goal anyway if we had equalised. At least losing 1-0 means we can leave with a little bit of dignity. Hate how gutless this team are.

He has no plan B meaning we can’t be successful when playing twice in a week. He is not ruthless enough to refresh the squad. The lack of activity in January is evidence enough. For both of those reasons alone, I’m hoping he’s replaced at end of the season. The risk of replacing him is very low. We’re 14th in the league! Thankfully not enough games left for us to be in the relegation mix! We’re aren’t living in the Ashley era of success measurements - we should expect (not hope) to be finishing a lot higher in the league.

Yeah - it’s becoming clear Bruno and Isak carried the team (including Howe).

Stupid length of time for the VAR check… then a player goes off with a muscle injury. No need for VAR to have taken that long!

60 minute bell! Triple sub time?

One of the subjective methods I try to use when judging a player is “if we were to sell this player, what club would be interested in signing him?” Answer for Murphy is probably a top end Championship club. He needs to go.

I’m Howe out. The two biggest reasons for why it makes sense to replace in the summer: 1) his one style of play requires intensity which isn’t possible when playing two games per week. 2) his blind loyalty. E.g. it’s 2026 and Murphy is still starting for us… we had a January transfer window and opted not to sign a player… I don’t think the level of rebuild required aligns with his level of player loyalty. Howe should have the rest of this season. Hopefully a few decent results mean the end of season lap of honour is appreciated. He can then head off and be immortalised as someone who won our first trophy in years. We can close chapter one and move on to whatever comes next. As much as there’ll be an element of risk bringing in someone new - we are currently 14th in the league! 14th! It doesn’t get much worse than that (unless you’re still scarred from the Ashley era and accustomed to mediocrity). I’d been keen to hear any counter arguements to my biggest worries above.

Teams need a rebuild. Howe won’t lead it, so needs replaced on that basis alone.

Without European football, it’s at least 2 more season to find out if Howe can cope with the league and Europe demands. Are we willing to wait that long to see if Howe is able to improve and develop to the standards we need? My personal view is no. Bring in a more capable manager at end of this season who can overhaul the squad this summer.

They face us between their European games with Fiorentina. Big opportunity for us to kick start our mini 7 game season.

He’s the most easily replaceable of the players we could sell for a decent fee. Still think he’s better at left back. Hoping he doesn’t leave though as he fit the age profile for what we should be building our team around. We took a risk bringing him after an ACL so he owes us some loyalty… if that stoll exists.

For me, it feels like we need some optimism to end the season on. That could be on pitch where we do put results together and get in to Europe, or off pitch with a few new sponsors and hopefully a training ground announcement. It’s a struggle when it feels like both sides are failing at the moment. Howe has covered up the off field frustrations the last few years. On Howe, my emotions from Sunday are settling a little. If we had another manager currently in charge and Howe was available, I’d want Howe in as top choice.

Yeah. We’ve been poor in the two seasons we’ve had European football. Howe’s style of play relies on intensity, which hasn’t been possible so far with the number of games when in Europe. Needs to learn how to balance and without Europe next year, that’s at least another year away. Not convinced it’s possible - so I’d bring in a manager that has more experience. For what it’s worth, I don’t even think the club are close to considering replacing him. More likely Howe resigns as needs a break.

Still wounded from yesterday. Football is a results game. Give him a mini season between now and end of season. If we qualify for Europe, then he gets another season. If he doesn’t, then that’s evidence enough for him to go. Who we replace him with can be answered in the summer. But it should be very clear - not finishing in Europe, the number of disgusting performances and losing both derbies is not acceptable. Red lines crossed. More than enough time has passed for the baseline measure of success to be greater than the Ashley/Bruce days.

Agreed - we’ve seen enough dross and excuses from this team already. Nothing is going to change. Time to close the post Takeover chapter 1 and move on.

Bed wetter comments are from those still living in Ashley/Bruce era. Enough time has passed now for that not to be the benchmark or what we measure success against.

The dilemma I have is: How many managers could achieve what Howe has with the money and support - probably quite a few. How many managers could push us on the be regular top 4 with a finance rules we have - probably not many, if any. Howe isn’t going to win us the league or push us to the next level. We know that now. But can any manager with the income we have, almost certainly not. However, today particularly after conceding 7 midweek is unacceptable. He’s a nice guy and you can tell he cares - but that doesn’t mean we should accept mid table finishes, losing both derbies and gutless performances. The same old issues are being seen week after week to argue that Howe isn’t part of the problem this season.

Start of the second half. Boot it out for a throw in, but can’t even manage that and give away a goal kick. Fucking pathetic.

Most important man at this club. Need him back desperately.

Is anyone really surprised with the performance or the result? Cheers for the cup. Deserves to see out the season. But unless he’s gets us in Europe then he should be sacked. Unacceptable what this season has been like so far.

Agreed. Plus pressing generally brings the whole team forward by 10 to 20 yards compared to sitting back. A lot of our crappy goals are because we back off and retreat too easily. Anyway - Gordon and/or Osula should be starting this one. As for Nick… he’s a centre forward and should only be played in that position. His performances against Union and Everton away at beginning of the season were the type we need to find more consistently.

Our core issues this season exploited massively sadly. But credit to the team. Collectively they’re not at the level needed to beat Barcelona over two legs, but they gave it their all.

To think I was torn between facing Chelsea or Barcelona in this round… what an idiot Anyway - focus now on the league and a huge game on Sunday