Crimson Cardigan

I think what’s annoying is how hyperbolic the criticism gets when someone doesn’t set the world alright here. If you’d scouted Wood purely from comments on here you’d be convinced you were getting a league 2 player.

Ok this Wood thing is getting beyond a joke now, it’s like NO may not be the fountain of football knowledge I assumed it was.

The win ratio without Longstaff is pretty startling like. Tonali Bruno and Joelinton does not look right, that’s for sure.

Chelsea struggle with a low block and are prone to conceding poor goals. We have a chance in this. Also having a squad packed with that many heartless mercenaries means they can lose their heads. We need to play smart.

Palmer was anonymous today. Need to get in his weird little face next week and not just let him Walz around like we did last season.

Our best players haven’t looked too great this season. Villa moved on their “best player” Grealish and never looked back. Maybe we need to come round to this idea as a fan base, unpalatable as it may seem.

He’s just avoiding controversy re Bruce. He clearly thinks Rafa was superior. He essentially said Rafa cared about details and Bruce wanted them to “go out and have fun”. Absolutely damning, just subtle.

Duran is like some random CM regen. Absurd.

Surely the booing is for the ref for blowing up while we had them under some pressure?

Genuinely, without Isak and Wilson who would that player be?

Can’t see it. Wouldn’t even be confident he’d start at Wimbledon. The way he’s spoken about as “raw” “ developmental” “working with him on his game” I’ll bet he’s viewed similar to Hall when he first came.

Next international break

Milan are woeful here like, much worse than when we played them.

Anthony has been abysmal in the PL with a terrible attitude and questionable moral character to boot. If he’s the only option keep the money and wait.

Hearing a lot of gripes about “management speak” - how is a director of football supposed to sound in 2024? We can simultaneously have done well with transfers up till now and have a scouting network/infrastructure that’s not up to scratch. The digs at Ashworth are fine, we have had one Minteh, we need many if we are ever going to overcome PSR. He failed massively when moving players on too. Not sure what’s controversial here. As for deflection, he’s hardly gonna come out and say, “sorry lads, fucked up massively there, what was I thinking?” He clearly believes in himself, and that’s a good thing (obviously the next windows have to be better) The stuff about coming in too late to massively alter the plan rings true. The Howe quotes could be read many ways (and have been). A little bit of friction can be a good thing. I think we can all agree we need more Brighton style signings and maybe Howe and us won’t have heard of them. Hopefully they can work together in the long term. January feels massive, if Howe can keep us in contention till then, one or two signings could have us in a totally different mindset.

Wrong thread, sorry.

Bid rejected.

I’m pretty sure not many were calling Gordan “transformative” either and he absolutely was. I think Eddie could get a lot more out of Elanga…

Chill out friend.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point why Howe didn’t just chuck him in last season. Very lightweight and makes some bad decisions, but there’s lots to work with going forward.

Ok we’re tipping into outright fan fic now. It’ll be great when this is over.

On the plus side this will quiet the “Barnes was a waste of money” stuff for a while.

Was always going to drop Hall for a tough away game. He’s still got a long way to go defensively. He won’t feature away from much for a while yet

I seem to be in a minority but if it’s a choice between Guehi and a RW I’d choose Guehi. Getting back to the mean defence of the champions league placing season is a must. We scored more than enough goals last season. Think people’s at times brutal disdain for Almiron is swaying opinions, but we aren’t linked with a game changing RW (I’d take Madueke but he’s no great shakes so far). Guehi/Botman potentially sorts us for years and years to come.

Minteh, Isak, Bruno, Botman, and hopefully Tonali all been decent pickups from abroad.