wong989

My disappointment with Gordon is after 2022/2023 I thought he was going to be a legit top tier winger. He hasn’t improved though, the mental or technical side of his game…and if they haven’t improved in a couple years they likely won’t. Although I do wonder about the coaching. Do we have coaches who can improve these things? Taking nothing away from Eddie, he improves players like no other, but maybe his style of coaching, maybe that final third composure and technique isn’t his strong suit? just a thought, may be I’m way off…. But, similar to Joelinton, a 10% improvement in decision making, composure and technique would make the world of difference. We can’t afford top players, we must try for the best in coaching and scouting. The whole team lacks top end threat in possession away from home especially.

This is my concern, last year we had results like 3-0 against Leicester where we pressed them into mistakes and went up 2-0. Afterwards there didnt seem to be any intent or any strategy when we had possession. Just slow tempo, waiting. I think we need a couple more coaches, because attacking wise we look toothless, press aside.

If AG could study Barnes decision making and improve his close control a bit, he’d legitimately be an elite winger

Ah yea, true, first time in a long time and lasted 45 minutes

No threat whatsoever , whats the point of even getting the ball, be better off with low block crap players and buy a better ASM , shocking

Elanga owes a hat trick here

I had such high hopes for Gordon aafterr22/23 but he doesn’t have the brain, we have so little creativity in the final third. Could do with Eddie being more ruthless but he seems to have become more safety first, I know we have 3 games a week but Christ when did we last look fluid

Would like to see a fluid performance, crisp, quick passing, chances made…wouldn’t even mind an unlucky draw, but these away performances have been so poor

This is why we needed to be the best in the league at finding value and strengthening the squad and U-21s in the most efficient way, taking attitude and prem attributes into account. Ramsey and Elanga for 100mil isn’t it, Guehi for 60 was shocking. Thiaw was available then. Another season where mid table clubs have signed players well good enough for our 11 or to strengthen our bench.

Odd, been riddled with injuries, and worse, he's gone from looking like an elite clubs lynchpin to looking like he's trying to show off the new flaws in his game. Hope and pray he gets back, that was the best Newcastle center back I've seen, granted it was a very short time period, but has looked a shell since. Where he was deceptively quick and agile (considering he's a fridge with legs) now the movement, positioning, composure, it all looks calamitous, and you get the sense he knows it and doesn't trust himself. Reminds me of the Fernando Torres situation, hopefully he rebounds. Hopefully its a contract that doesn't hang around our neck for the duration if he isn't good enough.

Mad that the last 3 years we haven’t signed at least one goalie under 21 with some potential who would be good enough to at least be a solid number 2 after a bit of development. Considering our PSR problems, signing Ashworth etc, we don’t seem to have many young lads who may be squad options even

We’ve made a habit of signing young players who despite not playing a lot of matches have suffered multiple, sometimes serious injuries, and often for big money. There may be times it’s justified, Tino justified it, but hes racking up injuries again. Willock and Ramsey, seeing their history, it’s more likely to become a Callum Wilson situation than ever exceeding what we paid for any decent length of time. Seems totally unnecessary, and we’re overpaying given the risk…on Ramsey anyway.

This is one of the areas I think Howe falls short in, the ‘small pool of players’ theory. When there’s an undervalued player who can improve the squad, we should be in. Eddie seems too set on certain areas/targets, and pursues them even when they aren’t available. Arteta signing Trossard is a good example. It’s speculative, but I get the impression that Eddie wouldn’t have considered that type of move, as Trossard wasn’t noticeably better than what they had at the time. But he was good enough to add something tangible at a good price and won them lots of points.

Aye, got to enjoy the little things, take time to smell the roses

The passing and movement is predictably heinous.

The only thing I’d count against Eddie compared to managers in his bracket is signings and squad turnover. Think we hang onto or play players too long out of loyalty or not wanting to risk disruption, when we’ve needed a good few players, and value has been around. The French-African midfielder from Monaco we’ve been linked with was near out of contract last year, we go for Ramsey. In the other hand, Eddie’s record of improving players is second to none. This also makes it baffling he seems averse to taking a risk on foreign players, at least players who show robustness and quickness of thought.

Not saying that, just that we had a run of great results where we didn’t play that well, and when we did play a team in form, or with an attentive manager, we struggled badly and created little, Bournemouth and Brighton come to mind, Everton of course but the rat didnt help there. Not saying it to be overly critical. More to say it seemed apparent that without being able to force teams into mistakes in their halves we lacked the composure and creativity in areas to consistently win.

We stripped them of the ball twice leading to about 1.9 xg scored a great counter, just saying by no means did we look like a top creative attacking team there or in the run in in general

I’m still in the camp of give Howe more time. I do remember those matches though last season and we didn’t tear Leicester to shreds. We forced them into mistakes and scored a good counter goal. Aside from that we looked inept the odd occasion we tried to make something happen. Since Trips isn’t there to make plays on the right we’ve got very little other than goals from pressing. Haven’t added the creativity we needed. And now we aren’t or can’t press.

Ramsey looks so reticent and indecisive in defensive situations and a non entity in possession, that said the whole team looks disorganised and without purpose.Typical away performance.

Elanga. Waste of absolute space right now. His head is not right to play in these high stakes situations. Needs to come on if we’re 3-0 up or down. Unreal.

Terrible sub, Murphy was dangerous , we sub on a guy who is the antithesis. A tired Murphy can at least cross for a goal.

Red is brutal, Cucurella is the archetypal Chelsea player, I just don’t get why we refused to set out to play this aggressively against Sunderland among others. Hopefully this continues. We need aggression in our game, passivity kills us.

He’s been excellent when playing but we seem to have made a strategy of signing young players who’ve already suffered at least one if not numerous (Willock, Ramsey) very serious, exponentially recurrring injuries. We may get lucky and not unduly suffer with these, but at some point youre stuck with numerous 20 something Callum Wilson’s on unmoveable contracts. And the money. Tino was pushing it. Ramsey, who showed bare flashes at 21 and is now 24 with no progression and we pay 40 mil. And this is ‘taking advantage of Villas PSR issues’. Our money men, and Howe needs to be held responsible have failed to capitalise on the abnormally bad seasons from cartel clubs

Thats what it seemed like to me, Ramsey looked exciting (if you're Villa or England), but it never became something consistent. Then Rogers came, immediately took his position and decided games. But that's the rub, Rogers cost around 10-15 million. Considering how poor our U-21's and reserves are, if CIty are off-loading to Middlesboro for 1mil, don't know why we aren't in there, especially looking at Rogers raw attributes and mentality. He wouldn't have been too far off replacing Longstaff, stepping in for Willock, Joelinton. We don't take enough risks or look far forward enough in our transfer policy.