Famous Nick

huge summer for DoF and CEO. setting the direction, revamping transfer system, I actual hope this is already done in the background and worked on since months, and we are scouting potential targets already and not looking at options only in July. Howe has his issues, tactically especially, managing busy calendars, what to do when we dont have a week to prepare for our high intensity style which is when we are at our best. he may need to think to get another assistant who will challenge him tactically, give a different tactical idea etc. someone who worked at CL level before. but it starts with owners, they set targets, if they want regular CL, they need to bring sponsors, bend the rules, improve squad, raise salaries to be more in line with rivals which is obv very hard as all kind of corrupt rules put in place to stop that. the way PSR set up is to make sure no one can jump in from the outside to inside the big boys without being limited and forced to sell their players. City, Arsenal, Liverpool , Chelsea can keep adding to their squad. Villa, Newcastle dont have this luxury. they can also afford number of flops and go again next window. we do a flop transfer, it might reduce us for same position for 2 years. still unsure of Wissa/Woltemade, but doubt we gonna make another striker transfer. we need to try to get best out of these two. if Chelsea got them, they would move them out or loan one/sell one and bring in another two upgrades. Joao Felix, Nicolas Jackson--> Delap, Joao Pedro) my worry is some players if they have suitors they will ask to be sold. Hall, Livramento, Bruno, Tonali main ones that can have offers from top CL clubs. if that happens which is more understannable after a season like this then Isak's after last season which ended positively with cup success and getting into CL. no cup success, acceptable CL performance but crashed out with a huge loss, and very poor PL results where we arent any better than mediocre Fulham, Sunderland with lot lesser squads.. moment of truth this summer of which direction the project is going. bit worried owners aint as much focused due to Iran conflict and to be fair the whole Saudi league project is going sideways. are they still adamant of making us number 1 in the word, make us Champions, build new stadium etc, whats the timeline. getting that 7-2 loss at world stage probably didnt help.

its a bit unreal to me how they play like this. they lost Frank the manager and Mbuemo, Norgaard, Wissa, Flekken 4x big starters. and yet they look more solid this season than last season.

I do think tactically players might have developed a feeling that we hit a ceiling when playing such a crazy busy fixture list which wont allow us the that much needed extra running and tempo to be played. and the alternative Howe is coming up with is just very poor tactically and outfoxed by stronger and weaker squads too. sadly there is very good chance Emery will outfox him same way as in PL recently and we are out of FA cup this weekend. if there is a poor result vs a very bad Tottenham too midweek, that this is an incredibly shit week after an incredibly shit week we just had.

is he getting the best out of the squad?

rivals wont stop spending big. expect big summer from City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal again. if Villa get into CL then they will add some quality too. us with not getting into CL wont have transfer kitty unless we sell 1-2 of our best players but then we need to replace them with just as good instead of actually adding and improving the squad to reduce the gap. which as last window showed we struggle with as we effectively replaced Murphy's pretty good G+A with Elanga's poor output etc. PSR is working wonders as planned to keep out clubs unless there is unexpected dropoff from Sky 6. I bet Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd wouldnt not mind them sharing top5 in most years with 5th almost always being a CL place too. and they will imo as they need really poor managerial performance not to be in top5 if other 15 sides are limited with PSR.

we arent any better in league than mid table like Brentford, Fulham, Everton, Sunderland. that will need to change by end of May. we should e clear of these sides. I would set this target for Howe now. be at least 5-6 points clear of these sides and finish on 7th whatever it takes. otherwise its almost random if we are 8th or 14th. dont think its incredibly big ask to finish 7th with this squad. specially if we look at Tottenham and how bad they are thats one less side we need to worry about but it mught change is they bring new manager who brings a bounce... problem is in our next 6 PL games we have Brentford home, Tottenham away, City away, Man Utd home, Chelsea away, Sunderland home add in Villa away in FA cup and two Qarabag games for extra tiredness. worry is by end of this run we could e overtaken by all of Bournemouth, Brighton, Toottenham too and even fuckin Sunderland is hanging around front of us in the table. I fully expect us to beat Quarabag but then we face Chelsea or Barca. look at the calendar the CL last 16 rounds sandwiched right between this,, its gonna be madness to manage all of this for Howe just like this current PSG, Liverpool, City run... Chelsea away PL 1st leg of CL last 16 (= away to Chelsea or Barca) MU home PL 2nd leg CL last 16(= home vs Chelsea or Barca) Sunderland home PL while MU sits back all week same as Sunderland while we get run ragged in CL. this well could be a disaster.

this iteration of City is levels below their prime levels. put them under pressure, press them and they will panic. that said we shouldnt have lost by two goals in 1st leg and was almost three to be fair. we were very poor just as vs Liverpool. even a poor Spurs side upped the tempo with their 10 injured players in 2nd half vs them yesterday and almost overturned it from 2-0 down. but to be fair I wont be very surpised if we go out here losing both legs. PSG and Liverpool games must have taken lot out of Howe and players and the ask of going into Carabao final after that 1st leg is unreal... more worried about Brentford game who will sit back all week, relax, plan their game against us and probably giddy that with a win they can step away 6 points from us. and they jut beat Villa even with red card.

doesnt look good thats for sure. we need seriously revamp scouting, transfer decisions, sporting director input etc. not many future windows we will have the chance to spend this much on the back of the fee we got for rat Isak.

if no CL next year especially if it comes without even EL, thats about 50-60m less revenue for us. we will have limited transfer kitty without sales and sadly some of transfers we spent big on didnt turn out to be great and this was the difference in previous years like we had hit and big hits usually but this summer window is more meh this is something we cannot afford if we want to keep up with the rivals who can afford expensive flops and still spend big next summer. we cant do that, and certainly cannot carry flops who dont help us much but kind of stuck with them as we cannot afford to send them out on loan and take huge hit on them like Hojlund, Antony, Grealish etc. no CL also means 1-2 top players might want to move on to CL teams. likes of Livramento, Guimaraes, Tonali might have the interest... really bad situation I dont think we will have much of a kitty if no big player sale and no CL/EL next season.

most likely closer finish to 10th than 4th as it seems.

he needs to learn from these games. there is no reason Villa should be that much higher up than us. 2/3 more bad rounds and we are in lower half behind likes of Sunderland fucking nonsense. starting too accept CL is not gonna happen next year which leads to revenue drop, and if we dont pick up wins even EL is unlikely. Conference would pay peanuts and mostly distraction really.

with the Chelsea result earlier and the ManUtd turnaround with Carrick we simply cannot lose this game if we want CL next season. if anything we need to win it. feels like we will be 10+ points behind the 5th place in by end of February if we are not careful.

next games will be huge test for him. PSG, Liverpool, City all away from home. going into these with a loss at home vs Villa in the same round when Chelsea and Man U. win away games to build a bit of gap on us. our chances to be in CL next season is very bad now.

I am livid. 2nd hlf we need to turn this into a win. hoping a serious HT team talk from Howe both mentality wise and tactically.

we must win when Chelsea and Man United both dropping points. and Spurs too. we just need to beat promoted Leeds at home. surely Howe understands how crucial to win today for CL places.

MU dropped points, Liverpool and Chelsea potentially dropping points too today. we must beat Palace to get closer to top 5. Howe and players need to deliver 2nd half.

hoped he is serious upgrade on Barnes and Murphy. What we really miss is Murphys G+A from last season. nobody replacing that and its getting very visible.

Everything is made worse by Sunderland form and points tally. I literally would have laughed off anyone saying after round 11 they will be top4 and 7 point above us. how the fuck? with a squad worth fuck all and a no-name manager with zero PL experience. of course we visit them just after a Wed night away CL game, just to be tired enough to get suckerpunched.

On thing is sure, Trafford wouldnt have been benched all the time behind Pope. So we wanted to upgrade but in the end we didnt. I think Pope taken us as far as he can. But he is not good enough for where we want to go. Problem is I dont rate Ramsdale much. He has blunders in him under pressure that is why Arteta upgraded on him in the past.

he will play AFCON and get injured and we wont see him until March.

Very worried now, especially that tactically many lesser sides/squads/managers are solving problems Howe cannot currently and finding him out. and the form of players also mediocre. Elanga as a signing was expected to give us a lift, but is he trying to get 0+0 in G+A? Wissa nowhere to be seen. Defending shambles,, conceding a lot, creating little. we need an incredible turn of events in form, tactics, mentality so we can fight for CL places by April comes around. going to WHU and Brentford and get nothing is a joke. City home, Marseille away, Everton away on next three. I dont think there is one win in that 3 games. we dont that that nice little extra 1 week rest between each game we had last season and helped us a lot. even if we do well in midweek CL game , our energy level are fucked by the weekend.

ffs, this will go like this: just back in time so can join Afcon in December.

Howe knows if he doesnt win vs both Union and Forest then the start is really poor overall. we need to create more chances and simply have the wingers add end product, Gordon, Barnes, Elanga either become more prolific this season or we will struggle a lot. likely we wont have that purple patch season from Murphy again (8G+12A in PL in 24-25), Woltemade-Wissa has a ot on their plate to replace Isak's numbers, sadly none of our wingers seem to show any decent form apart from good 20-30 mins here and there but nothing consistent from match to match with end regular end product. 6 points from 6 games, well I expected better mid August. lot of room to improve, especially in possession. we just dont seems to have enough good ideas and and up hurry and make mistakes lose the ball etc. we aint gonna have same fitness levels like last season due to lots of extra games, away CL games especially will be draining. somewhat easier games in next 6 in PL, Forest, Brighton, Fulhm, Spurs, West Ham, Brentford

fuck off

time to attack a bit maybe?