Lucky

The PL overall is definitely stronger than most European sides now, definitely in terms of fitness and physicality, maybe just a handful of the stacked sides (usual culprits) who just have that technical sorcery to overcome it. Technically we’re ok but plenty of room to improve and I’d say in terms of fitness and physicality we’re not quite as intense as some of our PL rivals at the moment which is why we struggle at times. That’s not all on Howe but he does have a say in who we bring in etc, I’d just like to see us control games more so we don’t have to expend so much more energy than opponents to win games because that fatigue is what’s causing the dips, occasional injuries and certainly some players finding it hard to find good form. I’ve no doubt we will go on a run and be in or around the top 4, or at least top 6.. my point which is what it always has been is that we’ll never have a proper pop at the league with so many “off days”. I haven’t seen Howe try to address this yet.

Didn’t see the game yesterday so only have the highlights to go by. Looks like we should have had more goals but I was reading the match thread in the second half and it seemed like we were playing badly up until the last few minutes? My opinion about our form hasn’t changed. If we’re in a position squad wise to be competing up at the top of the table, we cannot be just happy to write off a 1/4 of our season because the manager always starts slowly. Don't think that’s unreasonable. I’m not calling for him to be sacked and never was. But he needs to do something different that gives us consistency from the off. Even with the squad we have now, it always seems like we have to work so much harder than other teams to pick up wins, especially in the PL.

Good old Jake ☺️

They have 9 threads locked on RAWK.. why do they do that though? Someone is just going to rant somewhere else.

Bent ref, never been so obvious. Well done Brentford for hanging on.

Sustainability rules working just fine then..

I’d say it’s sitting firmly with PIF at the moment, the recommendations are there, the report done. Its down to their intentions now, they’ve already brought us up from the Ashes (pun not intended).. But is this still a strategic investment for them or do they want to leave a legacy marker.. which a state of the art new stadium certainly would be. Before all that work I outlined in an earlier post, they simply just need to make a decision on it. If the freemen have indicated that the site they need will be made available (again, others on this board will have more info on that), then it’s simple a yes or no. Would appear PIF need some convincing?

They’re starting to turn but they’re also bothered by how we’re lapping it up ☺️

I think his heads gone too.. like full on Dele Alli. Where’s he now?

Feel bad for Schär but this guy is undroppable at the moment.

Defensively excellent tonight. His best days are behind him but he looks after himself so he’s kept a very good level. But agreed, we can’t run him into the ground.

Rafa knew..

His spatial awareness was superb tonight. Agree he needs to add that but of aggression and physicality to his game but, he’s 19.. it’ll come. He needs a run in the side now as he was far more confident as the game went on.

Trippier looks like a midget in that pic

If he has a good squad, he wins trophies.

We need another goal or two, this lot will keep getting chances the way we’re set up.

Souness, Bruce and Kinnear are appointments I’ll never get over because of who they replaced. Pardew was a tit but we did genuinely have 1-2 good seasons with him, probably one actually. But we played good football and beat a lot of the so called big 6 that year. McClaren ended up being a tit but there was a little bit of hope there and we made some good signings that summer. He was just too shit to do anything with them.

What are the odds Elliott Anderson has been on the phone to his agent all morning? 2 years of Dyche ball at this stage of his career could be massively damaging if he stayed.

That dressing room at the time was toxic though, some of those fuckers far too big for their boots. He could have dealt with the Bellamy situation differently, at least play him until end of season and then replace him quietly. Wasnt he getting fired at Blackburn anyway but then we paid them compo to get him?

We have far better players now. A washed up Dyer, Butt and Duff with Parker also in the midfield and then Martins and Sibierski up front. Good old 4-4-2 when the game had already moved on from that.

I still think back to when he first came in and giving a talk to the players on the pitch while Steve Bruce stood off to the side looking completely cucked. There was no way he was involved in that decision.

Be surprised if he left at this stage of his career. Job is safe enough here.

I still think he’s a very good coach. Fenerbahce and Spurs are the only places he hasn’t won something. Shouldn’t underestimate these lot, remember when we played AZ Alkmaar in the Europa and Louis Van Gaal in charge, similar vibes.

His press conference sounded like a job interview but those were the questions he got. Only spoke about his team once.

Eddie has said he’s still trying to settle in and adjust to being used in a different way that he’s adding new elements to his game.