Polarboy

Tripper is finished at this level. He looked decent against Arsenal, but their attack is severely blunted at present with Injuries etc. I'd hoped that those mistakes he made last season were a blip, but his decision making when trying to mark one on one seems to have deserted him. Howe should probably take some blame as well given he put short arse Trippier on the Egyptian fella, whose name I would no doubt mispell.

Miggy waiting until possibly his last game for us to use his right foot 😂

The lad in midfield Fernandes looks tidy on the ball. We've struggled to get the ball off him when he's had it.

Hinchcliffe vaselated from OK to nonce territory in the first half. Saying Arsenal could have been two nil up when we'd put two over the bar from good positions ourselves before the Arsenal chances.

He's really lost the aul French accent since I last heard him speak about a week ago.

What's the name of the co-commentator on sky?

Apparently Shefki Kuqi has been seen in Newcastle airport. 🧐

It would be nice if Elanga is just a smokescreen, but you'd have to be bordering on psychotically optimistic to believe there's any chance of that.

Troy Deeney said it, unless this guy also chimed in.

In regards to who is to blame, it could also be that it's just tough to get the level of player that we're after given our current position in terms of not being in Europe, lacking funds for big wages etc, and as Howe said there's really only a pool of 4 or 5 players for each position you're looking at that can substantially improve the team.

Howe has denied that we put our entire focus on Guehi, and said that we tried to sign several alternatives.

Brighton for example can spend now because they've made several hundred million in player sales in recent years, having paid less than a quarter, or thereabouts, for said players. The new owners have come in and the only good thing you could say about Ashley in terms of PSR was that there wasn't much debt on the books. PIF et al have basically had to start from scratch in terms of academy player development, which of course is crucial for creating profit, the commercial sponsors end of things, and just generally getting into a decent position for trading players. Ashley left a squad partially made up of tat who were on ridiculously long term contracts, therefore almost impossible to get rid of, and who generate next to no profit. The PSR rules are far too stringent, so we'll either have to be very patient and wait for our commercial, academy and player trading to start feeding substantial money into the coffers, or pray that the rules are substainally slackened. I want to be able to throw a sausage up the PSR alley 😉 Of course some of the "top six" will likely fight tooth and nail to prevent anything that might challenge their hegemony.

I see Howe shot down, Hope's was it?, nonsense about him being fixated on Guehi and therefore not allowing Mitchell to sign an alternative once negotiations broke down with Palace. According to Howe we've tried to sign several alternatives.

Looking on the bright side if we're not going to get a centre half we may push all our chips in for an attacking player. The Telegraph did say we'd still active in terms of looking for possible deals.

Mandy and Mehrdad will be feeling pretty smug come Friday if we don't sign anyone. Even if it's only a perception, and the actual reality is more complicated, there will be a perception that they were far more competent when it came to signing players.