The Fish

Imagine, the day you win the lottery and your neighbour switches internet provider. Same vibes.

Whoever he chooses to manage, the other one is going to look fucking stupid.

Listened to Caulkin's podcast earlier and they were talking about how Eddie isn't the same character as Keegan or Robson, that larger than life, exuberant, lightning rod for change. He reminds me a lot, in specific ways, of Hughton. There was a quiet, composed affable if fairly vanilla bloke who oversaw a seismic shift at the football club. The players and fans got behind him, he executed his plan on the pitch with little fanfare. We needed a steady Eddie for that period, and hoo boy do we need one now. Too much ego may have unsettled the existing players and put a wrinkle in the capes of our new heroes. Would Joelinton have been reborn under Emery as he is under Howe? Would we have signed the personalities we did or gone for flashier names? Howe has professionally made us professional. It ain't sexy but it's a fucking fillip

I thought this was just that percycola lad on the wind up, but if this has got legs well... that's just fucking hilarious.

It'll take a while to get the partnerships right. Bear in mind this is largely a new defence. If we think our first choice defence is; Pope, Trippier, Schar, Botman, Targett, none of these players played with each other 10 months ago. Relationships and partnerships will take time. For Botman he's also got to grow accustomed to the league, and he's only a young player too.

There's a few on there who post chiefly in the NUFC thread. Whipping themselves into a lather about the latest imagined conspiracy/crime/failure of NUFC. You have to wonder if it helps them? Like, is that how they exorcise their demons?

Well, this came immediately after their goal, And no mention of Targett at all. So I'm sorry, I made an assumption.

True enough. JDT being asked to lead the line was foolish, at least with Isak he's used to playing up top on his own. Still think there's a way to play Wilson and Isak and ASM.

Yeah, probably and I wouldn't be one of the crowd frothing at the mouth if Isak is introduced more slowly. However, given the fact Wood doesn't really fit the way we're looking to play (he thrives on balls into the box and frankly we don't cross the ball) and Isak is far better running with the ball and dropping deeper to collect it, I would expect Isak to replace the big plank sooner rather than later. If Wilson was fit, I'd expect Isak to replace Almiron rather than our top goal scorer.

Would have been better for Isak to have been eased into the side, rather than Jon Dahl Tomassoned. Although we could play with ASM, Wood and Isak, Wood just isn't the kind of striker we want to be building our attack around.

For what it's worth, it was Targett at fault for their goal, not Longstaff. Caught out of position and didn't bother to get back at all. I'll forgive him because he's coming back from injury and we won, but to be clear; Targett's fault, not Longstaff.

Stop it, you'll make me blush.

Eyes lie all the time. All. The. Time.

That "if they maintain" line is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Yes, if we maintain a 2Pts per game average we'll end up in the upper echelons of the league, but, Wilson is made of glass, ASM is inconsistent, Almiron is busy but largely ineffectual as a goal threat and Wood is a plank. I'd rather look at the stats that show how much our performances have improved in the past 9 months or so. and compare that to how the Elite fare.

Is it? Have a look back through his old pieces.

What do you mean, my name isn't on that? I literally show a side-by-side comparison of Vlahovic and Isak, stating I'd rather we went for the Swede. Come on PL, you're better than this.

Yeah, my West Ham mate isn't troubled yet.

Diego is welcome in my house, but make no mistake Gemmill, this is MY house.

Hold the fucking phone Cybertron. Just because I was doing some fucking work while all this unravelled didn't mean I wasn't ahead of the game. I was talking about Isak fucking months ago! Check yourself before I wreck yourself.

But I wanna stwiker!!!

That's the point, President Pissypants, there's a week to go. The club hasn't said "Our business is done", we're still seeing rumours for long term targets like Paqueta, short term targets like Joao Pedro and brand new targets like this Terrier.

Our defence has been poor for fucking years, either in terms of personnel or organisation. Now we have England internationals at Right back and in goal. One of the most highly rated young centrebacks in the world and an ultra-relaible midtable Premier League left back and big Dan Burn too. No longer are we fielding a Championship defence, hoping that hardwork and honesty will be enough to hold back the opposition. Our defence isn't just the last line anymore, it's the first step we take in attack too. If the window ends without an attack, the team is still far stronger than it was last season. For what it's worth I don't believe the window is over. Those players I mentioned are still good, and they'd still improve us, but I'm not pissing my sheets because we didn't sign Marcus Rashford, or that Darwin Nunez chose the title challenging Liverpool over us. Paqueta still might sign. You're just a spoiled brat.

A poor window? Fuck off man.

Some of you need to get past this. Ever other club still expects us to pay over the odds for players, every agent expects us to throw over the odds money at their clients. It's not going to happen. Isn't helped when Forest are paying £40m for Gibbs-White, when Chelsea are happy to pay £60m for Godfrey. But the Botman, Burn, Guimaraes, Pope, Targett, and Trippier deals show that we're not going to show our arse every time we want a player.