Howay

Rumours are kicking round the Spurs fan base that he’s on his way up to Newcastle. Again could be nowt as we seen with the Norwich fans thinking Cantwell was off.

I personally think it’s just because Willock, Shelvey, and Longstaff are all better passers than Joelinton when they are actually trying and playing well. The issue is they very fucking rarely play well or put effort in (maybe harsh on Willock?) whereas Joelinton has been putting a shift in consistently every time he plays. I personally didn’t see this shift in us looking better without him than we did with him, I was really worried when he went down as he was doing a great job of gathering every loose ball coming out of Leeds box and recycling play, fortunately Willock had a good second half and both Shelvey and Longstaff actually put shifts in.

I don’t know how they can complain about that when they dodged a stone wall pen. We were the better side tbh, thought we deserved our win, not a lot of clear chances at either end. Trippier is such a touch of class btw. We need to be getting him on the ball more.

Win our two games in hand (I know) and we are 2 points behind Brentford as things stand. It’s stunning that as fucking shite as we have been absolutely no one in the bottom half has clawed clear of us.

That’s showbiz

Good win and much fucking needed. GET IN THERE. Our CM has discovered how to run, Willock was really good in the second half. We still carved out very little but fortunately didn’t make the massive errors we’ve been making. Genuinely don’t understand VAR anymore. If that happens against us the commentator will be pointing out the clear contact and saying that’s why it’s a blatant pen, happens to us and he’s saying it’s not enough contact thank fuck yet another shocking pen decision didn’t cost us. Right get some players in for fuck sake.

Funny that Longstaff has rediscovered how to run now that Rafa got the sack and his move to Everton is likely off.

Why does he bring Longstaff on? What the fuck does he bring to the team? I know the other options are also poor but he’s absolutely abysmal. Bring Almiron on and play him closer behind Wood, try something new man we can’t just keep playing the same CM and expect something to be different.

It’s honestly the weirdest thing about the bloke, he’s an absolute fucking cunt and is happy to be that for fucking YEARS in a very public fashion , but the moment anyone is like “maybe you didn’t do that in the best way” he’s raging . If you’re going to be a cunt just be one, he can’t genuinely believe anyone that would listen to Staveley criticize his ownership and change their opinion that contrary to all public information available to the contrary he was actually quality. The fact he even thought to put in that clause shows what a little bitch boy he is. Look forward to him being out-cunted one day, maybe this son in law of his he appoints somehow fucks him over and empties all his accounts. Hope he stubs his fucking toe everytime he walks through a door, and catches his nut sack in the zipper of his pants everytime he has to piss.

I hope so. The worry would be that the money these owners have creates this constant demand for overpayment, and until we have any leverage whatsoever it’s pretty hard to fight against. If we are at the point where we are comfortably a mid table PL side and are just looking to improve I think that side of things weaken. Maybe the overpayment asked will be lower in summer but I think they’re still going to have to bite the bullet on that.

I agree with that, and while I’m being quicker to note my worries here I do understand deals may happen this next week. My worry though is that we’re not as far as is hoped, or that these clubs we are holding out will drop their price and we get them simply won’t (as was the case with Sevilla with Kounde in summer). The point about personnel is fair, the hope would be that even if the current lot is floundering due to inexperience or otherwise that by summer we have a DoF or something in place who can be a bit more savvy and possibly a little more realistic with who we chase (I understand the targets they’ve chased apparently want to come i more mean realistic in the chance the clubs will come to a fair agreement with us).

Spot on. As I’ve said before maybe behind the scenes we are working on 10 different options for CB and are running into brick walls but I can only comment on what I see, which as you say seems like we’ve been focusing on the same targets whose clubs are asking for a level of overpayment we won’t make. The second paragraph is my concern, that coupled with this supposed worry about overpaying and being difficult (again all public/reported it may not be true but it’s what we see), I just don’t see this “we will buy our way out of the championship immediately” that others do yes the summer window is easier but clubs will still hold us to ransom. I really don’t want to be a championship team again. It’s shite, the referees are fucking mental down there, and as a person that’s proud of where I’m from and proud of my club I’m sick to the back teeth of the piss taking and a relegation will create an avalanche of it. As I noted in my other post I blame Ashley for where we are, not the current owners however I don’t think they should be absolved of any criticism or worry about their methods simply because they’re rich and we assume it’ll click into gear. If we go down, we go down and I’m still 100% behind them and Howe - as like I say I don’t blame them like I blame Ashley, but at the moment they have a chance to change things as we have been fortunate to be 2 points behind but so far we’ve barely improved.

There’s not a guarantee of anything, no, but I can’t imagine that’s the case and there’s no players anywhere better than we have that we can’t get without massively overpaying for. All these positions are equally as vital, as it’s clear we aren’t winning games without improving them. Your point also lends itself to the overpaying argument, as if there’s no one we can get without overpaying then we need to overpay. We can’t expect to bounce back from the Championship next year with a bespoke squad if we refuse to overpay for anyone, we can all assume the summer window might be easier but for us it might not be and then the issue is you’re taking the earnings hit on top of overpaying for players you should expect to have little or no use for a year later (unless some are younger players with potential). I want to be clear that I blame Ashley, but I don’t think we should act like everything this lot do is some methodical plan, they can and imo clearly are (the time the manager search took) making mistakes. I understand we might go down and rebuild, but I’m just critiquing what I see from them on the basis of trying to stay up - and it does give me some nerves about this assumption we will go down and piss the league type stuff as we absolutely do need to buy to win in the championship something they’ve been struggling with. We can list the mitigating factors of why the January window is hard but at the same time they have made very slow progress - hopefully we have what we need by the end of the window, but if we don’t I think the concern over their perceived hardline desire to not be ripped off is a valid one.

So from the starters in their game against West Ham that’s Firpo (who played lb) and Forshaw (who played CM) out on top of what I assume the players who had already been out for that one. I’d like it to be called off so that we could have more players in for it but fucking hell man it’s depressing that we can’t even feel in any way confident of beating this lot even though we almost have a clean bill of health

Agreed, I think it’s one of those where it’s a shrewd move if we pull the loan off at the end of the window, but we are risking someone else coming in (which currently doesn’t seem to be the case but injuries in upcoming fixtures might change that picture). I think it’s fine to play this game, as I agree it’s the one to make here, but we need to pursue alternative targets to him in the meantime as if we assume we will get him and then get gazumped before the window closes we might be scrambling late - this is of course if he was a real target rather than being a kind of nice to have to boost the squad type of target.

I don’t think overpaying now = overpaying forever. We would have a stronger hand in negotiations later on after improvements and will be able to do things like allow contracts to run down etc. I don’t think anyone is saying overpay and get Carlos for £80m. The point is more if that’s absolutely Sevilla’s ask we need to walk away, we’ve spent 3 weeks chasing two CBs and have none. If we had went after others who may not be as good we might have improved our CB position - maybe overpaid a bit like we did for Wood, and went back into negotiations over Carlos with a stronger hand when he turned more into a nice to have rather than the must have he seems like at the moment. Hopefully we do bring players in, but at the moment it’s an awfully big ask to bring in what we need in a little over a week.

What was the last offer £1.5m? Are we going to go up in £500k increments or maybe go with £100k increments until they accept or Stevie Geeeee comes out of nowhere with a £10m loan offer.

Agreed on the point but we’re kind of over a barrel and have no leverage in any negotiation. It’s Manchester United’s last chance to get any money for him, the only thing they’d save is 6 months wages if they let him go for no fee + 100% wages which to them makes no difference. I understand people’s point that certain clubs might fold and be more open to sell nearer the end of the window as they really do want the money - but a lot of the ones we are going for seem happy enough to hold on until the summer window so I’m not sure if this tactic would make sense. Maybe it applies more to say Burnley who seem in real short term cash need, and we go and nick Tarkowski off them, but I think Sevilla are likely happy to hold onto Carlos until summer the same way Lille seem okay with waiting until the summer to sell Botman.

Bellend road

He’s been sort of pushing for a move for a while now. Tbh I’d be happy if we offloaded him in the summer, he’s not good enough for the PL. He’s not good enough technically to make up for being so lightweight. At this point it’ll be worth it alone so I stop seeing fans of his stupid old MLS club bemoaning how this unbelievable talent is being wasted at a shit club, he’s part of the reason we are shit lads.

To be fair the post only states a number that were effective, he could have triple the attempted long balls others on the list have. Shelvey is wank tbh. I don’t give a flying fuck what stat that bloke who said he was good used he’s a passenger most games, he’s got the ability to be impactful but he so rarely shows it.

Agreed, I think even if they do want to keep trying to sign Carlos they should look to bring in another CB that was further down their list just to make sure we get one that improves us since we honestly need 2 anyway. Really hope we can get Lingard in, I think he’s a good improvement on Fraser. Maybe he could drop into CM as others said too, either way he improves us.

I know all the external reasons people will highlight of why this is going the way it is, and I get it, but fucking hell only us eh. When fucking Chelsea, Man City, and Paris had similar loadsamoney takeover the money was flying and players were coming in, when ours happens we’re basically head butting walls and having discussions about being careful of FFP.