Howay

He’s just amazed by what Joelinton is able to do, for example Joelinton does this thing where he puts one foot in front of the other like Sean does when he walks but Joelinton somehow does it faster. Sean thought about trying it out but it seemed like a lot of effort.

The bed wetters counter that Leicester’s team was clearly miles fucking better than the one we have, it just wasn’t known at the time.

I don’t want to seem too critical of Howe as I know the (very valid) counter points of the job he’s facing, but I also worry he’s being too stubborn with his system. It’s fine if this is what he wants to play but it’s clear as day we don’t have the players to do it, which is why we get nothing at all from CM, it’s not been working but he still persists with it. Why not try playing Joelinton and Willock/Shelvey behind Almiron with Fraser and ASM wide and Wood upfront? Maybe it won’t work but we just keep trying this same midfield with the same results.

Aye that would be fucking mental. I’m not convinced going back to a prior manager is the best idea anyway, plus it seems he basically hates the whole DoF model our owners seem to want. Howe deserves time and backing now which I hope he gets.

Agreed, Longstaff doesn’t even bother running. I get the argument that the alternatives are also poor but he’s picking the worst ones at times, unless it’s some fucking weird Mourinho type move to show the owners how desperate we are for players.

Aye exactly. What’s the risk for him? I suppose he might worry he will look shit which might put people off? Not exactly backing yourself if that’s the case. If we go down he leaves, if we stay up he will probably have looked good and can stay or leave. Seems a weird decision on his side unless of course there are other offers.

Aye, I think they’ve not factored in the expense of the relegation when worrying about overpaying on these players. We also need to pack in chasing players where the club has absolutely no incentive to sell other than if a huge offer was on the table. An extra €10m on Carlos 2 weeks ago is far better than losing however much in TV money and then having to overpay for top end championship players anyway. They’ve been too slow imo, same as they panic appointment of Howe.

Aye, he then complained about how we were after the goal but what were the subs he made? Two completely like for like swaps in positions where tired legs weren’t as big of a problem. I get ASM probably needed to be taken off but he could have left Fraser on for more legs in CM surely? I’m more than happy to blame our terrible squad but at the same time the bloke is making poor choices himself.

We are down tbh. We pretty much need to overhaul the team and at this point I just don’t see it happening. We’ve signed 2 players in 2 weeks, even doing that again won’t be enough as imo we need a minimum of 3/4 more. The sad part is there won’t be loads in it, Watford, Norwich, and Burnley won’t win many games the rest of the season but we are fucking painful. I’m not saying the above as a result of this match btw, as I said earlier I don’t think the picture changed massively it just means we need points from harder fixtures. The reality is dropping 21 points from winning positions is what is killing us. They simply can’t fucking concede that goal today, but honestly it’s every fucking game. We’ve won one fucking game in over half a season, saying we will/can stay up is simply based on signing quality players at some point in the near future, something that as yet our current set up seem unable to do as all we’ve managed is a bloke that seemingly would have walked here himself to force a move and a bloke whose release clause we triggered.

We just offer fucking nothing, did we have a shot on target other than the goal? It’s pathetic. I know I keep saying it but I just can’t get over how fucking rotten our CM is, the defence rightly catches a lot of flak but they get barely any screen from CM, and the attack gets no support whatsoever. When we attack and lose possession the ball basically ends up at our defence every fucking time, even if a loose ball comes out it has to go all the way back to our defence before it’s recycled back into an attack. It’s far too fucking slow, the opposition can reorganize and get back into position. There’s also just no switching of the play, it’s all down one side then slowly passed back and eventually might make its way across to the other side, no purpose, no attempt to force an over load, nothing. At this point I’m convinced you could pick a random lad out the crowd and they’d manage to give a better account of themself than Longstaff does, fucking Beefy is more nimble than the concrete booted bastard. Shelvey is Shelvey and won’t ever change, how we still have to watch that prick play after all these fucking years, we even had some bloke have the brass neck to come on here and proclaim he was a good player, that’s the level of Stockholm syndrome our fan base have after being tortured by these players. Joelinton is strong and has energy but he’s laughable on the ball most the time. If we haven’t brought in at least one CM I genuinely might skip watching the Leeds match as it’s just a waste of fucking time tbh, and I can’t watch Shelvey and Longstaff plod around together anymore, I just can’t man. I almost called for an ambulance when Shelvey fouled that bloke on the edge of our area early on, I couldn’t believe he could be moving that slow in real time, I thought I must be having some serious issue and seeing things in fucking slow motion, the Watford player seemed to close 30 yards in the time it took Shelvey to move 5 yards. We could have Beckenbauer and Nesta at CB but we aren’t winning games with this CM, they slow us down, don’t screen for the defence, and generally offer fuck all. I actually started to watch them closely on Watford corners and free kicks, the lack of urgency they made in getting out of the box made me almost thankful 14 years of Ashley which has borderline removed my love of Football as if I was as passionate about it as I was pre-Ashley I think my head would have exploded. I know people will say signing players is hard etc but how the fuck are we two weeks into a window and we have not improved on Sean Longstaff, and Jamal Lascelles? Why the actual fuck are we the only club with trillionaire owners who can’t seem to spend it? This must be some elaborate reality show to torture the entire support base of this club. I actually burst out laughing at Longstaffs shot during the first half, I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen a player have much more time and space in a PL game in my life, and he didn’t just miss he missed both high and wide , he has to be trolling.

I hope we don’t renew his contract. He’s been a fucking embarrassment.

That’s how I see it too. Until we get the necessary players in we will go down 100%. Today just made it harder as we need wins from harder games but the picture didn’t massively change, the same will be the case if we draw against Leeds and others stay around the same points. We are wasting easy fixtures here though and it just means points are needed against more of the mid table sides.

Agreed on that. I just think they have to make that choice. We can’t spend in a few key areas and get away with it until summer. This current squad is so bad whether it’s ability, desire, lack of training over the years, lack of competition etc that’s the case or a combination I’ve no clue but they simply aren’t up to it and I worry that we will spend a good amount on 3/4 players but still go down - which to me is brutal. They could also use loans tbf, that Van de Beek (if there’s any way round his weird agent issue), or whoever but we can’t keep putting this current squad out.

I don’t think he’s blameless. He played Longstaff, who is our worst CM with the exception of possibly Hendrick. If Willock is fit he should have played, and to be honest he should have played Anderson against Cambridge to see what he offered. He also needed to make a sub at CM when it was clear as day all three of them were blowing out their arse, it was more vital than taking Fraser off imo. Obviously he’s dealing with wank players but he’s making mistakes himself.

We absolutely have to make more progress on transfers as soon as possible. I knew this team wouldn’t be enough, we can talk about transfers being difficult but they have to lump up or face facts and go down here. We are trying to sign a bloke at the current 2nd placed team in Spain who have no financial pressure to make the deal, if this is who we are targeting we need to pay the ask or move on from it. We’ve wasted 2 weeks haggling over 2 CBs and it cost us today. I’ve no idea where we are with CM’s but they’re a fucking dire need too.

Dummett was caught miles out of position which allowed their winger to get a cross in mind. Outside of that I agree he had a good game. Not saying CBs shouldn’t have done better with the ball in but Dummett shouldn’t have allowed a cross like that.

Had a feeling we didn’t have enough in for this one. Our CM is a complete fucking waste of time, they generate absolutely nothing. I also give Howe blame here tbh, we needed a sub in CM simply for energy but he didn’t make it.

Watford are absolutely fucking dreadful but we just can’t get anything on target. ASM needs to learn what a pass is, he just is actively refusing to pass at this point it’s just fucking absurd and has cost us at least 4 good moves. Longstaff is an absolute joke of a player, he needs subbed off at this point I’d almost consider Hendrick over him.

We are absolutely desperate for CMs. They just offer absolutely nothing, Shelvey and Longstaff don’t even bring any energy to the game, they’re so painfully slow, don’t help in attack and don’t screen defence. For me this is our biggest need.

Cantwell to Newcastle confirmed?

We need a new signing sharpish, this can’t become the plane watcher thread

Fucking hell aye remember that.

Our CB position is still a total fucking nightmare, hard to predict how this one will go. Hopefully Trippier and Wood can get on the same wave length in time for it

Tbf I’m not sold Wilson is the better of the two. They have very similar goal records, and Wood might have a bit more to his all round game especially if we look to whip balls into the box. I’m not so sure Wilson walks back into the side.