Howay

Absolutely woeful performance that. Time for Burn to be dropped, if it wasn’t Villa that second goal would have been funny as Burn just let the bloke turn around and shoot unchallenged. Targett comes on and immediately helps gift a goal. Trippier fucking awful. Bruno showing why we need a true number 6 today.

We’re struggling with their formation imo, they have the 4 in centre of midfield which creates an overload and then split Ramsey and Buendia wide at will. Meanwhile the four on our flanks are all off the game so our overload wide isn’t doing anything.

I think Rice is better at the traditional defensive mid role of shielding the back four, breaking up play, etc what sets Bruno apart which we are seeing in this deeper role is the bloke is impossible to press in possession. He’s so fucking good at beating the opposition press, and from that deeper role he’s able to alleviate pressure and get our attack developing from such a strong platform. As you mention I’d love to see Rice and Bruno alongside each other with a more creative midfielder ahead, then we have Joelinton and Willock rotating in, or being subbed on to run opposing sides into the ground.

The angle the media have been pushing is fucking weird, Howe has worked out better and from the stuff that has been mentioned since Howe come in it sounded like Howe had become the lead choice after his interview. Regardless of who was we got the right man anyway, they might want to wait until Villa start getting results to sides that are in the top half before bigging him up in a way they never have for Howe.

I didn’t even know or care that SJP had been selected. They’re going on as if SJP hasn’t hosted other sporting events before, and in terms of comparisons only they would take issue with this. One of the stadiums is a historic ground that’s 10k bigger than the other and located in the heart of a vibrant, historic city brimming with famed hotels and nightlife, whereas theirs is a crumbling, cheap flat pack stadium pretty much identical to other ones like Bolton and Boros stadiums, it’s located in what’s basically the middle of fucking nowhere on the fringes of a very dull city that has nowt going for it. There legitimately no fucking choice, it’s so fucking clear and it’s not even me being biased, it’s like asking someone to pick between Rotherham and Liverpool for fuck sake.

What makes it better is he’d already looked a prospect when he was at Leeds, got a big move to Spurs but it didn’t work out and he’s ended up at Sunderland. While clearly top sides do make balls ups and end up getting rid of young players who go on to do well it’s again a smaller population than those who end up as simply decent lower league players.

I love how our lot just talk absolute shite about injury status to the press, I’ve never understood being open and honest about the status of players as it only helps opposition prep. One of the best was when everyone thought Bruno was out for a game before footage of him fucking legging it to the team bus emerged and he started the game

Rice would be brilliant for us, it’s probably the best move he can make as well (depending on what happens with a certain Arsenal DMs legal troubles). I don’t think Chelsea will be in for him, I honestly think they’re up against some FFP challenges they’ve already spent 120m or so in the coming summer with Nkuku and a couple of young Brazillian signings already signed for summer moves and on top of that they’ve signed Enzo to a one year extension after he signed for 8.5 years in the summer - that to me is a clear sign they’re finally realizing there’s trouble looming since their last set of accounts were a total fucking disaster and didn’t even include a considerable number of their signings, as that year means they stretch Enzo’s fee out even more for FFP. I really do think the owners at Chelsea don’t have a fucking clue tbh, and a lot of these players they’ve signed for massive money look fairly poor (or honestly shite in Mudruyks case), while a small sample size of games we’ve seen plenty big money signings flop and they’ll have to try and clear out a lot of players but the market knows these issues and they’ve had a really poor year.

Aye the football opinions on RTG are genuinely deluded nonsense, they seem to not grasp there’s many many more players who have looked decent at a young age in the Championship but never make the step up to average PL quality than those who do, and it’s an even rarer group that turn into good PL players. The Murphy example is spot on, he tore up the championship and moved to us at 23 and very much struggled. He’s worked extremely hard and turned into a useful squad player for us but that’s a far cry from the superstar the mackems think Clarke is. Jacobs identical twin who had similar potential at Norwich and at times had many questioning if we bought the wrong brother is now plying his trade in League One iirc. They constantly fucking overrate their players, as you note he’s 22 and isn’t having a season like Ryan Sessegnon had for Fulham when he was 17/18 which earned him a move to Spurs where he has seen somewhat mixed results - but again they think after a decent season at a lower level Clarke is destined to be a superstar

They’ve always been utterly deluded, in the PL era they’ve been a total fucking irrelevance. I know football existed before the PL but fucking hell it’ not like the PL era is a short period now . The best they’ve managed in that time is some Europa league finishes under O’Neill, you’re going back to a time where people who were players then are retiring as managers since they won the cups they say make them this massive cloooob, it’s an argument in the wider context but in the discussion of this game it’s utterly fucking meaningless - to me they’re a shite club and have been at best mid table plodders my entire life whereas we’ve had CL football and challenged for titles. They’ve been on a good run, but they’re missing out that we’ve also won 5 on the bounce and against better teams than they’ve played - it’s not like we’ve been stumbling .

I hope it’s us that ruin it again, just like how we smashed their CL place dream last season. They’ll have to suffer that while Tindall, fresh from a spray tan at long Benton, is stood flexing on the touchline.

Spot on, I’ve no problem with it after years of watching people like Shelvey be buzzing to be subbed off. While it wasn’t a great reaction I just think he’s desperate to prove himself at his new club, he will be dealt with by Howe and it’ll be a learning curve the same as why he was subbed will be - you can’t give stupid fouls away like that. I think overall Gordon gives the work rate and physicality of Murphy but with a bit more quality.

How the fuck does that even happen? ”you reyyt? Nowt here worth nickin’ Callum over there has never worked, but yi can have a go on iz to mak it worth the trip… only thing is Cal likes to watch” 2 minutes into the love makkin ”wheeeze arse is this” ”yours Kai, not callums” ”….hnnnng…. FTM” ”enjoy that Callum ya little foookin creep? Garn tweet about the mags you little cunt and while your at it garn get the bottle of blue pop for Kai now he’s done, but mak sure it’s the branded stuff the panda pop none of that store brand tat… then take princess and Cal the staffys out for a walk”

Aye he was honestly one of the worst ones tbh, he went out his way to slate the fan base and not just ignorantly defend Ashley but tried to bend facts to make it look like Ashley was a good owner. A lot of the others just went a long and regurgitated shite because they’re lazy cunts obsessed with the same few sides, Neville and Carragher prime examples of that iyam, whereas Ferdinand had another agenda due to his tragic cheap tat he was selling through Ashley’s clothing land fills.

Aye I’m fairly sure there’s only been one time this season where a ref has been told to go to the sideline monitor and they’ve stuck with their original decision. There’s also so many borderline ones which are being reviewed yet ones that quite clearly were a foul go unreviewed, for just us alone I can think of the kicks to the head on Schar and Longstaff which we’re both ignored yet they spent 5 minutes reviewing Isak barely lifting his foot. The Wilson one is an absolute joke as well, I’ve still not seen a single angle where it looks like anything else but his shoulder and even if it did what advantage was gained? His arm was completely against his body and if it wasn’t there it was hitting his side, the review there has meant it was an impossibility for Wilson to avoid infringement there which is an absurd reading of the rules. I personally thought the officiating in our game was almost as bad as the Brighton game it’s just it ended up not costing us so it has been swept under the rug. That’s only the big decisions too, his general officiating was woeful, Hickey spent the whole game diving and got a free kick every time, meanwhile they kicked us when we received the ball at the half way line every single fucking time and it went ignored. It’s a good thing both our goals were as clean as possible as I’ve no doubt they’d have been overturned for fuck all (as the Wilson goal).

Honestly what’s the point the tin pot bastards? Maybe worry more that your club is headed for what? It’s seventh season outside the top flight? Well entrenched in mid table, so it’s probably not very likely they come up soon.

Villa are being mentioned recently as they’ve been on a bit of a new manager bounce type run, but when you look at who they’ve played it’s not a single decent side. They’ve basically beaten the relegation fighters, while good for them they’ve put this run together they’re still fucking turnips. Thought we were pretty poor today, but great job by the players sticking with it and pulling it off. Not a fucking clue what game that ref was watching mind, calling that a hand ball by Wilson was ridiculous really but thankfully it didn’t cost us today.

It’s good to finally be able to rotate, even though ASM and Wilson played well we’ve been able to keep our attack fresh

They’ve been correct about precisely fucking nothing so far, so I’m going to assume it’ll be the same this summer. We aren’t qualifying for the CL against all odds and signing Scott McTominay, he was likely a January target that’s firmly in the rear mirror now.

Premier League quality football equates to 1 win out of 5, 20 goals scored less than fucking Boro, and being mid table in the Championship? I think he needs to rethink what Premier League quality football is They don’t live in reality tbh, by their reckoning Burnley must be absolutely fucking amazing given how they’re hammering everyone in that division, in reality Burnley will come up next year and probably get humbled similar to Norwich did when they thought they’d come up and play possession based open football as a newly promoted side. There’s a fucking gulf in quality and they’re absolutely nowhere near Burnley and Boro, let alone Premier league sides.