shiv

Is anyone actually bothered anymore? Genuinely barely checked the scores today. And I’m a season ticket holder of 20+ years.

Zero desire. Zero fight. We are not showing enough to win second balls, throw our bodies on the line, chase down the opposition. I can deal with losing every game if the players are showing 110% every week, but the fact is they are not. Complete bunch of overpaid cvnts.

I think 99% of people on here would take a slightly lower fee for Mads if it meant giving us a better chance of staying in the PL.

If we’re realistic, his most likely destination is Chelsea and we managed to do a deal in time with KDH.

I really don’t see why we didn’t take the risk like Forest did a couple of years ago. Either the board are delusional and confident we will stay up, or they’ve accepted our fate in the Championship next season. The crazy thing is we could probably have avoided a PSR breach as Mads will leave in the summer regardless of what division we’re in, and that would’ve probably covered any spending we did this window. Absolute shambles.

Not sure if anyone noticed this yesterday but if you rewatch the second goal, Ruud is hounding Reid and Soumare to press Spurs more. Immediately as they do, Soumare wins the ball back and it leads to the goal.

The debt isn’t incompetence. It’s a very normal way of financing. Debt is just Top’s way of putting money into the club. The difference is he’s not expecting the money to be repaid (unlike the Glazers, Mike Ashley etc). It really baffles me that people get so passionate about a topic without fully understanding it.

It’s a bit of a strange article. There is a lot of focus on RVN and talks of the club’s mismanagement but no real finger pointing. I also find it interesting that there’s a part in there that essentially says something like “is Rudkin even in charge of contracts?”. Maybe I’m wrong, but it would not surprise me at all if this was a leak from Rudkin to alleviate pressure from himself and push the narrative of manager / player fallout.

Exactly. They scored 15 goals in 20 odd games under Dyche which is the same as Southampton who are on 6 points

I don’t think we will sack him. He will most likely walk after the window closes for being sold false promises. Not sure replacing him with someone who just got sacked from a relegation rival is the best option mind you. Everton have looked garbage all season and they’ve had similar injury problems to us. Under Dyche they’d won 3 all season which is the same number of games we’ve won.

The reason Cooper didn’t get more of a pass is because: -He had an entire pre season to work with the players. -He wasted our transfer budget on players that can’t even make the first team. -He had us playing some of the worst football we’ve ever seen since the Holloway days. -He largely got lucky in many of the games where we got results, and that luck had run out by the end of his tenure.

Whilst I agree we can’t freely sign players, we are in a much better position to do so this year given the 2021/2022 season will no longer be factored into the PSR calculation. That’s the year we made £92m in losses and with allowable deductions that accounted for £70m of the £83m in allowable losses for the 3 year PSR period.

People really have short memories. We looked absolutely dreadful when he was injured. He’s by far our best central midfielder and we’re lucky to have him. He had an off day which happens.

Tomorrow is 4 weeks since we appointed Ruud. In that time he’s had 4 games, 5 key injuries and a squad consisting of BCDR, Ayew and Skipp to choose from. Anyone that doesn’t think we look far more organised than under Cooper must’ve been watching a different team to me.

Even then based on today you can see why Bilal starts over Buenanotte. Gives the ball away far too often.

Our problem against Wolves wasn’t attacking intent. It was our defensive mistakes. Vardy got in behind multiple times. We struggled in the second half which is expected when you’re 3-0 down.

We showed attacking intent with our fast breaks. Unfortunately we have a side that can’t keep the ball which is really impacting our ability to counter attack successfully. It would have been suicide if we tried to press Liverpool’s back 4. The set up was right, we just lacked quality in too many areas.

Thought we played alright given the opponent. We kept Salah and Nuñez quiet but Liverpool targeted our weak link in Justin. Positives: -We are much better on the ball with Winks back in the side. -Mavididi was far more direct which was a good threat. -Ayew and Bilal were solid. -Jacub is 10x better than Ward. -VK did well to keep Salah quiet for most the game. Negatives: -Soumare was really poor. -Justin keeps getting targeted - we need to sign a new RB in Jan. -Daka with his usual garbage finishing. Overall I think it’s a step in the right direction, but the Wolves loss and the leaky defence has really put us in trouble in the table. Really hope we have a good window in January as I think that’s Ruud’s only hope.

There seems to be a common perception that the midfield is supposed to stop opposition teams from breaking through. In what universe can 2 players cover the entirety of the midfield along with covering wingers when they don’t track back? That’s a shape issue not a personnel issue. No midfielder except Kante can cover that much ground. Soumare was excellent last night. His biggest issue for us has always been his work ethic, but he put an absolute shift in. Anyone that thinks otherwise is deluded.

Ruud does sometimes favour a full back that tucks in, similar to what Enzo did with Doyle. For me, Justin or VK can’t do that role so I can understand people suggesting Hamza. Means you can play VK or Justin on the left and it gives them a bit more freedom. Attacking with both full backs is leaving us far too exposed at the moment.

We’ve seen some bad performances this year, largely driven by lapses in concentration, poor tactics and woeful substitutions. However, today is the first time in a long time I’ve seen us lose a game because of a sheer lack of effort. People like to scapegoat Thomas and Coady, but I didn’t think they were anywhere near the worst players today and they actually gave 100% IMO. I’d even argue N’Didi and Soumare did too, even though our midfield was a total disaster. Vardy and Buenanotte probably the only standout players but both were far too isolated with our dreadful formation set up. Faes was a disgrace today. Showed zero desire in chasing back, let Brentford’s forwards glide past him and left Coady exposed far too often. Justin wasn’t much better either, for someone who’s supposed to be one of our fastest players he showed no desire to keep up with their attackers either. I can forgive the players for having low confidence, being poorly coached and being given bad tactics. But the second you stop giving 100% is the second you don’t deserve to wear the shirt.

The difference is, Amartey always gave 100%. Whilst he was limited in ability you couldn’t ever fault his effort or call him lazy. Faes and Justin put on absolutely disgraceful performances today. Nothing more infuriating than seeing a lack of effort.

Whilst I sympathise with the structure Cooper forced him into, there’s a very basic level of effort required. You can’t just give 100% effort when you’re bursting forward but then stroll about when you’re defending. As a RB, your primary job is to defend which is something Justin did not even attempt to do today in parts.

We pretty much already play a 9-0-1 formation. The negativity around our set up is astounding.

We were dreadful. The second half was a repeat of Arsenal, we were just lucky Bournemouth were wasteful. A win is a win but another very underwhelming performance and woeful in game management by Cooper yet again.