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I won £35 on the derby.

Well escaped from my en-suite for a quick sarnie and haven’t had chance to read anything on here for a good while, but I feel incumbent to record my disgust in the rightful place before printing another mug. What a fucking shower of shit that was from the players on the pitch and the manager. Why the fuck is he persevering with Elanga. I don’t care what some of you saw him do for Forrest, the bloke looks nothing like a premier league footballer. They’ve well and truly had our pants down. Then there’s Jacob Ramsay. Another “big “ summer signing that can’t get on for Joe fucking Willock And of course Big Nick. Can’t really have a go at him as our over the top transfer price and need to play him every game, is not his fault, but I can’t ever see him as a number 9 in the prem. He doesn’t even seem capable of winning any headers in the air. The Isak saga has well and truly fucked us something rotten. And Howe. Well he’s the one persevering with players like Elanga even though it’s obvious to Stevie Wonder that it’s not working. He just seems to have no answers to our woes this season and I think his overlords will not only be bewildered with the millions spent on bang average players, but also his style of football is now too often, an absolute shadow of the way we used to play. I still don’t want to see him go, but I think he needs a very good January window, followed by a good run, to keep the vultures away. Overall, thoroughly pissed off with such a timid performance against a pretty poor team.

1. Our wingers haven't been told that they need to be making runs behind because Woltemade isn't going to do it? 2. Woltemade has been told to play like Isak but is incapable/unwilling to carry out those instructions. 3. The midfield haven't been told to look for through balls in behind. I don't believe any of the above scenarios are true, which leaves.. 4. The players are short of confidence and/or mentally exhausted and as a result are not taking responsibility and are playing it safe (and sideways). 5. The players don't give a shit and are actively ignoring Howe. Lets hope it's no. 4 cos the others all point to needing a new head coach.

I want to be clear, I'm not saying that we had a good window, just that this wasn't a window of scrambling around for random targets in a panic. We definitely will have bought players that we hadn't planned for pursuing yet, and maybe gone for players further down the list due to Isak's departure. But Elanga, Ramsey, Woltemade, Thiaw were all long term targets. Ideally we would have kept Isak, and bought Ekitike, Trafford, Thiaw and maybe a couple of others.

I agree with you on this, so the question following isn't a challenge, it's just curiosity - Why do you think we're misfiring, based on the data?

I said this yesterday. It's get up to a point and instead of put the ball in the box its turn around and pass back then left to right forward back back long ball hand over possession rinse and repeat

I'm not saying by the way that Ramsey won't come good, or even Elanga - I'm just saying that based on how the side seems to be functioning, and the players we went for ahead of those that we ended up with in certain cases at least, I doubt this is what Howe was really after for the shape of this team coming into the season.

Ramsey has been our radar for ages as well. He needs a run of games before we can fully judge him though. I think Villa fans said he had one injury too many and had never rediscovered his form.

No, we haven't. Not really.

He made sense when we could assume Isak was gonna be here for a while and Murphy was shit. Then Murphy discovered how to cross and Isak threw his toys out of the pram. What we didn't then do was adjust the plan, almost certainly because we didn't have anyone at executive level thinking strategically. The damage that wanker Mitchell caused is incalculable.

Elanga has been on our RADAR for a long time hasn't he?

Howe has said that between illness and knocks that he isn't fully fit.

He has fucking loads of space to run into before they scored, he's just not very good this season in this team.

I was shouting for him to be replaced a while before willock put a decent through ball for him which he was nowhere near getting to despite being in as good a position as the defender was. I'm genuinely foaming at some of our players, they don't do it on purpose I know but that performance yesterday stunk the place out, the front three in particular were as bad a forward line I've seen on any particular match. We've all tried to understand there's work to be done with integrating big nick but if it's going to be that problematic wtf did we sign him for? That non pass to Gordon early was criminal and the dummy went out from Gordon after that, the fact he didn't play it despite having time and seeing him but opting to hold onto it for another second or two before thinking a little dink pass to elanga was the better option? Fuck me, that's almost a bad decision as his goal was.

Yen?

Mebbe we should just ask Isak to come back? Cheeky offer in January for around 60M? 😳

Ekitike was the plan. We all are feeling this has been a shit half season, yet we are still 4 points of fifth. If we'd signed this lad, I honestly think everything would be different now. We'd won some of those narrow games, beaten Liverpool, and if they just had Isak, they'd have been even more fucked too. Oh well.

Not convinced like. Yes he's got 'good feet' but he's also fragile and gets knocked off the ball easily. He's not going to get the time and space he was used to in Germany in the PL. He also appears to lack the aggression required and comes across as far too 'nice'. In fact apart from BDB, Bruno and Joelinton you can describe the rest of the team like that too. Drives me mad when I see them so easily pushed off the ball or standing off their man.

Hopefully Wissa will full game time Fulham and or Chelsea and should a lot more mobile than Nick especially in and around goal

if howe doesn't see 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 as a viable option (even when chasing a game) it raises questions about the woldemade signing as it looks like those systems would play to his strengths. there was one moment yesterday when someone played a lush line-breaking through ball for him but he was nowhere near getting onto it - he's just not that sort of player

Fair point. You can question the quality of a lot of those players and positions through, especially in goal and crucially centre forward, where we haven't had a proper number 9 all season.

not even in the sort of game where the 4-3-3 system has consistently failed? i'd rather go down swinging than with a whimper.

Isn’t Tonali’s bairn due anytime now? Might be a reason for his drop in form, everyone has a home life and all that.

Not in the middle of the season when they've had no time to train to that system, he won't.