The Fish

Isak only started because Wilson was injured, if he was fit, Isak would have been gently introduced and I think you know that. I mean, when you look at his minutes when Wilson returned to fitness, it underlines Howe's approach to gently introducing players.

Twitter being a fucking hellscape isn't news, but the weird reaction to the reaction of Almiron's transfer is fucking awful. People rightly, imo, wishing him well and looking back on his time fondly. Straight away you've got edgelord cunts calling him shit and being delighted to see the back of him. The lad worked his bollocks off every time he pulled on the shirt, he never complained (to my knowledge), always played with a smile on his face. It's not like he's been sat on his arse, picking up a massive wage while acting the cunt. Don't understand the opprobrium.

Taken from the 'Other Games' thread because a graph in there might cause some people to have a conniption. Last 10 years you've only needed 64pts to get 5th. To get to 64, we'd need 23 points from the final 15 games or ~1.5PpG, which is less than we're on right now (1.78PpG). This year, because of this very odd season, I don't know that would be enough. We'll probably need to maintain our form. Liverpool look set to win it and if they maintain this form they'll end up with around 92 points, which is about average for the Champions from the last 10 years. But, Arsenal are most likely to finish 2nd, despite only having form that would leave them on ~78pts, some 5 points less than the 10 year average. 14 points wouldn't be the biggest gap between 1st and 2nd of the last decade (that was 19pts in 17/18), but that gap in the last three seasons has been 5 points or fewer. Knocked up a quick chart to illustrate how bunched the top half of the league is this season (if teams stay true to their current PpG). Columns indicate difference from the 10yr average, e.g. Liverpool are only 0.2 points off the average for Champions, but Bournemouth are ~7pts better off than the average 7th placed team from the past decade. Bottom four are more cut adrift than usual too. 12th to 16th is about what you'd expect for bottom half sides, all with 1-2pts of the average.

I was surprised to see Khusanov thrown into the deep end against Chelsea. Say what you like about Howe, but he's not one to rush a player in. At times that seems counter to sense, but he took ages to bed in Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Hall, and Tonali. And now look at them go. It is an unbreakable rule of the Universe that West Ham must not ever have a reliable goal scoring forward. They must either be brittle or turboshit.

That kind of switch, shifting Owen back a bit, or when Robson told Shearer to stop showing defenders his back and run at them instead, I think that's more the man management side of things. And Keegan was an absolute genius at that. Howe was absolutely done by Iraola, but that was as much down to the squad having a poor game as it was Iraola's wits and Howe's short comings (which he undoubtedly has). I am surprised Keegan hasn't been involved much since the takeover. I would have expected some kind of dog and pony show.

Howe's the better tactician. Keegan is a million amazing things, but he was very notably not good at tactics at a time when it wasn't even that important to be tactically astute.

To be fair I think that the sudden and unprecedented changes to the sponsorship rules brought in to stymie our progress would have caught the club off guard and meant we were forced into a selling position earlier than we would have liked/expected.

Depends on the depth of the water at high tide, dumbass. High tide is needed to wash away the bodies.

Well, to be honest Wolfgang, I don't think that's any of your business.

To be fair, Eales and Ashworth's departures came kind of out of the blue.

Nah, we just need high tide and a cliff.

Guess we now know why the first marriage didn't stick.

It's not like. What's your average person's career? 30 years? 50 years? And what happens to the average career if you blow out your knee, or whatever? And no, you don't have to buy a flash car, but can you let me know how many Premier League footballers drive about in a Kia Ceed, or a Honda Jazz? And you have offended me Dougle, you've offended me to my very core. I will not rest until my honour is satisfied.

I'm not sure we can offer the same kind of matchday experience (and bring in the money that that kind of thing would demand) without a new stadium?

It's a video, basically Plymouth manager says Whittaker didn't show up for the match, despite being originally in the selection.

It's the corporate, the average ticket price ( I wonder if Season ticket income is included in matchday?), the cost of pies, pints and so on.

Is there an element of the matchday experience being a little average?

Hang on, how many footballers play for a decade in the Premier League? It's way more likely that for the vast majority their top flight career will be shorter even than 10 years. Then you have to factor in the cost of living for a PL footballer. If they rent a property in the popular "Golden Triangle" area of the North West, they could be paying up to £8k a week for a house. Plus renting a flash car and all the other things too.

Sounds like he's a bit of a cunt https://x.com/Beesotted/status/1882352488495645089

Thing is, they can have loads of boxes, matchday experiences, expensive "premium" tickets and so on, without pricing out the local fans. Honestly, fill the majority of a new stadium with varied but affordable season tickets say 70%, have a portion of tickets that go on sale to members (15%), the rest can be sold at a huge premium to tourists (15%). Have the new stadium able to host concerts, NFL, and all that shite.

I love the romantic view of the world and wish it were true, but Isak, Bruno and the others would push our League Cup chances into the bin if Real Madrid came along with a £500k per week contract.

This shows how far we are behind when it comes to matchday revenue and commercial. The latter we can improve with sound negotiations, the former we can only really improve by building a new stadium.

And where he could also become a club legend.