No you didn't. You just posted an image that said Rafa had said the first priority was to avoid relegation. This is standard practice for any promoted team. Doesn't mean we were favourites for relegation or anyone thought we were going to get relegated. What you just posted has literally nothing to do with being tipped for relegation.
Edwards talks about context then doesn’t actually provide a balanced version of it. He says it’s one home defeat since Jan, but doesn’t address the fact we haven’t scored from open play in nearly 7 hours, have scored 8 in total, are literally the only team to benefit - by a point - from VAR fail and have had almost no identity across the entire season. There’s a lot of different contexts available to suit almost any point of view. I personally think we look incredibly stale and one dimensional, and the manager is responsible for that. Hes also not going to change formation or style, not that we actually have one at the moment. Who could come in and do better with Isak, Bruno, Tonali, Gordon? Quite a few. Terzic isn’t working at the moment, Amorim is still doing really well at Sporting. Are PIF bothered? Only they know. For me if we were genuinely playing well, had gone back to higher intensity, or look to change something other than the personnel in the same tired formation, then I’d reluctantly accept Howe is ok to continue. But it’s just trotting out the same stuff week after week. Only the exec team know the truth on transfers but I struggle to see how Howe isn’t at fault for not buying a right winger in his entire tenure. The club just feels flat, directionless, boring, predictable and uninteresting.
We’ve already covered var. Only Webb thought it was wrong. The Var officials who were actually looking at it got it right . Strange how you aren’t so vocal about anything against us. We had a penalty appeal not even looked at. If you actually watched the game on Saturday we did have high intensity in the first half and because of that dominated. Howe doesn’t actually kick the ball for them though. Certainly our play in the last few games has been anything but the same old stuff compared to the first games as you are wrong again. Btw Howe didn’t want to sell Minteh who actually was signed during his tenure. Remind us where he plays.
Relegation candidates you said, which is favourites to be one of the 3 teams that are relegated, which we never were. Your insistence at trying to confirm the existence of something that never happened is really quite baffling.
We lost. It is the same as it was last season. Howe refused to sell Almirón and Wilson too. As I say the club feels really flat. I think we need a change. Some of you guys disagree. Both are valid and explainable points of view which is ok.
100% but then when you buy no one for over a year that’s going to happen so it’s clearly a matter of opinion as to whether the manager is to blame or not. The guesswork is why we were so poor in recent windows.
Yep and my worry is our few elite players may, if we don't start investing decide they have hung around enough and need to move on to further their careers.
They have. It's odd as both Gordon and Isak are angling for bigger contracts off the back of a great season last season.. and both haven't hit those heights this season.
Teams have worked us out because we only have one gameplan (hope that the other team comes at us so we can counter attack). Now every team just sits in a low block and counters us, because we don't know what to do when we have most of the ball. Even Brighton who are one of the most attacking teams in the league, didn't come at us on Saturday and look what happened. Howe needs to come up with sonething else but so far he isn't doing.
That in turn is making our players look worse, they are playing to a system that has been worked out.
Lol - long enough to know that was one of the worst performances I've seen in a quatre of a century. For 45 mins that is as bad as I've ever seen. Not tactics or anything like that just simple individual stuff like 5 yard passes, players falling over the ball, trying to shoot while lying on the floor, not pressing together, not making runs for passes, playing passes that were not on. A whole bunch of individual errors across the pitch. Think our game was perfectly summed up by Joe Willocks outside of the boot pass attempt down the line which went straight out of play. Never seen as many silly little mistakes in the 45 mins I watched. Not sure how we dominated again but just can't score. Isak was clearly not fit, so lets play Osula for 7 mins at the end of the game when we are desperate? It all feel's like its good up until the last pass/finish atm and then silly errors at the other end are letting us down. You could see by Brighton's reaction they didn't deserve a point out of that let alone 3 but we managed to piss another golden opportunity up the wall.
A way to start to change this and try to control games would be to have Tonali and or Bruno coming short to get the ball from the centre backs, but what's happening is when Burn or Schar get the ball, the midfielders run up the pitch instead, and all the CB's can do is pass to a full back who then only has the option of playing it up the line, usually back to the opposition. That's what you see on a Sunday morning, shouldn't be happening at the top level.
