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Lots of people are hoping for Tuchel or Poch, but I just don't see them coming to a club that's teetering above the relegation zone at the mid point of the season. Especially after managing the likes of PSG and Chelsea, and having just won the Champions League a year ago n the case of Tuchel.
I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to
Then in came Emery and he was buying players over 30 who weren't good enough. Let players like Ramsey and Wilshere leave and froze out Ozil. The whole playing out the back thing was a mess.
For the first time in a long time there's an actual togetherness in the team and a bit of backbone. When we go 1-0 down I am always hopefully we will turn it around whereas teams in the past would fold. There's a nice balance in the midfield and in Saliba we finally have a top quality defender in the backline. No longer are we signing players well into their 30's on high wages.
As I said before there's a long long way to go still and I hope the players don't bottle it like last season vs Tottenham, Newcastle, Palace incidentally and Southampton. Just seemed to crumble at the business end of the season when it really matters.
Our majority shareholder Guochuan Lai owes the club £5m + interest from a loan he took out of the club, and then there's also been news of them taking a £20m loan to cover "day to day operations". Parachute payments run out at the end of this season so they really are banking on sneaking into the playoffs and going up to avoid a financial meltdown (and hopefully then finding somebody stupid enough to buy the mess of a club). Considering the loan is probably against the stadium and/or training ground, defaulting on the payments could presumably be quite catastrophic, the only way we'll pay it off is by going up (doubtful) or by selling players, of whom we only probably have two or three worth any money at all.
Lai taking over the club basically has coincided with our downfall to mid table Championship club, having had 8 consecutive seasons in the Premier League with a very well run club. We started paying over the odds for very poor players and giving long over-inflated contracts to aging average players. Appointing disasters such as Alan Pardew, Valerian Ishmael and Steve Bruce were all under his ownership, as well as sacking Darren "Big Dave" Moore when we were 4th in the league, and sacking Slaven Bilic after we'd just got a draw against Man City when they were running away with the league. There was also some controversy whereby he tried to sell our star player Matheus Pereira to a club in China for £25m by way of some tax dodging deal whereby he personally would have pocketed the profit. When that got found out, and it became clear to him that the club would be getting the proceeds, he was suddenly flogged to some random Saudi team for £17m instead.
On a side note, I do question the idea of the song they kept doing when the match when a bit flat, "Stand up if you want Lai out". I personally would have thought that "Sit down if you want Lai Out" would have a much higher percentage of uptake, and is significantly less effort.
Would be interesting to know if all the fan protests and moaning from Newcastle fans actually made the blindest bit of difference or whether Ashley just sold up when he was good and ready?
Not enough attacking options from the bench to affect the game, if plan a isn't working then we haven't got much alternatives. I hear a deal is done for this Mudryk guy but I'm sick of us getting attacking wingers and no.10 type player. What we need is a proper no.9 striker. Someone like that Haaland geezer at City would be nice eh.
More games will happen like tonight, with stubborn resilient teams stifling us. Need those two extra players who can make the difference from the bench.
I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to
But as well as Arsenal have been playing that bench looks seriously short of options - The weakest bench amongst the top 6-8 clubs at the moment
Mid season review on Man United.
Positives:-
Looking much better after a dreadful start
Have beat some 'big' teams - Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool
7 wins on the bounce at home (since the draw with Newcastle)
4 games in a row Rashford has scored. Good to see him back.
5 point gap to 5th place
Casemiro looking great. Excellent Record when he starts, 10 clean sheets from 16 games. Only 1 loss.
No quality cover for Casemiro or any of the midfield.
Not losing as many points to the teams we 'should' beat lately.
Defensively strong if Martinez and Varane start but also clean sheets with different recent CB pairings.
Ronaldo side show has moved on.
Negatives:-
No consistent CF. Martial will never make the grade.
It's not quite mid season, we have City next.
I don't fancy us away at Arsenal either
Or Barcelona.
Anthony. Early days but seems a very expensive one trick pony.
Sancho. What on earth is going on, he's gone from £73 million signing to not even making the bench in 18 months.
I think we are in the right direction, new owners on the horizon and the team is playing as a team, but I think we'll have a blip coming with some of the better teams coming up. But at least we have got some consistency and shored the defense up.
Top 4 a definite possibility. Liverpool and Spurs dropping points
- We finally look like we're beginning to gel
- The majority of the signings we've bought in have adjusted to the speed and style of the Premier League and are beginning to look like they belong; Mangala, Freuler, Lodi, Awoniyi et al
- Special mention to Morgan Gibbs-White, who is a unique talent and you can see why Cooper was adamant at getting him. He improves us in so many areas and is only going to get better.
- Ryan Yates has fully stepped up a level and looks at home in midfield vs the best in the world. Made Mason Mount look extraordinarily average on Sunday and between him and Freuler, nullified him completely.
- Despite our terrible start, we are one win away from climbing out of the relegation places.
Negatives:
- Still struggling for consistency. It's improved, but needs to be better.
- Brennan Johnson - we're 17 games in and at times (most of it), still looks out of his depth - isn't making the right/easy passes and has been pulled up twice for simulation. He's still extremely young, so I'm not writing him off, but he's not helping the team as much as we'd hoped he would based on his last season performance. He needs to be used as a 70 min sub at this point, until he's found some confidence and worked on his decision making
- We are very, very thin at Centreback thanks to injuries and the fact that our other centre backs struggle with the pace of the league at times. We've definitely shored up defensively since the drubbings we took earlier in the season, but we are still prone to leaking goals against the better teams in the league. This needs to be addressed.
- Goal difference - hopefully the 3-4 bad losses we've taken won't be the difference at the end of the season, as it's currently like another point lost. Luckily Bournemouth and the like are hot on our heels for matching it.
- Attacking fire power - again, it's improved, but not nearly enough. We still need more options and creativity going forward. Hopefully Scarpa coming in will help address that.
- Emmanuel Dennis - a complete mistake signing him and one we should try and see the back of as soon as possible. He doesn't bring anything to the squad as far as I can see.
I'm still optimistic that we can stay up and that Cooper will continue to gel the squad and get them playing better (I've seen no reason for the contrary so far). A lot of managers would have lost the dressing room after batterings from Leicester, Fulham and Bournemouth - all of which should have been considered winnable games, but Cooper's man management seems to have stood him in good stead and he's now got a squad of players playing like a team rather than just a group of individuals with talent.
A win tonight away at St Marys would be absolutely MASSIVE and is must win really. We've been fortunate enough to get points from games we wouldn't have expected to get points from at the start of the season - but we need to be beating the teams around us.
@joneve thanks for the Forest mid season review. I think it was always going to be a difficult start coming up then having so many players to bed in, but you look to be just about picking up enough points to climb out of the relegation spots. Also, some of the other teams seem to be in freefall around you. But like you say a massive one tonight. No points in the last 5 for Southampton so you go to that game as the 'form' team (although I use the term fairly loosely!). Goal difference is always a worry, ours could cost us a top 4 spot theoretically, although we are slowly catching up to the teams below us.
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