TWar

That's because you always blame the manager for everything and don't consider lack of backing or injuries or anything, you were the same with Ralph last season. You might have limited comprehension but atleast you are consistent.

Lord D said he did a "bloody good job" with money. He did not, he was serviceable at lower levels and wildly out of his depth in the prem.

I acknowledge he did a serviceable job in the lower leagues with a good budget before failing in the big leagues like many others before him. Both taking a side down is a very uncharitable way to put it, given Rafa had a crap side and no backing for half a season and took over when they were in the relegation zone. Howe had his team for years and couldn't organise the defence so they went down.

I think Bournemouth were very wealthy and Howe did well as a lower league manager but when he got to the prem he consistently underperformed their spending until getting relegated. Fine at lower levels, poor at the top level. Like Adkins. Rafa managed some of the biggest clubs in the world with two Spanish league titles, an fa Cup, a champions league, a two Europa leagues, the Spanish Cup and a few other things too. Eddie Howe has won one thing ever, a championship trophy. An achievement so unimpressive compared to Rafa I didn't even bother to list the one he won. To compare the two is honestly a bit ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as Ralph to the lad in charge of San Marino but its up there.

I'd add depth at CM as well, 3 senior cms isn't enough, if Smallbone steps up well in that position before the end of the season it is less important though.

Sold Digne due to his dispute with Benitez, then sack Benitez like a week later. Probably the worst run club in the league.

Same strategy as earlier in the season. 4222 for the first half, press high, hit em hard. If we can nick a goal or are still level at half time bring on Diallo and Lyanco, convert to a 352 and hold what we have. I expect it to be a defeat, but we could snatch something. We held them earlier this season.

There it is "bloody good job" getting relegated. Still funny.

Why type a bunch of nonsense and then ask for just the answer to a question? Obviously I'm going to answer the nonsense too. And no, I think since I said that he has lost the dressing room. He was doing decently well when he was lacking his best players and still maintaining a decent mid table position (I think 11th or 12th when I said it), also having got two dirt cheap signings (Gray and Townsend) playing significantly above the quality they had when they joined. Since then he has had a falling out with Digne which will cost them greatly and other players are clearly turning on him. He was doing a good job early and even now the poor league position isn't remotely his fault, but now it's time to go, I don't think he can come back from here. He deserves a better run club as his next job.

Everton have been missing DCL and Richarlison most of the season and Digne for a good chunk too, so no, it isn't the same side that finished 10th...

They'll sack him, the board need a scapegoat for the fact they ran the club into the ground with years of poor signings for big money racking up a huge FFP deficit so they have 0 money to spend anymore. Fans will blame it all on an acclaimed Champions League winning manager as this same "everything is the managers fault" mentality pervades a lot of the sillier fans across clubs, few go as far as to say that their manager is worse than that of San Marino, but we have some especially silly fans.

Rafa did a fair bit better at Newcastle than Howe is doing... Ask a newcastle fan if they'd have Rafa back over Howe and I think most would. Ofcourse neither of them are at the level of the current San Marino manager...

Look who's come out of hibernation. Did you notice JWP goal today? Guess he can't be all bad. Or were you busy watching your guy Eddie Howe guiding another team to the championship?

Redmonds were against Leeds, Burnley, Leicester and Brighton as well as Swansea and Newport in the cup. Buendias were against Brentford twice, West Ham and Leiceister. Take off the cup competitions for Redmond and they have the same number of contributions rather than Redmond having 3 more, showing they have had the same quality of season rather than Redmond being better. Being the same quality as Redmond is still not much of an endorsement though. As for were they match winners. Every single one of Redmonds was impactful. The contribution against leeds was for the only goal and the remaining three all took place in draws which would have been losses without Redmonds input. Buendia scored an important goal in a 2-1 win at Leicester and in a draw against Brentford but his other two were in losses and therefore would not have been impactful if they hadn't gone in to the overall result. Regarding adjusting for chance quality regardless of striker quality, we use expected assists for this. Redmond is 31st in the league for expected assists with 3.31. Buendia is 57th with 2.24 so Redmond is ahead adjusting for striker quality on expected assists. Regarding tap ins vs good finishes, I disagree a tap in is always an easier goal to score as being in the right spot is an important and difficult skill. Either way though, Buendia has underperformed xG by 0.48 goals and Redmond has underperformed by 1.46. Both are poor finishers, Redmond is significantly worst. We know finishing is easily Redmonds worst trait but he has been much more creative than Buendia this season to make up for it who also is a poor finisher. I'm sure you could go on, but these things are pretty easily answerable with a little research. --- The bottom line for me is that if Buendia was at saints and we spent £35m on him for 4 goal contributions over half way through the season, we'd be disappointed. Walcott got 6 in just over half a season (was injured for most of the second half and was involved in 21 games) and people begged not to get him on a perm. It seems other peoples players have much lower standards though.

A lot of people have pointed this out, actually, a number of Villa fans wanted him benched when Bailly was fit in order to play a front 3 of Bailly, Watkins, Coutinho. I think one of your biggest issues is you often assume your position to be the consensus when it absolutely isn't. Even if you do discount league cup games Redmond still levels Buendia for contributions (and Buendia would be projected to get like 0.3 goals more if he'd played the same minutes), I doubt many people would be bigging up Redmond this season. Redmond, as I said, is just an example. Adam Armstrong has the same amount too and people slag him off constantly. Over his time at Villa, Buendia has basically the same goals + assists per minute that Theo Walcott has since his most recent spell at saints (0.28 vs 0.31 per 90, in the league as well, since you don't like cup competitions). He has half the contributions of Ward-Prowse who plays as a holding mid (and DMan seems to think isn't good). What I am trying to get at is regardless of the comparison, Buendia's return at Villa is the sort of return which would not impress you at all if a saints player did it and just because you have seen a couple of snapshots of him and thought "wow he looks lively" doesn't mean he is actually very good, as shown by how few goals and assists he has mustered.

I swear when it comes to our players people are all about end product and don't care how about anything beyond that but with other teams you can get away with one goal and three assists in 20 games or so and everyone on here is saying how good they are. If he played for us you all would be calling him useless and comparing him to Boufal and Ramirez who also looked fancy but did very little. Also, for the record, this isn't an endorsement of Redmond who I think is definitely someone we need to upgrade, it is using him as an example to point out one of the most overrated players in the league.

He has 1 goal and 3 assists in 1229 minutes, 4 contributions or 1 contribution per 310 mins or so. Redmond has 2 goals and 5 assists in 1495 mins, 7 contributions or 1 contributions every 214 minutes.

Has been this season. Redmond is super patchy ranging from a 2.5/10 player to a 6.5/10. He is quietly putting together a reasonable season, firm 6 imo. Buendia is a bang average 5/10 player who tricks people into thinking he's good by having a bit of flair, don't mean anything if you can't put the ball in the net or set up someone else to do so, and he is demonstrably worse at that than Redmond this season.

I've seen him a few times this season, he has a few good moments, flicks and tricks and what have you, but he is a luxury player with little end product. He is a lot like Gaston Ramirez, quite skillful but limited pace and end product. That's why he has only got 1 goal and 3 assists this season. Out of interest, how often have you watched him? Did you get a good look at him like you did Bednarek under Hughes?

He has the occasional good game but massively flatters to deceive. There is a reason he has fewer goal contributions than Nathan Redmond.

We played alright, were quite unlucky against a good side. Shame really, but games like that happen.

You absolutely said that Ralph was a worse manager than the guy in charge of San marino. And I don't think Bednarek played once under Hughes in the 18-19 season, so how can you say he has regressed under Ralph on the basis of that? Broja did better than I expected, that's fine, if I football could be predicted perfectly the gambling industry would be in shambles. This doesn't mean your takes of Ralph is worse than the manager of San marino, saints are in a worse position than pompey, JWP is mediocre, and Bednarek has regressed under Ralph when before Ralph he couldn't make it into one of the worst defences in the league, are anything more than thoroughly stupid takes from a guy who already had one account banned for being indistinguishable from a troll.

Henderson would be absolutely class. Probably set us back about £25-30m atleast and £120k+ wages so out of our price range but who knows with new owners. Also, their manager has publicly said he doesn't want to sell in this window which makes life tricky.

"I like Ralph" "Ralph is a worse manager than the guy in charge of San marino" Something doesn't add up bud. Also it's one thing to forget that he didn't play under Hughes, but for you to claim he regressed you'd need to remember him playing better before, which he didn't. "He started under Hughes" is an understandable factual error, "he was good under Hughes" shows that you are talking bollocks. Shows you make up opinions based on nothing, which makes sense really given your take on JWP (and other more embarrassing takes)

Hope so yeah, would be nice to not have to sell to buy. Either way round though, we don't need 5 cbs and Bednarek is the probably the most valuable of the ones I'd let go as they are below our level (or the level I'd like us to reach in the near future)