Tomaszk

We were assured all our summer signings would only go up in value for a couple of years. Virus economy probably pissed on those chips but this will probably be the first loss we make.

That's where I am with Dean Smith. Hourihane could score 20 goals from midfield easily, but he needs someone doing the hard work for him, we definitely don't have that right now. He's Darren Bent but plays in midfield.

The mess he was allowed to make was criminal. The same will perhaps be said of Suso in 12 months, such a shame. He spent £12m on Scott Hogan and had hardly seen him play. Yet another hole he'd left. An unusable £12m player on £40k a week. A striker. That's his fault yes.

Because he's a professional who doesn't cry to the press at any problem, trying to protect himself like Bruce and Sherwood. I'm sure he isn't happy with the players he's been given, how can he be? You want him to come out and say he doesn't have players? How does that help? Smith's loss of faith in Hourihane is alarming. Bournemouth away for example. Absolutely made for him. Sat in the opposition half against 10 men and he brought Trez on ahead of him. Marvelous of course ballooned two useless shots over the bar second half, no doubt in my mind Conor would have scored at least one of them.

That was a terrible run. He had only been at the club three months though. No pre-season, no centre halves, a keeper throwing the ball in the net every shot. Plus the obvious mess from Steve Bruce and YES I know he said it wasn't a car crash, but that's because he's got a brain and announcing (take note Conor Hourihane) we're struggling because the previous manager has left him half a squad wouldn't have helped anyone. There's managers who would make that move by the way, Dean Smith isn't one. If you think Dean Smith is saying working hard doesn't matter, I can't help you. We work very hard, but in the wrong formation and with players that aren't good enough so we lose all the time. Half of that is Smith's fault, the other half is Suso. You're determined to talk down Sheffield Utd for some reason, there's nothing basic about them. Nothing.

I've said this to @TRO as well, but if you think Sheffield Utd's football is basic you're very wrong. It's incredibly advanced and modern. Insulting to them to think that's basic football. Burnley's is pretty basic. Newcastle, don't even have a style, they don't do anything. Do I want to watch us do that? Absolutely not, no interest. Smith tries to do something expansive naively but doesn't have players who can do it. That's his problem that it looks like he can't sort out sadly. What did it do last year though? It got us 10 wins in a row and has led to sell outs every home game with 8,000 (!) people waiting to buy a season ticket. That's what attractive football can do if done right.

All comes down to this I suppose. We disagree.

We would? What? He's a coward/bottler/wuss, take your pick. Hides from responsibility in any game where he has any difficulty, this is so obvious. Watch him run behind players so he isn't an option for a pass. Watch him flick the ball off to no one when he's being closed him down so he doesn't have to shield the ball. These aren't technical shortcomings, he's scared to fight for the ball, to protect possession. He could score the goals to keep us up if his ten teammates to do the graft for him, you're confusing quality with mentality.

I don't think Wilder would be able to make Targett, Hourihane, Luiz, Marvelous suddenly consistent or win a 50/50 tackle. Most of the summer signings are not Premier League players, we would absolutely be fighting relegation. We would be if Klopp was here.

Doesn't matter unless one is Grealish

You'd have to define "well", otherwise I'd have to heartily disagree. Pep isn't doing well this season, City have great players. Steve Bruce did terribly with great Championship players. I didn't say we needed great players, we needed players that weren't substandard which we bought plenty of. Smith would do better with Sheff Utd's squad, than Wilder here with ours IMO.

He took us into the Premier League. That is fact. A ridiculous decision, yes. And yet, we were sat bottom half, unable to string two passes together under Bruce. Smith gets a lot of credit for the promotion. They look great. I think they've continued to build on what Smith was a part of. Possibly the best run club in the country, they'll be a Premier League staple within five years. For the first time in their history, Brentford spent some real money on seven or eight first team players to improve their squad, not young players not ready to play. Not surprised they are better defensively signing a very good Championship keeper and two good Championship CBs. I'm very unsure Smith is the right man for us mainly because I don't think he knows or wants to play any other formation than 4-3-3. But he'd have given it a better go if he wasn't given sub-standard players.

Jack needed the team playing a certain way to have the effect he did. Dean provided that. He was being strangled horribly under Bruce, as were all the other players and fans. You're probably right sadly. However, I'm certain he was given plenty of players that weren't what we needed, and even still if we had a proper striker we would have picked up plenty more points early season. The team could only take so many kicks in the balls to confidence before it was going to stop working entirely.

I'm a tiny bit interested if Suso leaves. No interest in him buying more players agents tell him to buy who may or may not be good enough. With the new rules on work permits for EU players it's even more important to get the right players in if we're buying from abroad because most of them are going to be paid pretty well to get them here.

Yes, a train wreck. A burning, fiery one with no survivors. He performed a miracle getting us up.

He should be fined. Could very well score goals that could keep us up this season. Depends how hard everyone else works to give him a nice easy game where he can choose to turn up.

The money they make from youtube is so nominal they're trying to bring all their content in house to sell their own adverts. Or throw in the ads with main sponsor packages. Putting their foot in it not having more on youtube though, that's the gateway.

I'd love him to stay and us stick some decent players around him. You don't get players like this very often. I have no interest in selling him for less than £50m even if we go down. If we could become less of a one man team, then we'd really see how good he can be. The fans talking us down is so annoying, I don't know where it's come from. I suppose the PL being so hard to break through, becoming a top six side looks so far away. Chumps like Hourihane saying it as well, talking Aston Villa down is infuriating and will only encourage more so you haven't seen that last of it I'm afraid. What a pathetic attitude, speaks volumes about him. We had a chance this summer to change our fortunes but Purslow cocked up and got in a guy not thinking in modern terms. Suso asked agents who to sign, bought relatively poorly, and it's going to cost us long-term.

Bang on. Bottler. He's the biggest coward at the club. More frustrating than actual bad players like Taylor, he'll try when it's nice and easy before shrivelling away as soon as he's dumped on his arse. Doesn't matter if it's Man City or Burton Albion. If someone gets into him he hides away from the ball for as long as he can before being taken off.

I feel like they'd have to stagger relegation across two years. Five/six teams going down would be funny though. Everyone but top 6 in big danger.

I'm sure the owners, CEO and manager would rather he wouldn't as well. Guard down, he just stumbled into it. More ammo for his agent to be whacking him over the head with when we go down because of sub-standard players like Hourihane.

What a pillock.

People talking about Gabby later in his career, when he was dangerous even if limited. IMO if he didn't come through with O'Neill as first team manager I don't think he'd have ever got the chance to get the games and improve.

Haven't noticed him bitter before. Didn't mind him here actually. Did OK considering he was well past it. McGinn to Albion ffs

If we don't accept a fee what does he do? We have a £100m+ asset. We should not be selling him for less than 60-70% of his value if we don't have to. With three years left, he's going to have to suck it up. Four years left on McGinn, three years left on Mings, we're in a decent position if we do drop contracts wise.