Silva’s Playbook

[eyesalwaysblue]

Bernard will come good..

[Martip]

Yeah but you can almost discount all spend up til last summer.

In jan we spent 27m on cenk, he’s not even getting on the bench now and we’re likely going to get rid at a loss.

In the summer we spent like £18m on digne and he’s now one of our best players.

Anything pre brands has to be written off. We started this with a bloated, aging squad full of old shite players on big contracts, and some young players with not enough prem mins to know if they can make the grade.

It’s going to take time to get this side out the mud. The worry is if Leicester, Wolves, Watford etc. move quicker.

Agree with the bulk of this but you can't just discount all that spend as some of the players brought in have quality meaning we should be starting from a half decent starting point rather than from scratch.

That said the use of such a large amount of money so badly has to be up their with some of the worst value spends in prem history.

[TheTone]

Bernard will come good..

And we'll finish 6th

[eyesalwaysblue]

And we'll finish 6th

He's quality and puts the effort in, it's just not all come together yet for him, would put hard earned on that it will.

[Martip]

He's quality and puts the effort in, it's just not all come together yet for him, would put hard earned on that it will.

Hope you are right

[eyesalwaysblue]

Hope you are right

I might be unhinged though because i  think the 3 centre halves will come good as well..

[Martip]

I might be unhinged though because i  think the 3 centre halves will come good as well..

That's the spirit !

[Lxxx]

Think he means that those who expected us to finish much higher than 7th are delusional.

I don’t know any fan who expected us to finish higher than 7th.

[sam of the south]

All I wanted this season was recruitment of young, exciting players in the 19-25 age range, that have the chance to increase their value and improve our short and long-term prospects, and a manager that is dilligent, detailed, and progressive in his coaching of the team, with a strong focus on man management.

So far I haven’t been let down at all.

However, it still fucking hurts like crazy when we don’t win, play poorly, or have rotten luck.

Being realistic but still being gutted when we don’t succeed are not mutually exclusive.

[BlueNoseMike]

Think as usual people go way over the top. We are inconsistent but only 5 teams in the country aren't.

It might sound like a pathetic excuse but we have factor in the amount of football played over Christmas.

Other teams like West ham spurs and Leicester have dropped points against inferior teams after good performances before.

We have also had to contend with 2 further factors. Probably the most traveling time (half the prem having 2 away games and half having 2 home games on 26th and 29th/30th is ridiculous). Also, we have had the least rest time between the festive games out of all the 20 clubs (alongside spurs, who had their 2 middle games at home).

These small details matter at the elite level. Even more so when we are not one of the top teams.

The biggest disappointments this season have been the home games against Newcastle and Watford. They were the dropped points for me.

Early games against Huddersfield and West ham we had barely any new players in.


Anyone with eyes can see that the difference between us this season and last season. It's night and day for me. Just need flesh it out, be a bit more consistent. But as others have said it will take more transfer windows for that to happen.

Throw in a digne style rb and a finisher and another cm who can box to box and we are a proper team all o

[Escla]

I don’t know any fan who expected us to finish higher than 7th.

Didn’t mean to like, meant to say there were a few on here looking for top 4, but you’re right, you probably don’t know them.

[brap2]

Didn’t mean to like, meant to say there were a few on here looking for top 4, but you’re right, you probably don’t know them.

There was people on here saying we should get 6th about a month ago.

Every summer we have people saying challenge the top 4. Every single summer.

[TheRam]

Think as usual people go way over the top. We are inconsistent but only 5 teams in the country aren't.

It might sound like a pathetic excuse but we have factor in the amount of football played over Christmas.

Other teams like West ham spurs and Leicester have dropped points against inferior teams after good performances before.

We have also had to contend with 2 further factors. Probably the most traveling time (half the prem having 2 away games and half having 2 home games on 26th and 29th/30th is ridiculous). Also, we have had the least rest time between the festive games out of all the 20 clubs (alongside spurs, who had their 2 middle games at home).

These small details matter at the elite level. Even more so when we are not one of the top teams.

The biggest disappointments this season have been the home games against Newcastle and Watford. They were the dropped points for me.

Early games against Huddersfield and West ham we had barely any new players in.


Anyone with eyes can see that the difference between us this season and last season. It's night and day for me. Just need flesh it out, be a bit more consistent. But as others have said it will take more transfer windows for that to happen.

Throw in a digne style rb and a finisher and another cm who can box to box and we are a proper team all o

Also think that run of away games against the top 6 has stopped us gaining any kind of momentum.

[Martip]

There was people on here saying we should get 6th about a month ago.

Every summer we have people saying challenge the top 4. Every single summer.

The way utd were faltering 6th felt a decent target for a period.

[GLewis]

Didn’t mean to like, meant to say there were a few on here looking for top 4, but you’re right, you probably don’t know them.

Other factor is that if you finish 7th then more often than not you’ll have “7th” performances ie good in patches, slightly above average for the most part, and poor patches too.

You’re also unlikely to have linear form across the season.

And then on a purely points level you’re likely to end up winning less games than you don’t win. And draws for us against anyone bar top 6 are seen as poor results.

People have to keep that in mind when assessing the season so far.