Original 21

What was the point of Tosin and Veiga then? All these centre backs and goalkeepers who aren’t good enough. It’s a mad way to recruit.

I think Maresca has put all his bets on Jackson finding form or some consistency and it just hasn’t paid off for him. He maybe could’ve used Felix and Nkunku better but they haven’t exactly taken their opportunities when played. The fact we were looking at strikers last summer but couldn’t close a deal for anyone, has predictably come back to haunt us. I don’t know where we go from here really. We’re being linked to some kid from Bayern who plays as a winger when Osimhen is kicking his heels in the Turkish league. Unless we have some secret plan, I think we’re going to struggle to get top four.

In other words, we lack the spine of a team. That’s some job our Board has done in three years and hundreds of millions spent.

We’re going to win the Conference League and finish sixth in the Premier League, aren’t we?

There was that unbelievable fiasco last summer over failing to sign Omoridian, Duran, then Osimhen. If our SDs were accountable they’d have been sacked for incompetence.

For all the talk of bringing in a striker and a centre half, our midfield is where we’re really falling apart. The second half problems stemmed from Lavia tiring, conceding a penalty from his losing possession, then being replaced by James, leaving Caicedo again to hold the middle of the park on his own, while Bournemouth just played through us at will. If opposition managers can see the opportunity, it’s really up to Maresca to find a way to stop our midfield from being overrun. It’s happening too often.

In hindsight, maybe it was a mistake by Maresca to say we really aren’t good enough to win the league. The players seem to have taken it to heart.

Yep. Our wingers don’t have any goals in them and they don’t create anything so what’s the point? I’d just try a front line of Felix, Palmer, Nkunku and Jackson. Just for the hell of it.

Well we salvaged a point. But that was really depressing. We can’t rely on Palmer to win games on his own. Others have to do their bit. I’m looking at you Jackson and Madueke.

Still time for us to win it.

Even Palmer goes off the boil in the second half,

Well Jackson has gone very quiet this half.

Ten minutes to go. I think he’ll take Madueke off in a bit.

Maybe we do need to buy a striker. We can’t go on like this.

What’s going on out there? We’ve barely put two passes together this half.