I mean 2-3 years ago our starting XI was:
Pope
Trippier - Schar - Botman - Burn
Bruno - Joelinton - Willock?
Murphy - Isak - Gordon


Pope - definitely hasnt improved since.

Defense - Now, I do think that Tino and Hall are exciting players, right age - tick all the boxes. Thiaw looks good. May be we are one world class CB away from being all set on back four.
But with injuries, atm I dont think we are better now.

Midfield - Bruno and Big Joe were immense couple years ago. Now with Tonali i think we are on the same level. I dont know if Joelinton gonna return to his best. I believe that Howe should find a way to play Bruno - Miley - Tonali as a way forward.
If only it wasnt for PSR…

Attack - here we are. Is it downgrade on all three? Is it where our problem is?
We still have Gordon and Murphy, but are they the same players quality wise? Murphy is getting older, Gordon is a shadow of himself. Even the rat himself just managed 1-2 goals in half a year,
The club had an excellent opportunity to upgrade RW position, Murphy would accept back up role. And they kinda tried doing it at discount shop, but it hasnt worked.
As I said in another thread - CF replacement was a panic buy, but its hard to blame the club - everyone knew we need a striker and we paid through the nose for these two.


We had 3-4 transfer seasons without a major signing and Howe managed to get Cup win and CL out of these players. But it cant work forever. May be Isak saga hasnt happened if we’d bought 3-4 first team players these past two seasons.