The College Dropout

And Doku is elite 1v1. That turn was class. He’ll rip a defender 5 times this season. I wonder how good he is in the air. He’s a tall lad. If he’s useful in the air Howe might fancy Trips at LB on occasion to get Tino into the side. i’l repeat while he was defensively great. I was more impressed with his all round footballing ability. He’s a proper footballer. Good touch. Good decisions. Sharp passing. Technique. Etc.

Yes I am aware he is ethnically Eritrean hence the point

I thought he was good first half. Came deep and kept possession. Great second half obviously.

He’s got that Horner African long distance runner build but his stamina is one of the weakest parts of his game. It feels like he’s had a slow start to the season. He’s got 4 goals!

Great performance.

Hard to comment. Spent 45 minutes chasing shadows. Valuable experience though.

Thought he started brightly. Some nice touches and a lovely pass to Isak but faded as the game went on. Hope he can get more minutes. I think he’s a baller but he looked off the pace.

Aye. I was so impressed with how compact we looked. We didn’t have those massive gaps between defence and midfield. It was tight. Ok Rodri and co weren’t playing but we had some boys out there. But we looked much better off the ball even in the first half than we have against City, Liverpool, Brighton or Milan. My biggest gripe with Howe has been not addressing those gaps. But they were largely closed today. Well done lad.

First half looked like a player coming in from Serie A. Too slow on the ball, too many touches. Second half a lot better.

Was really good in every aspect of his game. Distribution. Delivery. 1v1 he was good. Confident on the ball. Needs minutes. A lot of them.

Some excellent passing. He’s only one injury away from a run in the side. If he performs well he could be here to see a couple of trophies and famous European nights. And it’s motivating him to be a better footballer.

Yeh I agree with that. It's a draw for players. The way players join the other top 6, play a few decent games and are basically guaranteed an England call-up or 5. Like that lad that used to play for Spurs, is about 26 and has joined Leicester in the Champ. Or the 30 caps that Man U mid got that plays for Watford.

Arsenal have an endless money pit. They'll need to sell Eddie Nketiah to make that work FFP wise.

Depends on his wages - the fees, wages and length of contract for other signings. Reliable goalscorers are like gold dust. A striker that consistently gets you 12-15 up top by himself is so hard to find + some type of all-round game.

I'd like to see him get some minutes up top today from the bench.

Missed through injury - that's not a proper rest. I do reckon he might start but in-game injuries are so common. Just let him sit it out - play a kid. Schr definitely needs to sit it out.

Aye that is proper shit from him.

Pope, Longstaff, Botman, Burn, Gordon need a break. Bring Dubs, Hall & Miley in. I can see Burn playing 90 minutes again though.

A lot of the fanbase is emotional and reactive. He had a few bad games, and some were calling him total shit. When he's never been. I think the criticism of the Jan window and some of his play was fair at the time, but as usual, some go overboard. The same is happening again and is happening the opposite way. 6 good games and a lot of people think he's absolutely mint. It happens with a lot of our players and fans on here. Sissoko was the best thing since sliced bread and his shortcomings were all Pardew's fault. Then he was worse than shit and a total waste. Neither was ever true. Ditto Cisse. Some similarities with Bruno G - absolutely world-class at first.. then people are saying 7.5/10 performances aren't good enough.

I don't know for sure. But i'm guessing Gallagher is better technically. I want our players to get international recognition just for them. But I don’t think the extra games and scrutiny would be good for Longstaff and I don’t think his skills would translate well to an international game. But he keeps upping his levels so you never know. Southgate tend to play Gallagher as an 6/8 and I thought he was at his best as a hard working 10 and an 8 at a push. Similar to MGW. As a 6 or an 8 JWP is better at that but he doesn’t play for a fashionable club or Palace.

To stop the next Chelsea or City.. eg.. us. Funnily enough it's helping us more than it's hurting us. Amanda and co. seem sharp about operating a football club. But without FFP we surely go more the City early years route.

Aye. Looks like we only have 1 league match on TV in October. But of course, we have the 2 CL games televised.

I was just thinking the other day.. I've seen all of our games this season so far on TV. I usually have to wait for that Sky 60-minute package the next day.

No reasonable amount of money makes sense for Wilson. £50m would be great, but no club apart from Chelsea would pay that. And that £50m wouldn't guarantee his goals are replaced for us. SO then is it £60m? £70m? And at £50m+ clubs might as well go for Ivan Toney.

It would be interesting to see him in another setup. Technically he's not the best and tends to make a fair few unforced errors which will be scrutinised at the international level. Instinctively, I feel people will say he's not good enough based off that alone. But he has this ability to make others around him look better. But I don't think you need Logstaff and Rice in a team. Rice can do the off the ball stuff that Longstaff does. Sharper at passing. And As good as Rice is, I don't think he's great at passing it through the lines which is what i think England are missing most in midfield. Rice passes forward but often wide. Someone like Partey passes straight into Odegaard or a striker.