The College Dropout

The most worrying thing for me is his football IQ. And I think a lot of that is down to a lack of experience. Gordon is older than Saka. Saka has 2x the amount of appearances in the men’s game. And I suspect closer to 3x the minutes. Gordon doesn’t have the experience you would expect of a 40m 22-year winger. He doesn’t know how to press at this level. Apart from a nice 1-2, he doesn’t have any signature moves at this level. If we qualify for the CL. I would not be averse to sending him out on loan as crazy as that sounds. He needs the minutes.

It’s The Gordon signing that doesn’t really fit.

Watching the game back. The goals conceded were so weak. Poor defending and a little unlucky. Leeds scored from their first attack of the game and their first attack after conceding. We needed to ride out both moments and failed. The big thing for me was a lack of composure on the ball. Especially from Trippier and Bruno. Gave the ball away cheaply. Not trapping the ball etc.

Aye. Liverpool can concede 3 themselves though.

It's worth adding that neither of the Joe's are "proper" central midfielders. They are both fairly new to the position. Longstaff adds positional awareness in defence and attack.

Semi agree. Has shown a bit more than Anderson. But it’s marginal.

He’s very inexperienced tbf. Almirons had a great season. He’s still not a great player and will never be. Would hope for more ability than that from Gordon.

It’s just that Leicester are awful. But I also think they can get a result.

I’m more confident of getting 3 points at Chelsea.

I’m not writing it off. But I don’t like the match up in terms of style. The same way I didn’t like the match up with Arsenal or Aston Villa.

Thought he was a genuine threat. Lack of football brain is cliche bullshit. Like at the end, he had the right idea but executed the cross poorly. Thought he was more of a threat than Almiron.

Man we just need to get our 6 points.

Aye. I might have got it wrong in the foot. But ASM got loads of criticism for that final cross which I think was left footed. And it was bad. But at least he has a left footed cross in his locker. Almirons refusal to use his right foot makes him one-dimensional. Generally I thought he was ok but not a real threat. He does need more from Trippier and Bruno though.

Aye. A clean sheet was guaranteed. That’s not a lot. Considering Liverpool need to win. Still expect us to get 6 points. Team that have conceded 60+ goals = not as bad as league position suggests. I thought we would get it done before Chelsea. Less confident of that now but still expect it to get done eventually. Do need Longstaff and some composure back.

He’s not useless. But he’s not great either. He usually has a window to get the players that suit his system. He doesn’t have that. He set them up defensively and they gave away 2 cheap penalties because of crap personnel. They are not a good side.

Agreed. They battled hard but otherwise bad. Game of opinions. I thought they were bad. Atmosphere was boosted when we didn’t bother to defend their very first attack of the game. Relegation atmosphere’s are more hope than belief and easier to burst. But we played into their hands. Don’t get it twisted. They were good value for their point. But it’s because we were bad imo.

Aye it’s the decision making for me. It’s been so bad. He’s forcing passes too much. He needs to be the one adding composure and class to the midfield and he’s not doing it. Ankle must not help. But it’s the decisions that are bad.

Did they play well today?

That’s a boring cliche. Easy is not the right word but they are not a good team. They average less than a point per game. They will have lost more than half their matches this season. As one of the best teams in the division. We should beat them.

Tbf they were always going to win enough of these home games. We never try the former tbf. Don’t think we will now but I hope we do tweak it. Brighton have been the type of team to lose weird games and win tougher games on paper all season. I don’t take much from the Everton lose. They beat Man U the game before.

Leeds are shit. They are 18th in the league after 36 games. They have the worst defence in the league. Both individually and collectively. It wouldn’t take much for the crowd and the team to get their heads down if we went into the lead and held on to it for 20 minutes (at any point of the game) and we looked composed. They are no better than Everton who we swotted away. They didn’t offer much more than I expected. Willing runners with athletic players. Disrupted us. No class or composure in defence.

I’ll say it’s the first time this season in the league I’ve watched with a bit of anxiety. It’s because we are so close and I now expect us to do it. So not making it would hurt a lot. More than the relegations imo. Perspective will help though.

Nah. Had we won today a draw would’ve been fine. Then win against Leicester. It’s still must not lose rather than a must win. Other results could go our way. But a Win will have us at match point.

I’m down to a 7. I had us winning that comfortably. And we didn’t look good imo. Played with nerves. Forced a lot. Never fancied us against Brighton. In my mind I would’ve been happy with 1 point. Some injuries and fixture congestion/rotation will help us mind. Leicester is a must win obviously. Chelsea. If we had already qualified for the CL we would win comfortably. If we needed a win? No Idea how we would perform. Do fancy Liverpool to drop points somewhere. They’ve not been good as the WWWWWW suggest. 7.

Lads are rattled.