The College Dropout

Crowd are so flat.

Minteh is rapid like. Honestly Minteh scoring felt inevitable after the foul.

Absolutely horrific that. Mateta’s a player on the rise too. Went up a level last season and continued this season.

Happy for him. My type of player. Could see he was a baller from his early clips.

Agreed - 7th is about right for us. But with 2 of the 6 teams above us out of it. The team 8th not likely to finish above us. Having 2 teams 9th or below in wages and squad cost finish above us would be a disappointment. Last year we finished 7th. Finished below 1 team with equal/less resources than us but above 1 with more. Fucking fair.

Strongest team possible based on fitness. Massive game. It’s tough. We are essentially pursuing a treble of sorts.

This was 25 years ago.

The being slow thing is being overplayed. I got pelters for saying he looked slow before he joined. He joined, looked slow but it didn't matter much. Now he's tired and out of form. And the slowness is used as a stick to beat him with. He needs a break. Don't know where/when he's going to get it.

Lad is tired.

There was 1-year Jordan Ayew scored 9 PL goals. Unbelievable.

I think it's switching things up via subs or team shape that he doesn't tend to do unless the match state is bad enough. Blocks he does and more tactical things I don't notice I assume.

Pope used to be definitively better. Don't think that's the case atm. I was a massive advocate for the Pope signing. But his form post injury is a concern.

Burnley are incredibly dour and defensive.

There's levels to that. Pope, Joelinton, Willock, Murphy really stick out as poor. Burn maybe too. The rest have a baseline of competency for their position. Surpised to see Gordon loses the ball more than most wingers. He's levels above in that regard to Murphy but that's a poor comparions

That's because the result is bad enough for him to change things. He's lost belief in plan A. He doesn't tend to make unplanned changes when the score is ok or he thinks Plan A might work eventually. Many examples where the game is going against us for 5-10-15 minutes but the opposition haven't scored and Howe sits on his hands until they score. Sometimes they don't score.

His final ball is great. If his replacement simply matched Murphy’s open play G/A I would be happy. his general passing is awful for the level we are aiming for. His general ability to retain possession- pressure or no pressure - is so awful for the level. Murphy’s work rate + goal/assist output + actual football ability + good injury record is a very good player mind. He’ll be hard to replace.

Aye. This is why I really wanted a performance and a result. You can’t just turn it in when you are constantly mentally defeated.

Didn’t think Hall had one of my better games. He was involved in that giving the ball away free-for-all that led to the second goal. At one point Salah was beating him to every header. It wasn’t one of his better games.

He’s always done this. We’ll be getting slapped and he won’t make any changes until we concede. I’ve stopped expecting him to change. It is what it is. Edit: he’s not going to change his planned subs. He’ll follow his planned subs until the score is far off plan.

We need to beat Chelsea and Man U at home. I think 5th will need 66-68 points. We need to find a mini-run. Chelsea and Forest already have the points on the board.

Nah he’s lost a bit of confidence since that Salah red. He was bad but not this bad. His shot stopping stats have regressed which is most alarming.

What are the reports?

Don’t want to see Gordon in a front 2 if we defend in a 442. He was pap. Get him running at Trent.

It is what it is.

He’s said that about injuries to players who turned out to be injured for months.