HawK

Random pet-peeve, I get frustrated when Longstaff and Gordon pull out of all 50-50s. I can appreciate they're probably just trying to protect their bodies but they never go in for them, I'm sure other teams are wise to this and have picked up on it. Longstaff does slide in occasionally when it's nailed on though.

Rashford & Man Utd come to mind, school meals work aside he's hardly a model pro. Am I being too harsh?

Yep

I think he'll end up leaving on a free and potentially going to one of the newly promoted sides

Better late than never Mr Howe, appreciate you taking my suggestion on.

Minteh

They might have asked Eddie to step in and assist Paul Mitchell in waterboarding Miggy until he agrees to leave

"some" familiar faces?

He'd have had a phone call from Carsley to let him know he wasn't in the future plans so he could get the word out about retiring before squad being released imho, sensible thing to do all round.

Needs to stop being so shocked to receive the ball, he's always on his heels and not asking for it unless he's making a run in behind. He's a hard-working Nolan for me, being played out of position. His finishing is his best quality when we have the ball. I think he should be behind the striker, but we don't have that position in our team. And I don't know if he's good enough to do it either, has no press resistance. We need Tonali as far up the pitch as we can imho, his once-touch passing is exactly what we need to open a low block so if anyone's playing that far ahead centrally, it would be him. *Shrug*

Am I completely imagining the pass that Burn made through our midfield line that went on the ground directly to their midfielder and started a break for them ?

Hall looking more and more like our starting LB

Very good 60 mins, welcome back lad

More injury prone than Bellamy, less mobile than retirement-year Shearer. Poor sod.

I guess we don't use FBRef to scout our players

So he's a bit better than Chris Wood then

I think it depends on the position, I've certainly seen players dominate and shine out in teams when their ability is obviously a level above those around them, like Le Tissier, Kinkladze, Mahrez etc. But yeah it can definitely be seen in two ways. I still think it's amazing how well Gordon is doing in terms of end-product compared with our legendary PL wingers of yesteryear though, and his output (putting natural development aside), has no doubt been elevated by joining a stronger team with a better coach.

Yep you're right. But my memory of ASM is a head-down player who often chose to run into those blind alleys rather than have a bit of nous and lay it off for a one two to exploit the space from the double-up

I was surprised to see Maxi's goals per game isn't that far off some of our other notable French wingers/attackers : Hatem : 72 apps 12 goals Ginola : 58 apps 6 goals Robert : 129 apps 22 goals Maxi : 111 apps 12 goals Can't see the assists though. Statistics need context, and the context here is that often Maxi was the sole ball carrier and goal threat at times, he got so much more of the ball due to the lack of quality around him whereas the other players in this list had less share of the ball. Any of the other players in this list above would have probably scored many more goals if they were the only threat or ball carrier in their team - Hatem/Ba/Cisse, Ginola/Beardsley/Ferdinand/Lee, Robert/Shearer/Solano/Lee, Maxi/Perez/Rondon/Wilson Puts Gordon in a good light : Gordon : 51 apps 12 goals in a team with Bruno/Isak/Trippier as the main ball carriers/threats. I hadn't realised how prolific Gordon was when compared to Hatem and Robert. He's actually beating Robert for goals per game, and has fantastic work-rate off the ball. Maxi has good qualities but just isn't an elite player, and as you say @Dr Jinx, if he was he wouldn't be playing for Fenerbache.

Issue is is that we, as owned by PIF, are seemingly trying to be seen as whiter than white.

Wasn't it 6.5m IIRC?

Completely disagree on Wood, every game I saw him he marked himself out of the game, had no link up play and let defenders stand goal side of him. At best he was just a body up top, but we had literally no-one else to do it at the time.

Other than the glue factory?