Gallowgate End

This is arguably the 3rd toughest away game we could face they’ve won their last 9 home matches in a row I’d be interested to see us just for this match make the adjustment Nuno Santo made to their 3-4-2-1 formation which was to add an extra man to the midfield. Reason being Perez still hasn’t scored away in the league this season and with Shelvey being back we could play that extra man in middle like Wolves have done so well. It would free up Almiron more to play in the number 10 role too having him play in those central spaces behind Ramsey and Xhaka is an area he could really exploit. Especially if we can get Shelvey back in the team to supply Almiron the passes. Slight adjustment I’d like to see.. Dubravka Fernández Lascelles Lejuene Yedlin Ritchie Diame Hayden Shelvey Rondon Almiron

Agree He hasn’t scored away in the league all season he is far from irreplaceable.

Aye I can’t see which Spanish clubs that would be interested in him that could actually afford the £20million. I’d be all for it if we could actually get a Spanish club to pay £20million

For me he has shown a high level of tactical flexibility that makes me think he might actually last a few seasons. I enjoyed Van Gaal ripping apart the notion/absolute myth that Solskjaer is a gung ho manager though

Apparently they want to sign Nicolas Pepe and Werner as well. There is going to be some pace in that attack if they sign those players. I seem to remember years ago like with Aubameyang and Lacazette we didn't want to sign Pepe for £20 million because he was too expensive, but could now be sold by Lille for £70 million. Aye the list of players Graham Carr advised us to get at a fraction of their now worth is scary when you look back. Even Thauvin has gone on to be worth a crazy amount now. Graham Carr could have made the club hundreds of millions with those 3 Lacazette, Aubameyang, Pepe. Which could have generated the club the amount of money to be able to consistently challenge to be the best of the rest for years and potentially put the club on a financial footing to challenge the Top 6. I think people underestimate the importance of the money we made on the two main Graham Carr signings of Wijnaldum and Sissoko. The money we made from those two gave the club a lifeline to be able to have the financial footing to come back up. Has a Premier League club ever gone down and been able to make the amount we were able to for assets Graham Carr gave us in Wijnaldum and Sissoko? I remember when he advised the club to buy Van Dijk from Groningen then Celtic ended up picking him up for £2.6million. And that Pepe deal was cheap too Graham Carr advised us to pay the £7million for him from Angers instead Lille picked him up for the £7million and he is now worth £70million

Rafa seems to love these type of focal point strikers like Sebastian Haller and Zapata. Did he have Zapata at Napoli?

Needs to work on his passing for me - too many needless passes back to the CBs for no reason - hopefully it comes with more experience he gains - still very raw Agree His range of passing is nowhere near as good as Longstaff, doesn’t open his body up as well either or have his composure. Far less talented than Longstaff for me.

De Ligt for the 3rd goal

The standard of defending in this match though Kehrer is absolutely terrible every time I watch him.

Almost 3-0 - Van Dijk all over the show Because Koeman has them setup terribly. Some of the areas De Ligt is being told to press

It just looks likely he will move on in the Summer as he hasn’t extended his contract Probably still on a relatively low wage as Frankfurt only payed around £5million for him from the Dutch league and he hasn’t extended so he won’t be on massive wages. I think in terms of us Premier League football would be the huge attraction for him and the Top 6 won’t likely be a option for him. Not surprised to read our interest in him very much a Rafa type focal point striker plays in the the same system for Frankfurt as we play.

Aye I wouldn’t be surprised if we try and put Muto in some kind of deal back to Germany in the Summer. We’ve apparently been scouting Sebastian Haller who only has 2 years left on his contract so Muto might be used in that kind of deal. I think using the likes of Gayle, Murphy, Muto in deals for Rondon and Haller this Summer would give us a Top 10 strikeforce without having to spend a huge amount

Apparently Mike Dean has given a combined 18 Red cards+Pens in just 23 Premier League games this season Surely when the FA saw him go on his run of 6 Red cards in 6 games this season they must of thought this amount can’t be right? The man is nearly on his 100th Red card for god sake

Brooks is playing central midfield for them should mean Almiron and Perez will get extra space to hurt them in the pockets if playing 3-4-2-1 Wish Shelvey was starting to supply Almiron and Perez though.

I thought Matip and Fabinho were defensively outstanding Liverpool won me over 1k last season on their Champions League run won me another few hundred tonight as btts winner. Stuck another bet on Liverpool over 3.5 when Bayern had to open up last 10 minutes. Wrong thread but

The noise when Man City scored their fans can’t even be bothered to celebrate goals anymore

Did Samaris look worth buying?

FFS was looking forward to this as well. Same Mike Dean will ruin the match and make sure he decides the winner like he always does.

Thought Zidane should have waited for the Juventus or Bayern or PSG job. At those clubs he would have had a easy run at more league titles and would have easily increased his reputation further

The supporters who always knew his worth to the team would guess he would be among the best in the league for this. Very important player for us

Very interesting bottom 3

Or the Noble tackle when deliberately trying to snap Almiron’s achilles with a tackle from behind. Anyone else see Hernandez get booked for diving in the box last weekend against Cardiff for the same type of dive that got him a penalty against us. This all after he had deliberately punched the ball in the net to score just the other week It won’t get a mention in the press but that Hernandez is by far the biggest cheat in the Premier League right now.

Don’t worry I’ve got my 4-4-1-1 excuse in early

If we go back to 4-4-1-1 like everyone wants and play shot for shot with Eddie Howe to suit them then probably Hoping we play the formation that has got us around 7 of our 9 wins that completely turned our season around. People seem to have forgot we couldn’t buy a win before the formation switch while our last 20 results in mostly 3-4-2-1 would have us 8th. If we play our 3-4-2-1 deep block against Eddie Howe give them very little space between the lines and in behind they won’t be able to have the open game they want. We can pick these off on the break with Almiron, Perez and Rondon and likely win while frustrating Eddie Howe to the point of tears with the right gameplan. I’d start.. Dubravka Fede Lascelles Lejuene Yedlin Ritchie Diame Shelvey Perez Almiron Rondon