Ikon

3-2 with a very controversial end where Joelinton gets a red for taking off Havertz’s head and passing it to Nick Pope who kicks it outside the stadium. 5 minute VAR check and red card rescinded.

I wonder which international break…

Stupid to write him off! Equally stupid to expect him to make them one of the best teams in the league as well. It will be a tough job but it could go any way really. Since when does it work to judge managers “on paper” ? It’s so much about fit/timing. He’s a talented manager.

Players like DCL is the everything that we shouldn’t be going for no matter what. Everything opposite of him is what we should/will be looking to do!

Well deserved. Sky is the limit.

Stay away!

Isak shouldn’t be played anywhere but CF, no ifs or buts for me. He isn’t a 10 just because he’s got great technical ability. Having said that, we could use someone playing/being great between him and our CM exploiting space between the lines. Not necessarily a #10 but an attacking midfielder of some sort. Technical and creative one with great composure on the ball. That would give Isak way more space as well as dragging the opposition out of shape. Not just that, but also give both Bruno and Tonali a closer option to play “breaking the lines” type of passes without forcing Isak too deep as we’d have a long between. Both Bruno and Sandro are great at these sort of passes and I’d like to see us exploit this more by having a bit more of a triangular shape in midfield to give us some depth and not just look to get ball out wide all the time. Despite his technical ability Isak isn’t at his best/consistent when it comes to going deep with his back to goal. Leave him as high up as possible.

Very much this as I’ve been saying from day one. Obviously an amazing finisher but apart from that he’s the total opposite of what I think we needed. Because I’ve wanted us to go for more technical/composed players to evolve and improve our in general play and control of possession. Saying that, we can still be direct and intense and press. Just would have wanted someone totallly different.

Love him. Ridiculous ability.

I wouldn’t be agains AG but yeah, that seems a bit too unrealistic

Out of boredom..What would everyone’s dream January signing(s) be? Mine would be Lee Kang-In. I think he would be an absolutely smashing top quality signing. Would offer us great versatility and something really different that we don’t have. Playmaking from the right hand side going more central with Tino providing width. Love the idea of him as an attacking midfielder in front of Bruno and Tonali when/if we want a different system at times. Im not sure how much PSG see him as a key player or not. Not seen that much of him this season but I read that he has started about half of their games. There were rumours that they wanted up to 70m euros for him but I doubt they’d ask for that much really. He has all the attributes and is still only 23 and I reckon he might grow quite a lot if he was to become a key/star player for someone else. I could very easily be shot down here right away IF he’s seen as key for their future plans (which I don’t know). He would pull defenders out of their shape and I reckon it would make the world of good for Isak and others as well. I obviously would love a quality CB but I’d rather have a top quality attacking player if I had to choose one. Maybe we could find a CB on loan depending on Botmans and his comeback. I assume he won’t be match fit until around February.

It was a yellow but still a very rash tackle. Looked frustrated when he did it. If he had been a bit more unlucky then the tackle might have been even uglier and could have resulted in a red.

He’s not the most talented but he’s very focused, determined and has the controlled aggression in his game. He’s very basic but he’s solid. Tino has tons of ability even though he’ll never be the playmaking type that someone like Hall can be with his superior technical ability and vision/awareness. The problem I find with Tino too often is that he lacks the concentration and determination a bit too often. He’s a bit too chill and sometimes I think of him chilling all day on the sofa playing random video games. With Tino at RB I think it’s even more important that our future RW has a bit of flair/composure and creativity.

I was very confident that we would win this. Can see see us just falling short against Arsenal or draw then lose at Forest.

To be totally honest I’m not worried about our season too much when it comes to playing at home.

Good win, and an important one in many ways. A bit sloppy in possession at times but still.

Or someone moaning about something someone else might moan about. (I don’t get either side (it’s tiresome)

It's simply that he doesn't offer enough for me. Not a bad player as he's a great finisher, but i reckon that we needed more variation in our tool kit to make us less predictable and allow us some more patterns of play. I've said before that i think we need to improve our technical and creative ability, Also been saying that to evolve to the next level we need to improve our in general play as well as becoming a slightly more possession based team. We can't get to the next level without finding a good balance between directness/possession. I said a long time ago that i reckon we'll be found out otherwise and that other teams will adapt and we'll find it harder unless we can become more unpredictable amd have more variation in our play. Just to add, i maintain the idea that we need a creative attacking midfielder to give us some playing depth both going forward and defensively. Think it would make us better in both directions as well as helping Isak A LOT. The distance between say Tonali and Bruno and isak is quite massive, so it doesnt take advantage of their ability either imo.

I've said it from the beginning, i cannot understand why we signed him.

I'd never take this particular job if i was Amorim.

The midfield is so damn flat, no playing depth whatsoever. Not offensively or defensively. Sort it out! We have players like Tonalili and Bruno but nothing nearby in front of them to play to. Unless Isak drops way way too deep which he shouldn’t have to do. Losing out so much because of this.

Howe was very determined to keep him. We should have got rid earlier.

Great news! Hopefully this means he will find his best form and momentum again.

I agree. I didn’t say that they created a lot. I just said that we created one more big chance than them. I’m not too down after the result even though it’s frustrating. We looked good, but we need to sort out some things and I’m sure we will. Also there’s still PLENTY of games to play. I agree that had Isak scored then we probably would have went on to win It, but he didn’t. We beat Spurs for example, and I remember them missing a couple of good chances. It’s as pointless as talking like “had we beat them and them and had we scored that big chance the we would have been 2nd in the league” Having said all that, I’m reasonably optimistic about the rest of the season. One thing I see as vital though is that we MUST improve the creativity/technical ability in the team in January. I’ll be very disappointed if these kind of attributes aren’t one of the most important attributes we seek when it comes to player profiles. They don’t need to be midgets because of this.

If we tried for both Elanga and Olise I’m not sure we know what type of player we want. Elanga is an entirely different type of player. Also the type that I do not want us to go for.