TRon

Well it was kind of predictable. Even when we hammered Qarabag I said that was never going to be reflected in the PL. Tbf, Gordon does look the best bet as a striker, but that says more about our actual strikers than him.

Sandro was also one of the few who was picking the ball up in the centre circle and driving forward with the ball when the space was in the central areas. Everyone else just looks to punt the ball out wide where the players get closed down pronto.

It sounds harsh, but I fear it will ultimately be proven true.

Well he can actually strike a ball well so I don't mind when he takes a punt from range.

Don't think he deserved that tbh. It's his Billy Big Time attitude which he shows against smurfs like Qarabag when you know fine well he won't be able to reproduce it against PL defences. I thought he was ok though, tried hard enough, just ran into brick walls too many times.

What a goal that would have been.

Honestly I was watching us shift it wide so many times today when there was space for someone with some ability to drive right through the middle in the centre of the pitch, and it was the first time I was thinking we really need some skill at the top of our midfield arc. I think @Ronaldo has commented on this plenty in the past, but really struck home today. Ramsey is in that mold but a really high class operator with a decent peg on him would make all the difference.

Yep. The players gave their all effort-wise, they just didn't have the gameplan which was going to get a result here.

You're still looking at 7th?

Hopefully he'll go back to deploying players in their actual positions again. We had three playing in unnatural roles today, and while it might work against physically challenged teams in Europe, it tends not to in the EPL.

Doesn't say much for our specialist strikers that he still looked better up front than either of them. But you can't play Qarabag every week son.

He'll be hoping Tuchel doesn't bother watching the highlights. Doesn't help that Pickford made a wonder save from Tonali either.

I think we are getting into semantics here. Probably should have just left it at "He's a big fanny".

I think it's great in a league where defenders stand off. In the PL you will get roughed up unless you can stand strong, and he gets too easily overwhelmed.

Don't think we're beating them tbh. The only way to beat them is with good football, and ours isn't that good against physical teams.

He's a big fanny.

It's not even that I think he's a bad manager but I knew before the game we weren't winning this. We are flat track bullies, we will batter the teams who can't stand up against us, but when we come up against teams who give it back, we don't fancy it so much.

We are shite.

Hopefully Gordon and Elanga will get up and around him and pose some goal threat.

Everyone seems focused on the Barcelona UCL game, and yes I get it. It's exciting. But we are running out of games in the EPL, and this one will be a lot harder than most of the games we've played in the CL this season. I wasn't a fan of Gordon up front, but given the alternatives I hope we go with it against Everton. We don't need 4 goals from him either, just one will do.

He's not underrated by Howe. But the upside of losing players against his will is that at least we will get top money for them. If it was left to Howe we would keep them until they were on their way down and worth peanuts in the market. Unfortunately we can't operate that way under the FFP restrictions.

Unless an unhealthy dose of steroids is going to be part of his preseason I don't think it will help in those shortcomings.

No point in getting wound up about this stuff tbh. Players are always going to want to get paid top money, and FFP prevents us from doing that. I'm sure we could keep all our big stars if we could match the wages, but FFP means we are still a long way from that. At least we should be able to command big fees if the cartel clubs want them though.

I'd have preferred Chelsea as I think they are more beatable, but even getting past Barca isn't impossible. They aren't unbeatable these days, it would just need a good game plan and a bit of luck to go our way for a change.

I done a similar thread recently but it was just our shit shooting in general, not specific to strikers. The lack of options from free kicks would suggest we don't really have many natural strikers of the ball.