Andy

Thought Sweee's lineup was an astute representation of his usual starting position for shots, to be fair.

Only one that comes close to him is Owen for me

Yeah, if they changed their market approach at the last minute, they would have done that and left us with an unhappy player. Correct.

They wouldn't give a shit about ruining his career if they decided they needed to strengthen their defence instead, for example. Liverpool didn't sign Isak because he suited their system or because they felt he was the missing piece though, they signed him as a statement. They always intended to sign him, and I wouldn't even be that surprised if we always intended to sell him and a lot of the background noise was just a big media pantomime. The speed at which such a high money, high profile deal suddenly went through when Woltemade came in suggests to me that there was little chance of them walking away or of it ever actually falling through.

He'll come good for them as soon as Slot (or their next manager) is brave enough to move away from Salah being the entire focal point of their attack. Until then, drink it in.

No doubt he will improve in his time here and be useful in certain games, but given the amount of time we've spent knowing we needed to strengthen this position, we really wanted that RW signing to be of the level of Botman, Bruno, Tonali (post-ban), Isak, Trippier, even Pope, where they noticeably and instantly improved the level of the first team. I love Murphy but he will never have the consistency to be a top 4 winger over the long term. Elanga looks like he will be in the same boat to me. The player we brought in needed to be a "this is what we've been missing" type, not a "this is basically what we've already got but maybe worse at the moment" type.

Second sentence is the main point though. We aren't getting close to 70 points if we continue to average less than a goal a game.

Biggest issue this season is that the competition is a lot stronger. I'm not sure we'll have anywhere near the leeway that we had with our inconsistency in previous seasons. If we can't figure out a way to become a goal threat we'll struggle for top 7, you can't rely on clean sheets to carry you at this level.

He's doing the best he can in the position, but he really shouldn't be starting there in 2025 for us, which obviously isn't his fault. Said it in the match thread but the problem with him at left back is that our defensive line drops back to accommodate for his lack of pace, then the gaps open up between them and the midfield (more so than normal). For me, irrespective of how well he plays in that position, it will always be a problem for us as was evident two seasons ago.

Good goal today but otherwise probably not his best performance overall. Looks like our only goal threat mind so the couple of decent chances he missed stand out more.

I don't agree with this, he's just been noticeably poor. If the fans are scapegoating him then so is Eddie since he brought him off at half time today.

I wavered on putting his name there, my logic was that Isak was gone when he came in, so in that sense he was strengthening the XI at that moment.

I feel for him because he just doesn't seem to fit our style of play at all, and he doesn't have the tools to suggest he ever will. As someone else said, he's been brought in to fix a problem we didn't have. You've got to question the profiling on this one. "Is rapid" isn't typically a quality that elite teams look for in their wingers, it's just an added bonus.

In the last four transfer windows, you could only really make a convincing argument that we've strengthened the starting 11 with Thiaw and Woltemade, it's little wonder that we're struggling. I thought we played alright in the second half today but the same problems are there that have been there for years; direct passes completely eliminating our midfield, Burn at left back pulling the defensive line back to accommodate for his lack of pace (forced or not, we should have better options by now), no creativity other than Murphy who is massively hit and miss, and just general lack of guile all across the pitch. Howe has his work cut out to get anywhere near a European position this season at this rate.

Think he struggled against Minteh personally, but regardless of his individual performance I always feel our defence naturally drops deeper due to the fear of him getting skinned when he's up against a fast winger. We had this same issue 2 seasons ago until Tino finally went to left back.

Not a pen for me, similar to Trippier's in the cup final

He is but we make those stupid niggly fouls all the time in unnecessary positions. The one from Burn a few minutes ago on Minteh is the prime example of it, killed all of our attacking momentum.

I don't want to over hype this lad, but it's safe to say they might just be two of the best assists I've never seen. About to watch the video now.

Pep's record when it comes to English midfielders isn't exactly great tbf.

It's unfortunate he got injured when he did, but I can't see any world where the club ask him to drop AFCON, or where he will feel like he even should do that. We signed him knowing he'd be absent in January. We signed him knowing he'd barely had a pre season and the risk of injury would be higher when he started to play full matches. It's unfortunate but it just is what it is.

Unless you're comparing them in the same system, stats like pass completion can be misleading. Forest play basically everything through Anderson and, at least from what I've watched, he's generally much more safe with his passing than our midfielders. I'm always inclined to think high pass completion from so many passes isn't necessarily a good thing, unless you're playing in a side that is built around possession and suffocating teams. I prefer a midfielder to be incisive and offer a goal threat, which is where I think Anderson still falls short considering the kind of fee he'd command.

We seem to go through the same cycle with Joelinton all the time on here. Currently in the "he's the weak link in our midfield, sell the cunt" phase, soon to be followed by his next injury and all the "we really miss Big Joe, we're weak as piss without him" posts.

He's a pure pace merchant and is basically useless in a game like this as he has almost zero guile. Against defensive teams we should be starting Murphy, Elanga should only be starting against teams that play higher up the pitch.

Aye especially when the ball is in play, what the fuck are they doing?

100%. You can tell by the way he twists his body after the touch, he was looking to bring it down with his right and strike on the turn with his left. We know from his time here that his instinct in that scenario isn't to tee up a teammate.