Andy

I thought Miley was good today in the holding role personally, he makes the occasional poor choice but that's just obviously going to happen. Put himself about and made some decent tackles, and I thought the decision to push him further up the pitch in the second half was an odd one tbh. Was also disappointed to see the idea of Trippier moving into midfield being thrown out this week, it looked effective against Forest until we just randomly stopped doing it in that game.

Entertaining again, but another disappointing result. We look like a bunch of school kids, suddenly seems to be no organisation or plan whatsoever.

Ritchie did his best to miss it like, the fuck was that first header

Howe will drop Miley when Willock is back, not Longstaff.

The coverage of this is mental. Don't think I've ever seen anything like this for a sporting director. I don't doubt he does... something... But with the reaction of some in the media and many Man Utd fans, you'd think he was the sole mastermind behind our 4th place finish and Brighton's rise to "success" before that. In reality he was a only small cog in both machines from what I can tell, especially relative to his hype.

True enough of Arsenal and City tbf, but even then the players they have in those positions are more dynamic than Burn, they also play with a completely different style to us in general. Liverpool are more stylistically similar to us and at their best they play with Trent and Robertson first choice, Gomes has played there a lot this season due to injuries I believe, but again he's more capable going the other way than BDB and is more of an all-rounder than a centre half.

This is why the best teams generally play with two attack minded full backs, not defensive minded ones. For me, we should be looking to add threat down the left hand side so we don't become predictable in our attacking patterns, this would help pin teams back. Yes you're going to still see players like Trippier and Livramento get caught out, but Burn gets caught out anyway, and adding an additional attacking dimension and dragging us up the pitch far outweighs that. Ideally you find an athletic midfielder who is capable of filling the holes that are left, so you don't need to rely on this "Dan Burn fills in at CB when Trippier goes forward" idea.

Yeah I already edited my post to say that. However, point remains that he struggled against Bailey which is why Tino came on.

He got man of the match against Fulham, but not Villa? Schar was MOTM against Villa. Burn struggled against Bailey in the second half of that game and was subbed off. Edit: not subbed off, but Livramento was brought on to support him

This is pretty much how I feel about the Burn situation too, it's my only frustration with Howe really. Tino looks better at both ends of the pitch, the only advantage of Burn is aerial duals, but that shouldn't be a deciding attribute for a modern fullback. He's costing big chances 2 or 3 times a game, Elanga could've scored today 10 minutes before he actually did, in near-identical circumstances. Him constantly being exposed for pace is a big part of the reason that we constantly drop back so deep imo.

He's so much better further up the pitch like. We need a proper defensive midfielder to unleash him fully next season, assuming he stays.

Another iffy performance, but a good win ultimately

There are two consistently glaring issues in our defensive structure every single week at the moment; the gaps in our midfield, and Dan Burn getting pulled to bits. One of these is solvable at the moment, the other probably isn't. Eddie needs to act on the one that is to at least give us a chance of getting some confidence back. Really frustrating that the majority of us can see it but Eddie either can't or doesn't want to, as it's now constantly costing us points.

No way Elanga burns him in that situation from a five yard head start like, Tino is deceptively fast, his recovery speed is excellent

If only we had a pacey fullback to cover some of the ground in the absence of a sweeper keeper

Feels a bit harsh blaming Dubs, aye he got megged but Elanga has so much space that it's one of those where if the keeper saves it, it's a bad finish. He has to come out as Burn is never recovering.

Looks similar to how we finished against Luton

He'll be fine. He only had a twisted ankle didn't he? It's one of those where you know it's either better or it's not just by walking on it, it's not like a muscle injury where you aren't quite sure

Seems like a bit of a stubborn decision from Howe, it could definitely backfire if we lose and Burn has another stinker, could see it turning a lot of the more impatient and vocal fans against him after the noise this week We should have enough with that attack to win the game though hopefully

Relative to how effective he was in the 60 minutes prior to Livramento coming on, he was anonymous. His effect on the overall flow of the game was clearly vastly diminished, I don't know how anyone could watch the game and think otherwise. He was involved in attack after attack prior to that. I would personally describe the chance as a half chance, it's not exactly a sitter, he has to take the shot first time as Tino closed down the angle extremely fast, he can also only really hit the ball near post because of that. It would have took a very good strike to score.

A player can be mostly nullified while still having a half chance, which has been caused by the entire defence being dragged infield. The only way he scores that is by hitting it across Dubravka, which Tino's slide arguably covers. Ogbene was clearly a lot quieter when Burn went off, before that he was having a field day running with the ball, which didn't really happen at all with Tino on the pitch.

He had that chance aye, could argue Tino blocks it if he hits it across goal though, which is the only way he could have scored. He was far more anonymous in general play, one half chance doesn't really change that.

In fairness, City and Arsenal have the luxury of having top class players in almost every other position to make up for that. The players they had at fullback are also faster than Burn. Burn has been badly exposed because of the lack of protection from midfield this season; last season he had Willock and Joelinton doubling up to help him. Miley (understandably) and Longstaff don't do it as effectively, so if Gordon isn't back helping out he's in trouble. We have a fullback sat on the bench who so far has shown he doesn't need the same level of protection. Ogbene was anonymous when Tino came on today.

Hardly a shock that a 17 year old isn't mixing it athletically in midfield like Thought he was good with his passing tbh, played a part in all of our goals.

Such a dangerous player. Playing at probably 50% today and he looked by far our biggest threat.