KaKa

1 minute ago, The Butcher said:

Be really interesting to see who will replace Southgate after the WC.

 

Will probably have to go forrin you'd think.

Forest manager will get it.

I like this Gnonto kid. Would have been a really good pickup as a squad player.

Was so mad Leeds got him on such a great deal as he was brought in from a much smaller league.

18 minutes ago, gbandit said:

Apart from Bellingham, there’s basically no positives to take from this performance. Pope’s been solid. Our movement of the ball has been exceptionally slow at times and when we have broken forward we’ve been so poor 

Too many touches and no movement. Terrible combination.

Thing is Declan Rice is a good enough defensive player to sit deep by himself too, and then have Bellingham and Ward-Prowse/Grealish/Mount or wheoever as 8s that can get forward.

Kane, Sterling and Foden are having to drop deep too often to help transition play and it's just messing everything up.

England need 3 men in midfield. They just do.

Just quit with the bloody three man defence already.

There's too many decent midfielders that can be added to the midfield three to improve the build up play and transition from the back, that are left on the bench for an additional defender.

14 hours ago, Optimistic Nut said:

 

That is OUTRAGEOUS!

Just now, cubaricho said:

 

All that attacking talent and five at the back.

 

Or previously, two DMs. Wild mismanagement.

It's so awful man. I can barely believe it.

Just now, Flip said:

 

Should watch Brazil instead. Murdering Ghana right now. 

Oh God! Wouldn't mind seeing Ghana take a beating!

Is it on TV in the UK?

Can't believe how awful this set of England players play. Southgate is not the guy man. Shocking stuff.

2 minutes ago, Belfast Boy said:

Radio 5 has Walker in a back 3 with James and Saka wing backs

Ah, that might well be how they line up. Makes sense.

3 minutes ago, The Butcher said:

WIll be James at LB surely?

I hate that too tbh. They should have a left footer out there, as Southgate usually has his full backs overlap.

Anytime he plays these right footers out there they always cut back onto their right foot and don't deliver the ball into the box well enough.

Just seen that Nick Pope starts today too. Nice. 

Like the attack and midfield selected today for England. Really nice mix of players.

The central defenders are shocking though, and don't like Walker at left back either.

The one good thing that will come out of the recent struggles in the final third is that the issues will be addressed this January without hesitation. No chance they let this carry on as a potential issue through till next summer now.

Yeah, he looks really good. Lot of hype building around him though. Going to be some competition for him. We'll have to be quick.

Hope Tsygankov comes on too, he's a really good player as well who's only being kept out by their older talisman Yarmolenko on that right side.

Mudryk starts for Ukraine against Scotland and Tsygankov is o the bench. Linked with both lately as potential signings in January. 

Just end this season already man. 

His salary is around £250,000 a week, so how would that work if he drops down to a club that doesn't pay those kind of salaries?

The guy is an elite level bedwetter man

You should see the way he carries on in the match threads. Painful stuff.

46 minutes ago, David Edgar said:

I expected way more for the money we paid.

1 hour ago, 1878 said:

Brutal 

Wew ... Iwobi as your profile picture! Bet you never thought that would happen

I'm so so happy about how well it's turning around for him. For so long we've tried to figure out his best position and it really seems to be that left sided central mid in a three. Just never quite worked out as a left winger or in the number 10, which was his preference.

Hope Nigeria takes note and changes the setup to feature him in a similar role going forward. He's played in a midfield two for us more recently, but don't think it allows him quite as much freedom to get forward.

This guy wanted his own club to lead and his own story, which is really refreshing. Guy is built different.

2 hours ago, Smal said:

He is really not doing anything in games and it's an issue. We have lots of possession but the metrics you'd expect to be high for a midfielder are not. A select few:

 

Progressive passes per 90:

KT - 6.57

ASM - 6.32

Bruno - 5.00

Joelinton - 3.86

Longstaff - 3.78

Willock is way down the list with 1.72. 

 

Shot creating actions p/90:

ASM - 5.79

Bruno - 3.71

Longstaff - 2.95
Joelinton - 2.71

Willock is again way off with 1.72.

 

Carries p/90:

Bruno - 50

ASM - 43.2

Joelinton - 38

Longstaff - 35.1

Willock - 31.4

 

Lowest of all our midfielders in touches p/90 too. Look at his passing numbers across the PL this season so far. We are 8th in the league for average possession (50.7%) so there's no reason for them to be this bad:

 

 

 

Doesn't get on the ball and doesn't do anything when he does. I'd put Longstaff or Anderson in for him until Shelvey's back.

 

 

 

 

Wow. Hadn't even bothered to look this deeply into the numbers when I've been critical of his performances, but I'm really not surprised, because I can see it from watching the games.

It's really alarming because he's supposed to be the most forward thinking midfielder when he's in the team. The fact Longstaff has mostly played deeper and surpasses him in all of those metrics is really unacceptable to be honest.

I'm often accused of having a go at Willock while not saying anything about Longstaff, well as the numbers show, that's because Longstaff has been outplaying him, while filing in playing that deeper position by the way.

I've said it before that if Longstaff starts in that number 8 role ahead of Willock, he'll get more assists and goals, especially with the way we use the ball now.

1 minute ago, Ben said:

Covering up his team playing shite with his antics is classic Mourinho 

All the time

Just now, McCormick said:

Lot of disrespect was directed at this guy; often their best player now and a great dressing room leader. I’ll never not choose to die on the “Tarkowski is a fantastic player” hill  .

He's 29 I think, and pretty much what we have in Lascelles already, and so didn't like the link to us at the time, and didn't want us to sign him.

However, he's a very solid no nonsense defender, and was a huge pickup for Everton on a free. Having Coady beside him who is really good with the ball also complements him nicely. They're a really well balanced partnership back there.