clintdempsey

?

Take a bow! I’d never thought I’d say it but Anthony Gordon is a cracking player and a lovable character at that. ?

Better the last few minutes. Keep up the tempo lads!

Might be. But our starting positions are so low compared to last year and it’s not doing us any good. We don’t have anyone apart from Gordon who can transport the ball up the pitch with pace.

There’s a clear lack of intensity in our game compared to last season. We don’t press nearly as high, we don’t bomb forwards nearly as quickly and we get caught on the ball way too much. Something feels off. ?

Absolutely - would probably give him a lot of experience just being in and around the 1st team though even on match days. I’m sure he’ll get minutes the longer the season goes on as well - and maybe even when the mood and performances start easing up a bit.

He did look great in preseason tbh - not sure it translates directly to the PL though. What’s odd though is that he hasn’t even been on the bench so far? (Not really sure who’s left at home instead ?)

Pope is (or used to be) a commanding GK with great cross claiming, shot saving skills and bad feet. The thing is - after the red card against Liverpool his cross claiming has gone down, his save % is down and we’re left with an (at the moment) average keeper with bad feet. We don’t really have an option at this time but within the next 2 windows I’ll be amazed if he isn’t upgraded.

I don’t think we ”should” achieve a Top 4 finish this year. I’d wager that the aim is European football through league position. The thing is though we haven’t really been at the races this far, maybe we’ve had a real tough preseason and things will start falling into place after the break or maybe something is more “off” than we realize. We have a run of good fixtures after the break and if we want to achieve Europe through league position we really should be aiming for 15 pts out of 18 before Arsenal to show that we can do that. We’ve had a horrible fixture list so far but we could definitely have been more impressive even in defeat in my opinion.

There’s no one really calling for his head though is it? But if this level of performances (dropping all 3 pts from being 1-0 up against 10, being outclassed, outpressed, outrun, outpassed against Brighton) it won’t matter what we as fans think. Of course he deserves a chance to turn things around after working wonders but this is has been breathtakingly poor as bad as we’ve seen since the dark days.

This is diabolical. There’s no way around that. Bordering on embarrassing.

Pope again. What the fuck is he playing at?

That would absolutely make us turn in a better performance. Agree ? Joking aside - we have been really poor there’s no denying that. Pope’s kicking and dropping the Gilmour shot was shocking and Tonali bottled the clearance as well as blocking the shot. Of course we can turn this around - doesn’t mean that the first half was anything but utter shit tbh.

We’ve been absolutely awful so far. No intensity, sitting too low, sloppy with the ball and all over the place positionally. Other than that we’re brilliant. ?

Pope is so fucking bad with his feet. FFS! That’s a clanger and a half that…

There does seem to be something off tbh. We’re overcomplicating things and are nowhere near as cohesive in our press as last season as well as standing off/too low.

Another thing that both Willock and Longstaff have in abundance. (Not they score much either though).

Pope has got weird technique for sure. ? Weather the ‘storm’ here for a bit and then go after them. Should be able to beat them if we’re on it. Not much evidence of that yet though.

That would be?

I for one am not local. Nor do I question Howe’s position. But on the other hand I’ll be critical when there are reasons for it. At the same time though I wouldn’t want him replaced by any other manager. But I still don’t think he’s perfect. At least not yet. A poor performance/result is just that - a poor performance/result regardless of where I as a supporter am from or who the manager is.

Well, any manager in the league would get criticism for taking a 1-0 lead, 11 vs. 10 and dropping all three points. Howe is and has been fantastic for us and will continue to be so IMO. That doesn’t mean that this is not a shit result and performance. I thought we looked sluggish from the start tbh, low tempo and bad passes all over the place. Didn’t get any better after the subs and to top it off Botman is injured. A really, really bad day at the office.

I can live with a point at home to Liverpool. But this performance has been lacking in tempo, aggression, ball progression and oomph. We really should have put this to bed ages ago but we’ve shot ourselves in the foot big time. Eddie will be fuming (as will us fans) and rightly so if we can’t find a magic moment these last few minutes.

We can only blame ourselves unfortunately. Haven’t really taken the game to them in the second half. Still time though.

We feel a bit timid tbh. Need to go for the jugular here.

Feels like Pope could’ve done better there tbh. We’ve been far too sloppy and passive so far. Maybe this will wake us up.