clintdempsey

Probably the best 15 minutes in 2-3 months tbh. Keep going.

We're clearly trying to play with a flat midfield three. When everyone is on their game, energy levels high and confidence rocketing this is fine. When one or more of these things are lacking we'll suffer from it. To me it looks like we're trying to counter that by sitting a bit deeper - to our detriment in my opinion. But with the options we have we can't really do much. Had we had a DM Howe would surely have rotated and changed things up but none of the three current options have the positional reliability to do this well. And of course we miss our shiny 60 million Italian, Willock and Big Joe. Hell, I'd wager that Anderson would've been awesome to have the last few months as well.

This is more to do with our midfielders being caught too high IMO. We have the same issue (in reverse) with our build-up play at the moment. We're clearly under instructions to build from the back but with the current midfield trio none of them gets into deep positions to pick up the ball, and when Bruno does Longstaff is often in the wrong position (and not good enough on the ball to be considered a safe option to progress the ball up the pitch) and Miley is seemingly still not trusted whilst he often finds himself in good positions. To me we're looking more and more like a result of the piss poor luck we've had with injuries, gambling, tough fixtures and not enought rest time to build. The structure is a bit off as it has been away from home most off the season and the confidence is low after this run. Let's just get Villa out of the way and avoid a blow out. Then we can look forward to a couple of easier games as well as maybe some more players back. Mid- to long term we'll be absolutely fine, it's frustrating as fuck though.

Had a few shaky moments in the first half - mainly some stray passes during a wild 2-3 minute period. Tbf he hardly got any protection from AG10 either. Gets his head on everything (not particularly accurate mind) and lovely to see him get a goal.

I thought we looked really rough until we got the 2nd. After that we controlled the game better. In the end the result is what matters - but the performance didn't really inspire confidence for tuesday night. We really, really, really need to find a new midfielder down the back of the couch before the window closes. Something is off with the balance - though it did look better when Miley and Longy switched sides.

Thought he did very well last night. Seems to be getting better with his positioning as well. He's a gem for sure.

Thank fuck for that.

Well, the winter break and more time on the training ground that was supposed to fix things like our sloppiness and fatigue hasn’t really worked. We look a shambles unfortunately. Hopefully we can get to HT at 0-0 and regroup. We can’t possibly be this bad for 90 mins.

We’ve been off it so far. Burn and Bruno the main culprits. Wake up!

That’s my hometown team. 😅 Absolutely hideous, but unfortunately a lot of Swedish teams look like that.

That gaping hole has been there since preseason tbh. Calculated risk I guess to press hard with all CMs pressing. It’s just a bit too noticeable against the best sides.

We’ve had far too many hiccups the last couple of months to just ‘need’ a performance IMO. What we do need is some points on board in games we hadn’t relied on before. Lose at home to Forest, lose at Luton and so on = the need for unexpected points in games such as today or Villa away. Momentum is everything, last we had it on our side, this year not so much.

Absolutely - he's got a journey to make. He's a very good coach, we all know that but he'll have to transition to a very good manager over the coming seasons. Hopefully he'll get the backing and time needed to do that.

Psychologically there's a huge difference between "Richest team in all of sports"/Saudis' cockfighting Qatar and Abu Dhabi ie. an unknown entity with potentially a huge upside and a team finishing mid table on the back of a quick visit in the Champions League and having their possibilities limited and hamstrung by new rules brought in to stop us from upsetting the apple cart.

If last season is deemed a 'miracle' can we really expect it to happen again? For the record I don't see last season as miraculous - a few things fell in or favour (other sides having off-seasons, a welcome WC break in the middle of the season). But last season's achievements were more down to hard graft and a very good coach having enough time with his players on the training ground to prepare for games.

Absolutely. But if we could have them back at around the same time we could at least ease them in a bit. We have a squad that is good - good characters, good players. We just need a few more of them to stay fit for longer.

Just getting players back in january and february should help us immensely btw. The 'best' additions we could make would probably be Murphy, Barnes, Anderson, Willock, Trips and Wilson.

Of course the deals are better than the earlier ones. But we also have signed players at a higher price and higher wages than under those deals. I agree that a bad season shouldn't set us back but the way FFP and the likes are set up it unfortunately means that if you're speculating to accumulate from a lower starting point than the clubs with 2-6x our revenue you need to get it right and a whole lot of luck as well. For me it's imperative that we somehow try and get a spot in Europe for next season as well be it through the league or the FA Cup.

Defintely 6th and EL. We need to learn how to attack multiple competitions and we need the increased revenue and exposure that multiple seasons in Europe brings.

We are in a bit of pickle tbh. This latest run of bad performances and results has really fudged up our season. Everyone knows it's down to injuries and fatigue (mostly) but this really puts a dent in our future business as well. As I've mentioned before - I'd be surprised if our new sponsorship deals does not include incentives based on CL, EL, Cups and so forth. Probably even league table. We'll have no choice IMO but to sell one or most likely two of our better players this summer to be able to give us the required FFP space to strengthen accordingly. It's a shame, and FFP is a bitch but one "bad" season really can set us back bad.

We’ve had that gap since pre-season tbh. The signs were there against Villa already. (The pre-season game). The midfield shape has been “off” all season.

Dubs has been amazing today. Would be nice to see us pass the ball to our own team sometime soon. 😕

Isak 🥰

We’ve been really sloppy defensively in midfield since pre-season. Like a hot knife through butter playing through us even in the games against Villa, Brighton and Chelsea in the States as well.

We keep making the same mistakes. Fucking hell.