Lotus

Excellent to see better movement from our wide forwards. Miggy drifting into the middle to receive passes caused them all kinds of confusion. Our passing through the midfield was top notch. Looked a bit like what Milan did to us. I’m delighted we maintained that level through the match. We’re a couple of levels above Sheffield Utd but it’s easy to be pulled down to standard of the team we’re facing . NUFC have been very guilty of that in the past. Yesterday our play reminded me of Fergie’s Man Utd. Just relentless and razor sharp. No mercy.

He was very, very good but we do need a bit of context here. SU did not deal with him well. He was up against a CB not a RB. He also needs to put in productive performances regularly before he can be judged properly. I didn’t slate him after the Milan game and I’m not declaring him the ‘a level above’ after yesterday. The whole team had a good game and AG certainly brought a level of danger to our attack. Was fantastic to see. Will have a better feel for where he is in his development by the New Year I would think. Hope he has plenty of +ve contributions by hen.

Rather than receiving the ball on the left with back to goal and carrying it inside, I’d like to se him make an out to in run from the left into the 10 position and receive the ball there with Isak or Wilson on the CB’s shoulder looking or a through ball or making space for Gordon to try a shot. Hes definitely got the pace for it. I also think he controls the ball a lot better like that than with his back to goal and defender up his arse as he’s not very strong. This tactic does requIre someone to make a nice weighted pass so he doesn’t have to break stride. Might work best if the ball comes from either a LB or Botman who probably has the passing range to execute.

Odd thing for me is, when a CF comes deep like that, why are none of our other attacking players running into the space he’s vacated? We have the players do to it as well. It’s obviously by design. We’re often very rigid when it comes to players holding their positions regardless of where the space is. Can’t complain for where it got us to last season but do wonder if we’ll start to see more movement from the wide forwards in the future.

It’s going to be interesting how having less time to prepare for games affects the team performances. Although our all round play hasn’t been good this season I do remember it took us a while to get going last season. I can’t really recall if the performances were off though or just the results. Anyway, Sheffield Utd will be a good time to judge how we’re adapting. Playing Milan at the San Siro and PSG coming up after, Sheffield Utd in the middle, that’s a very different type of game and occasion. If we’re improving we should see it this weekend. If it’s a slog and another disjointed performance then I think I’ll get a little worried. But let’s wait and see.

Think Burn has done alright defensively tbh.

Played them inside in a very dangerous situation. Seems like he does that at least once a game. Don’t know if it’s lack of mobility to get back in line if he drops deep on the cover or he’s just not switched on enough. Other aspects of his game were good though. Until he crossed the halfway line.

Until he clearly tired I thought his running was exceptional. We wouldn’t have won if it wasn’t for his engine imo.

He’s got nothing special physically and nothing special skill wise so I feel his only path to becoming a truly good player is if he’s a step ahead of everyone else from in the top inch. If he can read the game and anticipate exceptionally well then he good have a good career. But at this point, the only thing I’ve seen from him is plenty of heart and willingness. Very admirable traits tbf.

Our Motm for me. His slip up at the end was bad but I felt he contributed more on balance than anyone else. It’s like having an extra man with the amount of running he does.

If we’re still winning with 10 to go then Tonali for Bruno so he gets some minutes before Milan.

Hall for Burn and Murphy for Gordon (keep him fresh).

Think Gordon’s been decent. Him and Barnes need to get closer to Wilson though. Our wide forwards stay very wide and seem allergic to supporting the striker. It’s all of them so I’d say it’s a system thing.

Burn does not judge the offside line well.

His minutes are possibly down to the load the strength & conditioning team are recommending until he’s up to Howe levels of fitness and endurance.

He can’t be blamed for the fact we no longer keep clean sheets. That’s a system problem. We were great at it but then we were figured out and haven’t evolved since. Pope dropped a clanger against Brighton, yes. There’s a bit of play to go though between his aimless toe punt and the goal. He put us under pressure but we didn’t deal with it well at all. He’s comfortably our best keeper.

The fact we brought in 2 young athletic defenders makes me think the club have been thinking about an evolution of the defence for a while. I would think Tonali will turn out to be an important player. He’s new to it all and unfortunately, we’re a little dysfunctional atm but I’ve no doubt we’ll sort it out. We’ve had rough patches before and come through them. Would be delighted if we see Hall next game. Sad to say it seems Targett has lost his mojo. What ever happened seems to have really set him back. Like the lad a lot, seems a good egg. Shame for him but this seems to have been going on a while.

It’s clearly a tricky balance. I think our pressing system would be even better if we could evolve it so players press from the position they’re in regardless if it’s their normal position. So if our attack is more fluid, positionally and someone finds themselves at RWF, then press in the same way Almiron would and cut off the same lanes he would. However, if we’re not going to press, like the way we sat off Brighton at times, we have to compress the space because we were awful, porous and we didn’t adjust at all. Was really rather perplexing.

I think: Pope, keep it very simple. Burn will struggle badly as a CB with the way we play. Tactically, the mid 3 of Bruno, Sandro and JL is not good enough. It’s like having 3 permanent 8s. Any of them can hold the 6 position if they find themselves there situationally but they must then play it with discipline. And none of them are acting as 10s when finding themselves there situationally either. It’s making us rather staid in an area we should be strongest. We are far, far too static in attack. When our midfielders or passing defenders have the ball there is no where near enough movement from the attacking wide players especially. We look very ‘set’ in formation. it seems to me like the wide players are very conscious of their roles without the ball. I think we often try and progress the ball into the last 3rd by running it, not clever incisive passing. Our running off the ball compared Brighton was was extremely poor.

Brighton have set up waaaay better than us today. From about the 3rd minute on you could see we were going to struggle.

I’m just trying to imagine if it was us. It’s easy to say we’d act differently but you never know. To my astonishment he was found to have no case to answer. I take that to mean there’s a whole lot of context that somehow is sufficient to mitigate what appeared to me to be a horrible incident. And yet the CPS had nothing to go on. Just to remind us all, as has been pointed out here, you don’t need to ‘victims’ testimony to make this stick. There had to be a further important information that meant it wasn’t what it appeared to be to us. Tbh, I would rather that was so as well. Better that than the idea of a man treating his long term girlfriend and mother of his child with such contempt. So, the club are privy to information we are not. On that basis, how can we say how they’ve acted and be accurate in our assessment? I think a lot of us have a very critical view just because it’s Man U and badly we’ve done against them in all competitions and how insufferable most, but not all, of their fans are. Possibly it prejudices our position on the event.

Surely Man U just followed protocol? As legally advised. Not sure I would label them that. Incredibly powerful club with a massive fan base and a history of success I’m deeply jealous of, yes…… More morally debased than any other multinational enterprise? Would need way more facts than I’ve read so far to conclusively say yes to that tbh.

Reckon Dortmund come last in our group. Anyone seen their 1st 2 games of the season? Woeful. They may pick up some form but I think they’ve got too many problems in their team right now. Both FBs are below par and the CM position is quite weak now. They’ve got issues.

Would rather him than Burn for Brighton if Botman is out.

Only watched the 2nd half of their game against WHam but Brighton were atrocious defensively. Like, joke stuff. If that’s the limit of their CBs ability we’ll have them. If it was a bad day at the office and they can coached out of that it’ll be a very different proposition. We certainly have the quality to take the points. Will depend on how well the players respond I guess.