Lotus

I guess the flip side of that is Maddison is older and Mayne more expensive/wages.

That's a tricky one. I wonder if our perception of BL players has been adversely affected by the Chelsea signings of Pulisic, Werner and Havertz? Fwiw, I'm pretty sure I said at the time that Werner was a very risky one. Apart from pace he doesn't have much else that raises him significantly above the average player to have justified his price tag. Havertz has got quality but it's not working out at Chelsea. Lots of potential reasons there though. Also Joelinton. As a forward, I think we can consider him a flop. If we're being honest. On the other side you have players like Son, De Bruyne, Firmino, Konate, Matip and Guendogan. I'm trying to keep this to current or very recent players rather than going back to Ballack, Mertasacker, Kompany, Can, etc. The BL is definitely a lower level than the Prem. Munich and Dortmund apart. It's a bit slower so quick players can look better there. But I'm not so sure it's a high risk league to buy from if you do your research and the club culture the player is moving to is supportive and has a good management team to help the player adapt and develop.

What would people prefer if it was one of either: Maddison Szoboszlai ?

We’ve been definitively become more susceptible to the counter. Credible threats, very good chances and goals. Think we need to be a bit more savvy about over committing . Tricky balance.

I think we had 12 clean sheets out of 20 prem games. That’s remarkable and the bedrock for our success and fantastic goal difference. We’ve been leaky for a few months now. We’ve also been smashing a few teams so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts. I’d rather win 3-0 than 4-1 though, etc etc. It’s just quite clear we’ve become prone to conceding the odd goal (or routed by Villa). Don’t know if it’s fatigue, bit of poor form or we’ve been sussed a bit. Still…

I think we’ve had 1 clean sheet in the last 15 matches. I’d very much like us to return to our former defensive fortitude. The Geordie catenaccio. I miss us just shutting teams out.

Enzo Le Fee also looks super tasty. Small but very agile and very skilled. Great vision and had very good defensive stats.

Pacier than Bruno albeit smaller. Think he’s a very clever player. With and without the ball.

Caquaret makes more sense in my humble opinion.

Re: Brighton. Even better and even less likely

Think he just lacks a little match sharpness.

Think 2 starts in 4 days will be a bit much.

Hope Villa get 5th (or 4th with us getting 3rd…..won’t happen though….). Great for the league if some different teams get into the top 6. Would like Arsenal to win but I think they’ve thrown it away.

Was looking on the Everton forum. Was surprised how many thought we were quite a poor side. Trying to look from their perspective, they were quite dominant in the first 25 minutes or so. But, apart from that DCL 1 vs 1 with Schar they created nothing. They did control the midfield for that period but never did anything with it. Thing is, we were quite poor with the ball tbh but I don’t think they’ve given us credit for being positionally very good and defending resolutely. The other point is, you never really saw their FBs create width and make overlaps/overloads and that’s because of how good we are on the break. Against a supposedly shite side, your FBs don’t spend the entire game 5 yds from their CBs. Especially not at home. Also, they really do come across as entitled.

Actually thought he looked good when he came on. Everton were beaten by that point though. Still, he looked dangerous and very positive with the ball. Glad he got that appearance out of the way too.

I think his finest ability is how important he makes himself. He always asks for the ball when we’re deep. He makes a very active effort to be the one who starts the attacks. And when we’re closer to the opposite box he always makes sure he’s in space to receive a pass should that be an option a wide player wants to take. It seems like a small thing but that attitude is massive. The desire to imprint himself on the game. Fwiw I think Isak has a similar mentality but his position is that much higher up the pitch (obviously). I’m still not sure about Gordon but this is one area he could actively look to improve himself. When he feels a bit more confident and feels like he belongs, I’d like to see him look assert himself more. I think he has it in him.

I understand what you mean by an out and out DM but imo, all our CMs do their best defensive work when running back and nicking the ball from the side the attacker is not expecting it. I would like one of our CMs to have the tactical awareness and the legs to get back or be in a position of shielding or intercepting or even just discouraging play straight through our centre and directly threatening our CBs.

Tbf, if you don’t have an emotional reaction from watching sport I’ve no idea what the point is.

Defensively I thought most of our problems started with Schar. He was poor in every aspect. It exacerbated Trips and Botman’s issues.

Targett must be really quite bad in training. Or still unfit.

I’m in that difficult position of trying not to judge him on anything he’s done. Just on what he might do.

It’s not just Bruno’s lack of pace, it’s that none of our midfielders ever effectively sit in front or back 4. With our system and our use of the high press, all the midfielders need to move up to cover the passing options through the middle. It does mean though that a team can go diagonally from the back, miss out our press and then find a massive gap in front of our back 4. I mean, Bournemouth did it to us with some ease if we’re honest. They just didn’t have the quality to capitalise. We need to be a bit more flexible tactically. I’m sure that’s kind of obvious by now. EH will, I have no doubt seen it. Hopefully we’ll start to see the plan b and c options take shape next season.

He made quite a few bad decisions with his positioning and timing. He was exposed for his lack of recovery pace as well.

Villa played around us, they played through us. At times they just did what they wanted. We had a complete lack of defensive presence in midfield and our back 4 was exposed so often it was tragicomic. We lack pace at the back and or/at CDM. It’s been obvious for a while. A better player here and there may not have changed the result today (Villa were that good) but it might have mitigated it somewhat.

I’d like to see him make use of that pace by making runs off the ball. Maxi doesn’t really do that on the left side the way Almiron and Murphy do on the right. He could really make that a point of difference.