Lotus

Didn’t argue that. Just my thoughts on the likelihood.

I have also been, and still am a bad loser so can completely relate.

Would be extremely surprised to see that.

Ouch

Get JL to cut him in half in the 1st couple of minutes. Get away with a yellow as it’s early.

Saliba missed Arsenals last game and Gabriel went off injured.

Saliba and Gabriel out?

If he’s fit for Arsenal I’d play him on right. Would stop that LB into central midfield bollocks. The space Cucurella left for him……

There was a fair bit of space for him to play and he wasn't playing centrally so I think it suited him and it showed. Also, looks so much better from 70 mins on.

But, aye....apart from that

Tbf though, as much as I've been wanting to see the same I could also see Tonali is less press resistant than Bruno. I think Tonali expects his teammates to move around into space whereas Bruno knows he's got to do most of it himself.

Was how I felt tbh. Very happy with the result and clean sheet but a bit unsure about if that performance translates into a tangible improvement against Arsenal. Guess we'll see.

I didn't think it was that but it was a lot better.

Was very good for Benefica I thought. Another player who moved too early.

Longstaff played well tbf.

Tbf, Gordon and to a lesser extent Tonali don’t seem especially geared towards a possession style game. Especially Gordon. He’s not particularly great at picking out passes between the lines. His passing isn’t that incisive. He’s better when he’s running at someone and has isolated a defender. Tonali is a very physical player for an Italian (massive generalisation). He’s got a good engine and is happy to cover ground. He’s not Bruno levels of technical though (if he was I doubt we could’ve afforded him).

Not at this stage of the season, no. We should be looking at performances and the team starting to knit together. After about 13 league games in we’ll have a better idea of where we’re at.

I think he’s destined to be a 6 type. If he can sort out his positioning and defensive decision making he’ll be a good one.

There’s absolutely no shame in losing to Chelsea away by the odd goal. In fact, for all the money they’ve spent and their sparkly new manager I think their supporters should be more concerned than ours because we could’ve got something out of that game. I expect them to rotate their vast squad and us to barely make any changes. As a result, I think we’ll pip them.

I also think it takes that bit of spark out his legs that allows him to do something special.

We’ve had some ropey runs in the past and subsequently put in some excellent performances so we’ve been here before. Obvs hope this time is like last time.

I think the jump in results and performances from when Howe took over to our stellar season seems largely based on physicality. We were so fit and our players had that underdog mentality and they bought into the notion that we could overrun teams. It largely worked and they derived a lot of confidence from it. We could force and pressure players to f**k up and we’d be there, all over them like a rash getting in good positions with their defences all over the place and we’d get good opportunities. Wilson was in good form and we did well. It was a tremendous effort though for the players to completely empty the tank week after week. I was expecting us to use that confidence to develop a style that was sustainable (because flogging your players each and every week is not). It looked like there may have been the green shoots of a stylistic change at the start of last season. Specifically post the 1st Milan game. For whatever reason it didn't seem to stick and I think the mentality of players like Bruno, Gordon and Isak feels reluctant to run themselves to the point of injury again. The style of the squad has not progressed into something yet workable. It will need to or the top players are going to start thinking about playing elsewhere. At the same time we’ve not built a squad that Howe is comfortable interchanging and we’re in a limbo. Not really effective at anything right now. Not enough ballers to keep the ball and not enough runners to keep everyone fresh.

Soon as a I saw Morgan Rodgers for Villa I thought they’ve bought their own version of JL. Only he’s younger and (I’m sure) on a much lower wage. £8m ffs.

That’s a valid criticism but I’m hoping it’s because he’s trying the Hollywood pass. If he had clear instructions to recycle the ball and just keep it moving we might see much better passing accuracy stats. I would also hope him having Bruno and either JL or JW showing for a pass as well as both FBs he would have plenty of options to move the ball quickly and then get himself into space to receive it back as an option. EH doesn’t seem to see this as a valid option (or not yet) so he must see reasons in training that it won’t work.

Think he suffers a bit from Bruno being the MAIN MAN. Would still try Tonali playing at 6. He’s got good movement to be available for passes from the defence and I think he looks fairly press proof. He’s got speed if it goes tits up. It would get in the game more and have the added bonus of allowing our only really creative player, Bruno to play higher up.