oldtype

Not to be all doom and gloom, but given his contract this may be the last we see of Schar.

Great touch by Woltemade, great finish by Barnes.

He's been a little better these last couple of games IMO. I think having Wissa next to him makes a difference.

I was exaggerating for humorous effect. What do you think the is for.

Good to know that we're going to continue running the midfield three out there until their legs grind down to dust. Not as if fatigue has been an issue this season, right?

It's generally a safe assumption that we will not sign anyone in January. Market was bad enough over the summer, even worse when you're trying to buy players mid-season.

The plan was always to have Wissa start and to ease Woltemade into the team slowly, giving him time to get used to how we play and us time to get used to how he plays. We're just getting started a bit later than planned due to injury. I think he and Wissa will be going back and forth for that starting place until at least end of next season like Wilson and Isak did, but that process will make him a better player.

I suppose the good news is that if he continues slumping like this we won’t have to worry about Man City coming in next summer.

I suppose I’m “boycotting” in the sense that despite living in a host city, I find it incredibly difficult to care about international football anymore and I’m certainly not going to pay $800 or whatever to watch a group stage game between Azerbaijan and Mongolia as a neutral.

I don’t see how anyone could muster the energy to hate Shola, especially since he’s no longer playing football for us. He seems like such a pleasant human being.

We live in an era of extreme parity, and PL teams are very, very good. Even the likes of Burnley are probably one of the top 100 sides in Europe and better than some Champions League entrants from smaller leagues. There’s a reason why the league table looks the way it does this year, with a dozen teams squished together at 25-30 points.

We absolutely do not need another center back. We have four players in that position of starting quality and this same defense looked unbreakable earlier in the season. To go up to five would be an incredible waste of limited resources. The simple reality is that two of the four just happened to get injured as we were going into the busiest stretch of games all season and the other two are feeling the effects of fatigue. The problem will largely solve itself when Botman and Burn are fit again. We can evaluate replacing either Schar or Burn at the end of the season.

How/why are we four points off fifth?

Dear me we have so many games.

I think part of the character of this team is that they really don't like the idea of sitting back and protecting a lead. A lot of the difficulty in the second half today was from the full backs being too far forward and exposing the centerbacks on the counter, while Tonali keeps trying ill-advised forward passes and giving the ball away.

Really bad and/or unlucky finishing is clearly one of our biggest problems this season, coupled with the central midfielders inexplicably going to shit

Yes, obviously the best thing to do when the opposition has possession is to get possession back, but how does pushing players forward into positions where they cannot affect the ball accomplish this? By definition, if you want to maximize the chances of wining the ball back, you want "eleven men behind the ball." And the reason basically every team presses less when they are ahead is because pressing generally increases the volitility of the game by pulling defenders out of possession, which exposes you to counterattacks. Teams also press less in general in the second half and as the game goes on because of fatigue.

It is *perfectly normal* to have most players behind the ball when your opposition has an extended spell of possession in your own half. What exactly are players going to do if pushed forward? Stand offside?

We need: #1 a left back. #2 a non-striker goal threat, don't really care from what position.

I think he just needs periodic rest given his age and play style, he can still be very good when called upon judiciously.

Seriously, what is wrong with him. If it's fatigue, we need to be more aggressive with rotating the midfield. We spent money on a squad for a reason, and on current form he's frankly not that much better than Ramsey or Willock would be.

Please buy a left back I feel like puking whenever he falls down.

We were absoulte dogshit for about half an hour but on balance still played better and had better chances. Ideally you'd want a game where you scored 2 goals in the first ten minutes to go better than that, but oh well.

I have been on various internet sports forums for the better part of three decades, and I have to say, this is the first time I've seen the "we need to sign more players of poor character" take

He's actually pretty good as a "kill off the game" impact sub. Recycles possession well with his size and technique, and gives defenders something very weird and different from Wissa to deal with.