Gallowgate Toon

Much more like it.

Aside from the mistakes this season, he's a player who can't kick a ball. It's a big test of how Howe wants to evolve. So far, we're not seeing it. We don't need an Ederson, but a 'keeper we can vaguely trust to play the ball to feet & who can play a decent long pass would be big. It'll help with our control of games. Ramsdale likely isn't the answer long-term, but he played well in a very good team not too long ago. He can be productive here.

He knows the secret to make his game work is graft, but he thinks he's above it.

Shouting to try and put him off fucking hell.

We rotated well but then sat back after going up on 7 minutes. I get we want transitions, but there has to be a balance of aggression to it still, especially when you've got players who should be fit enough to handle keeping pressure up for 45 minutes. Shite final ball too often. Pope obviously having another brainfart was the killer blow.

Absolute lunatic decision. The danger was barely there. It's got to be time to consider a change now.

Gordon must be playing through something. Bottled quite a few situations.

Enjoyable to see Willock doing his thing. He's had a good half.

I think he's a good shout for it. I expect RDZ will set up on the same way as usual and we'll go for hitting breaks. Gordon should be able to do that well against slightly less physical teams.

I hope we see some decent rotation for this. Everton is such an important game whereas, I hate to admit it, this just isn't a must-win. Schedule is absolutely gruelling in December too. Protect the full backs and Woltemade, please, Edward.

I hope he rotates quite heavily for Tuesday.

Great choices in defence and I thought the midfield tweak to put Bruno central was excellent.

He is so, so, so good.

Extremely important he keeps his place on the left. He's been our best LW this calendar year, he deserves a run.

Cheat code player, like.

We had these issues with the FBs + Isak up top a fair bit, tbf. I think the pacey striker angle is a little overplayed as it shouldn't fall on one player to push the backline back. Woltemade definitely does need to learn some new movements but how we build-up feels very muddled. We're neither committing to a direct game nor a short build-up game consistently. The organised sides we've been playing go very direct to bypass our press with flat balls from the GK and have had decent success, I'm surprised we've not done this more ourselves while we've been hamstrung with lack of options but Pope can't kick a ball like that. Arsenal did this absolutely loads against us to keep the ball in our half. It's pretty easy for an opposing manager to plan for us at the minute. Funnel their press to our left and either watch us dally which leads to a dink to nowhere or we give it back to Pope who will boot it out of play most of the time. I thought we'd had a eureka moment against Bilbao where we went for more direct angled balls earlier with wingers & midfielders making more runs, but it didn't seem to be on show at all against Brentford.

I'm glad he's said we can't just keep doing the same things over & over. It does feel like our problems are all over the place so it's hard to know where to start. Maybe in the league we have to treat this as a transitional season and building for the next iteration even if it comes at the cost of league progress this campaign, but that doesn't feel like it's Howe's MO. Either way, we need to be focusing more on our strengths than maybe trying to find theoretically perfect balances? I did find that Burn quote, if true, worrying in that it shows a fear-based approach. I think if you asked Howe what his ideal team is that he's working towards, it's something like peak Klopp's Liverpool. Pressing, lots of athleticism & direct play, but with a high enough technical ceiling to exercise more control to pick & choose when you ramp up. To achieve that, you need good footballers (which sounds really obvious) so, for example, when is he thinking we need to upgrade to a 'keeper that can kick a ball with some consistency? There must be some forward planning somewhere, we can't take absolutely everything game-by-game. It's pretty easy when you have a bad run to think everything is wrong but it really does feel like there's nothing good right now bar maybe Thiaw we're struggling to build attacks or hold the ball when pressed, pretty easy to get into & through, not having many shots or decent chances or even taking many risks, often losing second balls & duels, all while chucking away leads to pretty average teams through basic play. Out of everything, I actually think midfield & how it connects between defence & attack is our biggest problem. We never have a solid platform to just control the game at the minute, either on and off the ball. That just isn't on the midfielders either, it's the positioning of multiple players meaning we don't have enough options - attackers dropping very deep & full backs not able to consistently support building play. My worry is we revert and go 'back to basics' rather than try to figure out a path forward which would be a mistake. A lot of the old guard are just that, we won't be able to keep on repeating the same tricks forever. Interesting to see where we go next, I think he's going to go for a back 3 against City. We might see a cheeky 3-5-2 come out.

He's not a 10, he's a striker who just has an unorthodox game in the current climate. He's scored ~20 'top level' over the last year all inside the box. Second striker might be a better label as I do think he'd be a great combo with Wissa.

Oh yeah, absolutely, he should be breaking for that like he was vs. Spurs the other week after setting Willock through, but it's just a microcosm of our attacking instincts in general across the team once that dropping deep move happens. A few should know by now that signal means to get a shift on up the pitch. Only Barnes seems to move with any real intent.

Think it's fair to 'rotate' hm out, tbh. Schar-Thiaw for total football vs. City.

Even if he doesn't go to AFCON, there's little chance Wissa changes much for a while as a starter. He's going to have to work up to fitness and learn about this team. I really hope we don't pile pressure on. Howe has the tools to be doing much better already without risking him.

At least Barnes makes the correct run in this pattern, shame the pass is just a tad overhit. You have to wonder if Woltemade had to actually drop that deep, and why others beyond 2 players aren't trying to get ahead of him quickly when he makes this move. At the point of passing, he's level with Ramsey, yet he's nowhere to be seen at the end of the clip. One of the mids has to be taking more of a gamble there too. Ends up about 7v3.

We had a lot of these issues in streaks with Isak. He was class in games where we committed to counter as well as playing against the bottom 3 dross, but we were often totally lacking in cohesion when we were against competent mid-block teams.

Definitely. He scored some goals 'off the shoulder' for Stuttgart so the movement is in his game somewhere but it's not materialising for us.

His passing has been way off this season. Stats may disagree but it's just felt he's constantly giving it away. He's not ageing like I thought he would this season. He still physically seems decent, it's his technical game that feels it's suffering.