Gallowgate Toon

Checking out the highlights, we missed a couple of great chances.

My dad was at the game and said his performance was really flat. He's usually so passionate to play. It must be hard for a striker to not be getting a look in when he was in a good vein of form, but that's where Rafa's supposed to earn his cash.

Eh? Have we suddenly become unable to win anything? Some of the reactions seem a tad over the top, dare I say it.

We're much easier to play at home than away, like. We were bloody awful against Cardiff 3 weeks ago, too. We don't have enough threat and penetration when teams set themselves up to stifle. With Gayle off the pitch this is especially true. We scored from 2 great moves against Cardiff and then sat off in the second, I'd hardly call that lacking penetration. Ipswich also came to sit and were battered. Same with Brentford, no?

You'd have thought the players brought in would've been desperate to impress. Mitro sounded demotivated. Oh well, it's going to happen.

McCormack has a fair amount of assists to his name, over the last few years. There's definitely more to him than goals.

People are right to scrutinize the last 6 years of his career, but to question what he achieved at Valencia and Liverpool is absolutely mental. Finished 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 2nd, won an FA Cup, won the Champions League and reached another final. Had to be a bit more of a wheeler & dealer than the other big rivals at the time too.

He's not really had much of a run in the side this season, has he? He might benefit from a few consecutive games. It's seemed really stop-start for him and he might be struggling to find some rhythm.

Maybe it's not the player but the formation/tactics. Basic passing and control errors aren't really a lot to do with formation. I actually thought he was OK today; some important and sharp play, just also matched by some truly terrible stuff.

Hayden's shown some really shrude passing in patches, like, as well as a good turn and the ability to break through the lines with the ball. He'll be a far better player than Colback.

Things breaking down too much up top when we're trying to build attacks. Perez has been OK, IMO. Gayle, goal aside, has been pretty poor.

We've played some sumptuous football under Rafa, like. Some of the orchestrated movements are a genuine joy to watch. I hate hearing the cliché about him being defensive; he's the ultimate pragmatist, tailoring the team to the situation.

I don't really care about their form, our form is pretty brilliant We won't smash them but a professional, close win, as we've become accustomed to under Rafa, is most likely on the cards.

Movement was brilliant for the second, like. Love it.

Sounds like we were well on top but fell into second gear and, once again, didn't take enough chances. 18 shots and only 4 on target, last I checked...

We're getting pretty good at starting fast

"Would have him over 70k a week Shelvey." aye mate, you'd have him over the best player of the side top of the league. Makes loads of sense that. Mental Shelvey has torn quite a few teams to absolute shreds, already, yet they'd rather have some lad who can run about a bit and do some tackles? Mental. Having more of a readthrough and it just seems there's a lot of knackers on there - really odd opinions across the board.

Didn't we have a good case for a pen in the first half?

It seems better than last time, tbh. We're just better.

Looking at the stats, we played a lot more long balls than usual. I know Mitro was playing but was it a case of they made us play that way? Seems strange because we've been knocking it around really nicely for a few weeks now and Mitro is probably better at linking play with his feet than his head (not that he's bad at that).

They seem a tad delusional, tbh. They'd rather have Ben Pearson than Shelvey 'on current form'. Strange folk. Edit: And now the XI today would've beaten our team in midweek. Yeah, that's how football works

Sounds like we need to hold the ball a bit.

3-1 win.

Really like him.

I really fancy us for a cup. The conditions are right for it, IMO.