Gallowgate Toon

We had less than 40% possession and didn't even manage 10 shots while they had 20. We were at home. Today was absolutely nowhere good enough, Howe will be fuming & rightly so. They have a good team and deep squad, but if you'd told me before the game that's all we could muster then I'd have been very disappointed. They had some excellent chances with those 20 shots as well - it was hardly like they were speculative efforts. I don't expect us to go toe-to-toe as a possession side, but I expect more than barely creating, letting a team through loads, all while willingly giving up possession & territory. It felt like we didn't even attempt to figure out ways to create any momentum in our favour, we just accepted our lot and tried to grind it. We know we are better than that.

The plan feels a bit weird with him. We clearly were going to hit on the break today, a la Barca, so you'd think he'd be nailed on to start as that perfectly suits his current skillset, yet we give him more minutes without a striker again.

Didn't feel like a back 5 in that first half, Burn seemed to squarely be playing LB which is absolutely ridiculous.

Absolutely no plan to get a foothold in that second half at all. They're a better side than they were last year, it just isn't good enough to sit back & punt balls hoping for a break. Really disappointed.

Very rarely go against his plan but I felt he got it wrong today. Second half plan has to be better than that. We're at home.

Sounds like a 3-5-2.

Howe has said that there needs to be a balance with Woltemade's game as he likes to be so involved, but I don't think we should limit that. There will be some games/moments where his roaming will be class, other games we'll want him to stay higher & more fixed. He seems intelligent enough to understand tactical instruction and his technique makes him very flexible for us tactically.

I love him, man. Such a fun footballer.

Apparently asked if he's faced any tough defenders yet and he said none goal aside against us, he lost the vast majority of his duels and had an absolutely abysmal pass completion of 44%. Very evidently a good player but seems quite desperate to create some aura PR around himself.

Thought his coverage over the summer was quite decent, but his attempts to continue to spin it out are just a bit embarrassing (to be fair, it's somewhat a byproduct of the industry being a shambles).

Wilson scored 0 goals for us last season and looked a shadow of the player. Even if he was fit for more games, he's sadly no longer good enough.

The similarities between our window last summer and Villa's this year are so striking. Sounds like a PSR fire sale replica? Absolute group killer. Howe is a very good man manager, I'm not sure Emery is quite as good at that part if there's serious unrest in the camp.

Watched a bit of the game back last night. Felt the same as watching it in real-time - some lovely touches and little movements to open up spaces for others, we just didn't have the structure or support around him to really make it count. Quite a few times he's wanting an earlier ball to feet once he's got his man pinned as well. He was getting more demanding as the game wore on which is a good sign - he seems a very chill person so a worry might've been that he's not forceful enough on the pitch but he was pretty vocal yesterday. Bruno is really, really good at those earlier passes so I think we'll see them strike up a good relationship over time. Hall often looks for earlier direct balls to feet too. Stamina-wise, he's got a bit to go, but he's a very natural & calm footballer who doesn't seem to be struggling with the pace of the game much, in terms of getting caught wanting more time on the ball.

Controversial but I'd make sure our starting attackers get good minutes here. We need to build some rhythm going forward.

The back 3 was really important for him today, imo. Expecting him to go 1v1 against a quick attack for his first start in 6 months would've been a potential confidence killer.

He was cramping up after 45 mins last week, not a shock he faded a lot more on the hour - which makes starting Willock more frustrating imo. He won't be at Howe's physical minimum for another couple of weeks imo. Such a shame about Wissa.

Fairly minging attacking structure around him for the vast majority of today but some of his touch and link play was really good.

He was canny good, like.

He really is absolutely dreadful now. So sad to see.

Massive test for him playing in a 2 in his first start in months. Came through well.

Good result with a bit of a patched up side off the back of a pretty gruelling game. The attacking stuff will come, as it always does with Howe teams. It's important to build on a very solid defensive base.

Love BNE's touches, just need to get the right structure around him.

We've played 3 at the back quite a bit over the last 2 years, it's worked tremendously well at times, other times not so much. Saying 'Leeds' doesn't really count for much in isolation. For starters, we're playing a different team with completely different strengths.

The back 3 could be a fairly class way to get around their press, or it could be a shit show Can't say Eddie isn't being creative with what he has available, this season.

Bournemouth basically play 4-2-4 pretty aggressively. Interesting match up. Need to get plenty of bodies around BNE.