Gallowgate Toon

I don't think he's going to be a driving midfielder for us, he seems to play in bursts/moments and likes to ghost into positions. I think the current system allows him a lot of freedom, tbh, he's not as bogged down in defensive work, is covered by the CMs, is given huge license to roam and is constantly getting in the box which is what he seems to love. I'd move him inside for Leicester, even as just an experiment, but I don't think the current shape particularly hinders him. I think he's mint, btw, but yesterday just wasn't his day, he just didn't seem on it when on the ball which isn't like him.

Leaning towards this, myself. Have massive reservations about leaving Tiote to essentially defend on his own and I think it'll somewhat restrict Wijnaldum as he seems best ghosting into central positions from out wide, but I think it's the best we've got available to us. We can't keep on having such a narrow left side for home games, we can get away with it away when we're looking to break more. I'd like to see us press a bit higher but I doubt we have the fitness, we seem to have too many absolutely shagged after 70 minutes.

If they were a good team they would have scored five today. They are a well organised, hard working championship team. I like their style, which I put down to their manager, but they don't have good players. They are missing all their best players don't forget. Wilson alone would've won it for them with his finishing. Yeah, so they outplayed us without all their best players. That means either we are spending money on poor players or the manager isn't putting together the right team. Or we just had an off day, performance wise. Like picking an unlucky lottery number maybe. Sounds about right. None of our previous 6 performances were anything like yesterday, so it's not illogical to say it was just one of those days where not much was going well. I wouldn't be eulogising about Howe yet either, I caught Bournemouth against Villa and the mackems and they were very average, we just turned up with an open shape and players not at it and it played into their hands.

We had about 35 shots at goal in these two games didn't we? If we were lucky yesterday due to Elliot then the same must be said for Stoke and Butland the week before where 2 or 3 were genuine top class saves and hit the inside of their post. Sunderland at 11v11 was just a matter of time before we scored and the decision to make it 10v11 was proven to be wrong by the Premier League. Aye, we did, and a higher percentage of our shots in those games actually came inside the box (50% of Bournemouth's were from range). They're a side that 'look' dangerous because they play at pace but their two really decent chances came from set pieces rather than open play. Once we accepted it wasn't our day going forward (Perez, Wijnaldum, Sissoko and Janmaat were all losing the ball really easily, like) and decided to grind it out with an extra midfielder, they were really quiet. When we played the mackems and Stoke, they got plenty of bodies behind the ball. That's always going mean a slower tempo of play from the team that are doing the majority of attacking. We went to Bournemouth and played with a pretty open shape so it was much easier for them to find spaces quicker, I didn't think they were anything special and most of the time it was just us doing ridiculously stupid things to pile more pressure onto ourselves.

If they were a good team they would have scored five today. They are a well organised, hard working championship team. I like their style, which I put down to their manager, but they don't have good players. They are missing all their best players don't forget. Wilson alone would've won it for them with his finishing. Yeah, so they outplayed us without all their best players. That means either we are spending money on poor players or the manager isn't putting together the right team. Or we just had an off day, performance wise.

Yeah, I'm encouraged by him. He tells it like it is. We have played decently for the majority of games this season. I think he deserves a bit of time to get the squad how he likes it, plenty of signs that he's changing the mentality of the squad and 5 years of Pardew is going to take a lot of work to change. I just don't get this "I like him, he's honest" business. I'd rather have a complete c*** in charge who knows how to set up a football team. This guy seems to be another Pardew, scared of his own shadow with the two defensive midfielder nonsense. I'd hardly say he's another Pardew like. He doesn't hoof it long, but he still sets up too defensively. The midfield doesn't work and he's not changing it, so he's just another fraud as far as I'm concerned. He set us up more offensively earlier on in the season and we got battered, keeping space tight seems to be our best bet. The CM problem isn't as easy as it sounds. Our defence does need a lot of protection and we do need CMs in there that are happy to put in the dirty work, as unfashionable as that is to say, as a result. Wijnaldum and Anita as a pair seems like utter suicide, as there's no steel between them at all (not to mention Wijnaldum will never have played in a midfield 2 in his life). Tiote-Wijnaldum might be passable on paper but I think both of them need protection/ground covering by their partner (for different reasons). SMC has instead pushed full backs up more, moved the 2 wide lads inwards and got the CMs to drop back - it's not a long term solution but we've been better since we started doing it. Like I said in the previous post, that's all very well at the start of the game, but it wasn't working and he didn't change it. We got p*ssed on for 80 mins and a side with premier finishers would have put 5 past us. He gave it a chance for players to get themselves sorted after half time and it didn't work (we've played plenty of 3 man mids over the last few weeks and still been able to perform). He made the sub and changed to a 5 man mid after 62 mins, Bournemouth were much quieter after that.

Yeah, I'm encouraged by him. He tells it like it is. We have played decently for the majority of games this season. I think he deserves a bit of time to get the squad how he likes it, plenty of signs that he's changing the mentality of the squad and 5 years of Pardew is going to take a lot of work to change. I just don't get this "I like him, he's honest" business. I'd rather have a complete c*** in charge who knows how to set up a football team. This guy seems to be another Pardew, scared of his own shadow with the two defensive midfielder nonsense. I'd hardly say he's another Pardew like. He doesn't hoof it long, but he still sets up too defensively. The midfield doesn't work and he's not changing it, so he's just another fraud as far as I'm concerned. He set us up more offensively earlier on in the season and we got battered, keeping space tight seems to be our best bet. The CM problem isn't as easy as it sounds. Our defence does need a lot of protection and we do need CMs in there that are happy to put in the dirty work, as unfashionable as that is to say, as a result. Wijnaldum and Anita as a pair seems like utter suicide, as there's no steel between them at all (not to mention Wijnaldum will never have played in a midfield 2 in his life). Tiote-Wijnaldum might be passable on paper but I think both of them need protection/ground covering by their partner (for different reasons). SMC has instead pushed full backs up more, moved the 2 wide lads inwards and got the CMs to drop back - it's not a long term solution but we've been better since we started doing it.

for him do you mean? find that a harsh conclusion given the chances he's had to actually play Aye. He was fucking minging against the mackems, seemed much smarter today and didn't give the ball away at every opportunity

Seemed about 10 seconds behind the play today. Not at the races at all.

I can forgive a bad performance as we've played relatively well for large chunks of the last 5 games or so, today was just a mixture of some poor individual performances and our weakness when we play this shape against 3 man mids. It just wasn't happening for a few of them today, especially going forward, and it was a good move to shore things up, IMO. Some of the tracking from out wide was absolutely abysmal, like. The subs didn't make sense to me but I thought they both helped to make us more solid.

An improvement

Have we been on the piss?

Few of that lot need to concentrate, far too many lapses.

Loads of basic errors, atm, both on and off the ball.

Did we have a night out on Thursday, like? Goal was brilliant but we're so sluggish.

Lovely goal.

I'd keep him as LAM for Bounemouth to allow him to focus on breaking but I'd be looking to shift him inside for our next home game. Tiote is looking passable as someone that can tackle, not get overrun and pass 5 yards without looking like a mug and I think he'd be a decent short-term (January) foil for Gini. Just don't think we can persevere with such a narrow left side for another home game; we need someone, whether FB or winger, that can stretch things a bit and open up gaps for our central players. We've actually one OK at playing through congested defences, of late, but we could be making things much easier for ourselves.

The football has improved/is improving, yes, but it has to start turning into results pretty quickly.

He just can't siem to settle into the pace when he comes on as a sub. Have a hunch he's better as a starter.

He was dropping into midfield on quite a few occasions today, I just didn't get it. Let the 3 behind him float, he needs to be a fixed point and always around the CBs.

Think we could've done with him, tbh. He's not shown much, aye, but we should've stuck him out on the left for the last 20 minutes and tried to stretch Stoke and get some crosses in with a genuine left footer. I'm all for fluidity but it was too much today and resulted in something much narrower than we needed, Mitrovic was dropping in midfield sometimes when there was just no need.

I thought he was very hit and miss, tbh. Pretty annoying that only Mbemba thought about giving him an early ball in the entire second half, mind.

Inexperience showed today, plus the lack of leadership thing too. Made some great openings but the final ball was too often crap, had some good chances but the finishing was often poor. Played some nice, relatively incisive stuff, in patches, but looked like our confidence was down a bit after last week. Was disappointed in Ayoze, he floated out of the game too much for my liking and can be really lazy out of possession. Sissoko, while involved in some good stuff, was infuriatingly rubbish off the ball (attacking and defending). Mitrovic seemed to lose focus after some poor touches and shots (he was being held a lot, mind, but he's going to have to cope with that) and we seemed to stop trying to get him in with balls over the top despite it looking dangerous in the opening 20. We needed some more width, Sissoko should've provided it but he was far too narrow. Not enough risks, again, too much safe passing. 'Keeper aside, Stoke were woeful. Hughes was wise to get them to shut up shop a bit after the opening exchanges. Guess it's important we didn't lose before Bournemouth. Keep missing chances and we ain't getting out of this, though.

Sunderland, like any PL team, will be fairly decent at shutting a team out for a bit when getting plenty of bodies behind the ball. We created some decent opportunities in the opening 44 but either the finishing or final ball weren't good enough. They'd have either tired or tried to open the game up more in the second half which would've suited us more. I don't think there was anything particularly wrong with our attacking play, we were building up pretty well and getting into good positions, just a bit of inexperience and/or lack of quality at the vital moments hampered us. We must persevere with Mitro and Perez, they will have frustrating times but them learning (quickly) is our best hope, at the minute.

I'd quite like to see him moved back inside for Stoke and put Aarons out on the left, if Dummett is going to play LB. A lot of his best work comes linking up through the middle, of course that might well be because he has the freedom to drift inside.