Gallowgate Toon

I was all aboard the Lloyd Kelly freebie train until I saw his injury history. Missed some canny chunks over the last 2 seasons. Potentially fine as a managed rotation option but a cause for concern.

He gets knocks a fair bit imo, he mentioned at the end of last season that he'd played through ankle and hamstring problems. As he's not that athletic and such a BALLER, he gets away with it.

Really gutted for him. However poor he's been in recent weeks, he's a very talented player who started this season incredibly well after a fantastic debut campaign. 2 major injuries in the same season must be mentally really hard to take. I hope he comes back even better.

Would far rather he move to CB than stay at LB. Might force us to go 3 at the back for the remainder of the season as an option.

It's not but the wording of your post to me seemed to reduce us to harriers for limited possession return which I felt was an oversimplification. If that were the case, we'd see a net negative there, we obviously do try and retain the ball and build phases of play - we manage to be a threat with it too. I'm not saying there aren't ways we can improve though. I always thought the focus on us out of possession last year was also too simple. There were a few sides who pressed more, had more sprints, covered greater distances each game iirc. We mostly just triggered and did it really well and there was great coaching method to it so it was very effective. When you look at players that cover the most ground in the division, there are a lot of top 6ers. Passing and moving with more of the ball still requires a lot of intensity and energy. I think Rice is the top dog this campaign for it with Rodri not far behind. Coaching/tactics obviously have an impact as they set the overall direction but it's ultimately down to players to actually enact it and that's where the complexity in football lies most weeks regardless of tactical tweaks. Imo there's also a natural shelf-life to coaching the same group of players if there are talent limitations, this is why even the best teams need to keep evolving. How often do you see a very similar team of players regularly outdo their actual level of quality year-in-year-out? We've effectively been the same team as last season but with more injuries - 3 of our 4 signings have barely played for differing reasons. I think we have a lot of mentally fatigued players but it's got little to do with style of play.

We still have some key injuries and mixed fitness of those returning. Just because something has been happening for a while, it doesn't diminish reasoning because it's annoying to keep referencing. We've had more of the ball than not this season. 52% average, 2% off Villa with Emery's pausa approach. We've scored a lot so we're evidently more than just runners, especially when you factor our press has been used far less this campaign due to lack of availability. Brighton have the second highest possession in the league but have still had lots of injuries and struggle to put together coherent performances. Style and tactics are so often overrated, players are the most important part of the whole thing most of the time.

I thought he had the right idea tonight and liked the approach to have Gordon and Isak closer together for breaks. I thought their first was canny spawny but it's the main moment of the game - changes the complexion completely early on. Similar to Chelsea. For all the talk of a 6, you need your entire midfield to have the appetite to defend, or at least the majority of them. Longstaff and Willock are pretty passive defenders. They're players who get into shape but they aren't the types to often display proper defensive instincts consistently. Obviously, Willock has so many other strengths but he was helped last season by a stay-at-home LB and Joelinton rotating in from LW. Miley is improving but is like this as well, and Anderson is an AM learning his trade.

Our strikers have some of the best goals-to-minutes ratios in the country and iirc are on par with their xG. The service can always improve but it is absolutely not shit.

Us in a half confident way would've made more of the those chances. Possibly the worst thing about playing City, they give you so little of a sniff, it creates snatching of chances when you finally get them.

He was given a runaround a bit against Dortmund and Bournemouth. Saying that, Burn didn't look any better not long after

He looked decent. He's well suited to the LWB role.

I'm not sure Barca are a positive example you want to use here, are they? I could just be thinking of Fati but feels like they've had a habit of introducing youngsters early who have struggled with injuries in subsequent seasons.

Miley might be nursing niggles himself.

Lots of players are constantly playing through things, tbf. The salient point with Longstaff is that he isn't playing well and there's a very capable player in Miley who can start against lots of teams but doesn't have the legs to perform as well after the hour mark. City is probably the wrong game for it but I'd be looking for Miley to start with Bruno and Willock against West Ham - they're a counter team so we should focus on our better possession midfielders.

Chuffed to bits for him.

I know the knee injuries can be sneaky bastards but it feels unlikely that he's played a further 20/30 mins and walked off relatively comfortably with an ACL injury?

Would anyone really have suggested Gordon should be starting over Barnes before the season started? It's a huge credit to Gordon how well he's done this season but let's not be revisionist - he was a massively unknown quantity before the campaign kicked off, while Barnes was (and still is) a proven PL player.

Watching the extended highlights and so many infuriating things in those clips passes well short, flopping out of tackles, jogging about when they were on the counter etc. I hope he's alreet. Regardless of current form, he's a good lad and been brave in talking about his past issues with mental health.

We executed plan b last weekend, tbh, and it worked well. I really hope we didn't abandon it and it was gamestate that changed things up last night as it feels like a much better plan for our current lack of personnel and physicality.

From February 2022 to November 2023, we had a good, often very good, defensive record. It wasn't a fluke.

If he's not doing that half space run then he's pretty much not doing anything else if we're the ones with more of the ball. Miley is so much more purposeful. Longstaff is another Miggy in our evolution. Can be useful tactically with his legs, stamina etc. but not what you want as a regular starter.

His issues seem mental to me. He seems quite flappy when he was ice cold before. Maybe a lack of confidence in his body but getting rolled and subsequently doing nothing to stop Jackson was a sad sight.

Tbf, he didn't move a lot tonight imo made it count when it mattered though. Probably going to bag about 18 league goals despite being half fit for 90% of the campaign.

He still has some mitigation in that clearly the squad is still quite stretched and it feels to me that a few are playing through things. The plan felt wrong but then we conceded so early that I expect we had to change things to get back into it. And then you've got momentum to keep pushing once you've equalised - we just look dreadful when we push on due to lacking legs in midfield, slow CBs (one having a crisis of confidence) and a deep keeper. We started the second brightly but, outside of Isak, so little fret with Flash off and Barnes crocked.

Effort rarely in question, especially if playing through a knock, but he's fucking doing my head in on the ball every match