Gallowgate Toon

The owners, rightfully, aren't kneejerk and are long-term thinkers. They've never shown any signs of veering from their plan when they've had chances, and they allowed the documentary footage to go out about teams suffering in Europe to reduce expectations for a reason. There's still tonnes to play for this year but it feels to me like there's not much pressure on it either way. Just an acceptance that we're in a transition for now and we'll properly regroup in the summer.

Felt in-stadium, or at least in the Gallowate, it was extremely noticeable that folks were frustrated at how deep he was positioned a lot. I agreed in that he looked very tentative when deciding whether to come out or not on quite a few occasions.

Thought he was our best player for most of that and balanced work off the ball really well with his usual moments of passing quality. Think the rotation of him as DM is clever too considering how he usually gasses out.

Great pen. I had no faith in him for some reason

I fancy us a lot more currently in tougher away games, at the moment. We're naturally more compact and tactical.

Aye, it was absolutely terrible. I couldn't tell if he was in a huff or saving legs due to knowing Barnes only had an hour in him but the work he's usually class at was also not there for long stretches. That usually offsets a lot of his braindeaded-ness.

Tbf, you wet yourself in 21/22 and 22/23, like. Convinced we were down on the former, wrote off top 4 last year by February.

My row in the Gallowate has officially turned on Miggy

For those calling for 3 at the back, we already play like that in possession anyway. Howe is right to stick with his principles for the long term benefit of players imo. It's chaos now but it won't be in future. Just a phase we're in. He's clearly managing some half-fit players too so quite a few can't go full pelt. Burn is the main thing you can dig him for today but, tbh, I thought he adjusted well after 20 minutes and then the goal came. Still, I'd be looking to introduce Tino now for home games at least with a look to next season regardless.

Harvey Barnes/Anthony Gordon interchanging masterclass. 3-1 win.

Not bothered in the slightest now and just want some resolution. Yeah, the optics of going to a 'bigger club' aren't great but this happens between other top clubs as is with execs moving about. For Ashworth himself, his role is meant to mitigate 'single points of failure' and over reliance on individuals. This is obviously an art in itself but him leaving shouldn't really leave an immediate hole and, if it does, then there's potentially some blame at his door for not setting that up.

I'd agree if he was under 30 but he's not and his injury record will likely worsen from now-on-in. Perhaps a bottom half side will think reduced games will mitigate that and take the gamble.

He spoke very positively about Isak which made me think he'll be on the bench.

The question is who will actually pay anything for him, his record is that bad.

Posted this before but I know some lads that played in Ashworth youth setups and he's not a popular man at that level. Everyone recognised that he's a smart operator but the terms used were 'snake', 'sly' etc. General consensus was that he'd do what it takes to get what he wants, and he was ruthless as fuck while being proper smarmy with it. Not necessarily all bad traits in sport at all, tbh, but it made me think after seeing the wee chipper fella presented on TV talking about being in the middle of a wheel.

Iirc, he got injured in training the last day of the international break. Didn't seem like it was directly connected to a game. If that's true, it's probably worse in terms of what it could mean for his long-term fitness

His fragility will get worse & worse as he's getting on. His body has suffered a lot over the last 10 years. He's a bit of an FFP conundrum for us. If he manages to get back to last season's goalscoring form to see out the campaign then weirdly I'd cash in as it'll be the only time we can realistically extract any decent value from him to help our long-term goals - it's not like we're a side that struggles to score. I just don't think he's really reliable enough for us in seasons where we actively want to compete on multiple fronts. If he doesn't then hit that form then it's probably better net result for us to keep him around and massively manage his minutes, but that really doesn't feel like him.

If true, would that be 4 players from that squad who've done that over the last year? Yikes.

All of the current top 3 are often playing at least one CB in at least one of the FB positions, tbf.

His movement looks sharp as a dart still. Naturally intelligent player.

Didn't appreciate the finish for his first at the time. Incroyable.

Felt like we just had an MO to control tempo as much as possible in the first half so there was a lot of safer passing, probably with Forest having played ET a few days prior as well as them doing us on the counter 6 weeks ago Gordon G+A next weekend.

It wasn't a pen. He'd lost control (Botman put him off really well) and looked for contact because of it.

Murphy picked up a knock in the warm-up which gives more explanation to Gordon staying on. Still could've brought Krafu on a few earlier, like.

For all of the snipes about him only having Plan A, btw, I think he's trying quite a lot of stuff at the moment and has had backup plans in recent away games. We tried much more of a 3-2 today in possession, Miley back and usually partnered by either Tripps or Longstaff with Bruno roaming. Feels like the 3-2 is a way to try hold possession more and manage the gaps we leave during turnovers at the moment. Didn't work perfectly as our inclination is still to press a lot but it shows that he's tinkering imo.