Gallowgate Toon

That cross was a thing of fucking beauty.

One of the best things about being half-decent again is the meltdowns you get to witness. Got to say, Liverpool & Arsenal are currently by faaaar the worst of the lot when it comes to online fanbases. Jumped up, hysterical freaks. The continual lack of self-awareness is staggering as well. They couldn't give 2 shites when they were owned by billionaires far richer than 95% of other club ownerships. Now even wealthier folk have come along, it's all about sporting integrity under the guise that it was all 'organic' Fuck off.

I'm not comparing them as players; I'm saying they're strikers who you could easily class as 'isolated' or 'uninvolved' by design so they're interesting numbers to look at. Isak is naturally involved in plenty of our play so saying he's isolated is, imo, incorrect. Whether we get the ball to him in optimum positions to score is a different story.

Isak is pretty involved in our overall play as well as having strong output where it matters. There are odd games where he's low on touches as is the case for any striker, but, by and large, Isak is either strong or well above average for touches (general and/or in the penalty area), passes, dribbles etc compared to other strikers. If you look at Haaland or Wilson, they're properly isolated in that they're barely involved in anything other than touches in the box. Even someone like Watkins who is perceived to be strongly involved in multiple parts of the game doesn't attempt as many passes or dribbles as Isak does in an average match. As for 'wasting his body' - pressing is a prominent part of the modern game even for elite players; the conditioning and sports science now gives little excuse. Looking at his numbers this season though, Isak is way down on what he does defensively compared to last year - he's bottom tier for all of it. He's not been anywhere near as hardworking or effective this season compared to last based on the eye test and I reckon his sprints/distance covered will be way down from 22/23.

Think Tino is better on the left for this. Palmer loves to drift inside so it's not terrible to have a right-footer player here. With the way we set up rotations on the left between midfield and winger, left back being really attacking isn't as much of an issue either.

Glorious. Arsenal fans will be seething again tonight almost 2 weeks after the event

Pulling an Anderson

He was incredible against Man U and had a big hand in the Arsenal result but Dortmund away and Bournemouth were strange performances - he was getting brushed off the ball particularly easily. Hopefully, it's just that he's been rushed back and this break will give him a chance to catch up a bit more. Such a threat when he's on it.

Interestingly, I think Gordon has reversed some of his previous trends. From memory, he was a pretty shy dribbler when at Everton other than obvious transitions and wasn't very successful at it - now, I believe he's right up there for volume and efficiency. Edit: I do think he's been a bit one dimensional with his dribbling over the last few games though. Turning inside almost always.

Strangely, Trippier was the worst of the lot for it and he's usually our most composed player on the ball along with Bruno. I actually thought Lascelles was very good at finding decent passes out on the day. It should drive home just how important Bruno is, tbh - he's a master at helping is get a grip of games when being pressed or generally when we're under pressure. He's also pretty top notch when it comes to winning his battles and territory.

I'm not sure why but this one still rankles even though it shouldn't due to obvious context. We definitely changed our tactics to reduce the press and sit more mid but it somehow felt like the most open we've been all season. I think we all could've easily guessed the last 30 would be rough going but I feel senior players could've calmed things down to help get us a foothold in the game in the first 45/hour. Lots of rushed & over-ambitious passes leading to counters. I think Miggy going off will have contributed to a dropping of heads too, like.

Don't feel like Willock's game is in tight areas. He can do it in patches but it feels he's a true force at transitions.

It seems weird that City let Palmer go, like.

Thought he'd tone it down a bit considering he's on primetime every fucking week, but no.

Drury. Urgh. What a pen though.

City are so much more entertaining like this.

Howe is a streak king. Plenty of football to play yet.

Loved how he stood up to the fan. A shame that he had an absolute stinker. Seemed like his touch wasn't there, often rushing passes forward, and he was overcommitting defensively. Strange few performances from him but he'll be back to it soon.

Was interested to see how he did statistically yesterday. - 4 tackles - Won 5 of his 6 ' ground duels' - Dribbled past once (always find the way they mark this dubious) A lot more touches and passes than Tino had too but that's likely cause we were flagging physically a lot more second half. It was really some of his off the ball work that'll have seen him hooked. Felt like we lost more possession control when he went off though, he was involved in some good build up moves in the first.

I thought his knee was hampering him but he had it taped up against West Ham and was class, started brightly against Dortmund too. Looked back to his old self. Might've been something else.

I don't think the knee thing is that fair. Players play through that type of stuff all the time, and he was still very effective while not being at his explosive best.

Tbf, we still missed Bruno. He's an incredibly effective passer through lines, maintains tempo very well, and does fantastic defensive work.

Thought he looked really good, like.

We didn't look any better when he went off Thought he again showed real promise on the ball but naive defensively.

Because they've not been at the races at all in the game. Fair enough, some will rightfully tire after 60 minutes or so, but a few have either been invisible or very poor for the entire match. Not tracking runs, lazy legs in.