Gallowgate Toon

Real shame in that he's looked to have generally gone up a level so far this season. As a silver lining, maybe this can be our Isak/Wilson moment to get an athletic CB in.

Thinking back, we got into loads of good positions but then refused to get the ball in the box on many occasions. We've never been great controllers under Howe and maybe he's trying to introduce more balance to the side as part of the next evolution but it felt off.

Tbh, it'd even be nice to try something different there with the current options. Was canny surprised Murphy didn't come on.

We saw against Man U and Spurs that we're incredibly effective once we go for it at home though. City to a degree too. Arsenal was tricky but that's fine margins. I don't see why we wouldn't have that mentality today. Maybe Liverpool did a mental number on us last season so we became self protective.

If that was any other team, bar City, I just can't imagine us not going for it once up a man.

We've got to figure out more backup plans for Isak unless he's absolutely gassed. Or at least not make him play like a traditional #9 unless the game demands it.

Think one of the big weaknesses of his when we signed him was that he didn't attempt many dribbles and/or wasn't very successful at it either but he's been the opposite this season.

Anderson should've been on before Longstaff, if any changes had to be made.

Not so sure about that. I'm not an xG tells the whole story person but by many stats we were a creative side last year. High xg, loads of big chances created, most hits of the woodwork. We felt more profligate than anything. Perhaps we're not classically creative though.

The pass for their goal wasn't as bad as I thought, watching it back, but there were some poor mistakes 10 minutes prior to that but he did loads of good stuff up to that point. Maybe it was Tonali going off leading to more gaps or perhaps he's not up-to-speed fitness wise so lost composure.

Isak had 10 touches and made 5 passes. He's our main man in the final third - that's really bad.

This happened a few times before the goals as well. Led to a series of corners. It's like we got caught between 2 styles. Not gung go and blast them but rather slow but still high enough to expose our backline when we made cheap turnovers.

Aye, we accumulated decent xG through lots of half chances. We've been so good over the last year at creating space through movement but we rarely did that today. Infuriating as fuck. This one's going to hurt for a while.

There's maybe an argument to keep Isak on for 'magic' but he was honestly poor today. Didn't do enough to get involved and did very little when he did. I'm actually a bit disappointed in him for the last 2 games, he can do a lot better than that.

Thinking of the other scouse game in 21/22.

He knows the score but it's a bit worrying that this message didn't transfer to the players, like. Disclaimer: he should be under no pressure whatsoever.

Thought he was poor for the first 25 but then picked it up and won loads of physical battles. Again, seemed weird to take him off.

Not the first time we've fucked up against 10 with Howe either. Christ, I'm fuming

Objectively, we controlled the game fine for 95% of the second half but it felt so not us that you could tell it was off. I thought we needed to keep it controlled for the first 10 of the second half and then go through the gears again. We did the first bit but then just kept that tempo which was strange. Just utterly unprofessional from everyone involved in that second half.

He was canny loose at times but it was stupid to take him off especially as Longstaff has looked rubbish so far.

Didn't deserve to be on the losing side. Tragic that he was subbed off.

Thought he was back after about an hour. Then gaps started appearing in the midfield once Tonali went off and he started to make stupid mistakes.

Felt like we were far too scared of them and compromised everything that makes us good. Bad subs too.

Ne intensity, rhythm or patterns. Also, for the ridiculous amount of money spent, they don't really have many goalscoring threats either. Guess they lost Nkunku but you'd think you'd have a pretty stacked squad for £1,000,000,000.

Chelsea's midfield is over £200m in talent but they've been so lacklustre despite having almost all of the ball. They look like a midtable team here.