Gallowgate Toon

We're always shite here. Feels like we can barely a pass a ball. Had a sinking feeling after the first few mins when we fluffed easy openings. The team's mentality feels really off to me at the moment - isn't there a bonus dispute? We're seeing so little resilience or invention. Confidence just doesn't feel there at all. I actually think it's a worse Brighton team 'on paper' than the one we won 4-1 against only a few months ago.

Ultimately, we're a point down on last year based on relative fixtures but the last 135 mins have been very poor. The team feels similar but also weirdly quite different at the same time. Almost passive.

This has been abject. Brighton haven't even been that good.

Disagree. Joelinton has been wank though and looks half fit.

I think he's looked poor in general today.

Look like a team feeling sorry for ourselves. Some very odd decisions from Isak in the final third.

Honestly, I think we're well matched to all of them Gutted Messi has left PSG.

Don't think I've ever been more sure of anything in my life than us getting Milan in the group stages. It's the way football always works.

That'll be class, man!

Joao Pedro would've been a great option for us.

To be fair, there are lots of things we've not tried that we did last season - I'm sure that'll be down to the squad not being on a level playing field yet for fitness/sharpness/tactics. Barnes is new to our way of playing and missed preseason games so will be short of fitness. While Gordon looks in good shape, he's a player that's historically gassed out at about 70 mins so they might be trying to build up that extra level of fitness for him to stay on and move to another position when we look to make subs.

It's a very early and a small sample from this season to definitively say that Howe's only plan for 2 relatively big purchases is that they won't play in the same team together. He's referenced Gordon's versatility when he signed him as well: "He will give us a lot. He's a young player with huge attributes, huge potential, to have a big impact on our season. A very quick, dynamic player, who's versatile and can play off both sides. The best is yet to come from him." Miggy's place is by no means locked down which we saw that at the back end of last season. Barnes is too specialist for the right I think but I don't see any reason why Gordon wouldn't ever be in the mix.

Played on the right for his apps against West Ham (away), Brentford, Leeds and Man U. Took up central spots vs. Chelsea & Liverpool which were more enforced. Edit: played AM against Bournemouth as well.

You can't really apply shoulda, woulda, coulda here though, can you? The only thing we know is that VVD is last man on the edge of the box and takes Isak out. His only route to getting the ball at that time was to go through him. Making cases about what might've happened if he didn't make the challenge is kinda endless; lots of things could've happened but it's very reasonable to assume that he makes the move then because he knows he's been beaten.

Gordon played 3 different positions for us last season. If Barnes joins the squad earlier then I don't think we see him eased in either. Feels pretty situational to me which has just been exacerbated by Gordon's start to the campaign.

Howe hasn't bought Gordon and Barnes to exclusively fight for one position - I think Howe is pretty happy with the wing options he has and there's tactical flexibility there for when he wants to explore it. Whether that's right or wrong will be proven over the next few months but he's dropped/rotated Miggy before and will again as his limitations don't suit every match. If we played Sunday's game halfway through the season with the same squad, I don't think Miggy plays the full 90 either.

We had lots of opportunities to hit switches but I guess they're quite high risk when you don't want a team to break on you. Still, taking risks is what EH often believes in so I think that's something that'll be focused on.

The stick he gets is massively overstated but we've got a problem if he's playing full matches against the best opposition. He's a very useful starter to keep things tight to then be subbed off for someone with more fret or a sub. Howe recognised this more in the second half of last season so I'm hoping Sunday was related to fitness.

Howe said we were aware of their threat on the break and we definitely played like it. I still think we played the first 10 mins of the second half well enough; settled things down, kept possession, got into good positions on a few occasions which led to promising openings. We had their plan worked out and them penned in - this was the time to start upping the tempo. On the watch back, it was noticeable how much we went for the safe option until they scored. We had many chances to slip a ball in between the lines through the middle, play a quick one around the corner, make a switch, or whip a cross in earlier... but we didn't. It seems like we tried to be like a Pep/RDZ team by taking the ball a bit deeper and passing between defenders until we drew them out but they rarely took the bait. The amount of times we just played it backwards instead was very, very noticeable. I didn't clock it at the time but Trippier was potentially the worst offender for it when he'd moved back out onto the touchline - at least 4 occasions to keep good moves building and he chose to put his foot on the ball and go backwards. Schar was also weirdly conservative; one diagnoal attempt and no real carrying out. Tonali didn't do enough of what Longstaff is really underrated at which is get into that half space on the right when it was absolutely there to attack. Gordon was so much more positive with his touches than anyone else. Maybe I'll be over this one tomorrow

I don't think it's as genius as was made out as this was basically our plan against Liverpool when Pope was sent off, iirc, but it's just spot on generally. Didn't stretch them out of their shape enough, didn't get Isak involved enough, didn't have enough quality in key moments.

Christ, you'd have thought we'd been relegated last season and not pasted one of the fancied sides 5-1 already this campaign.

I think there was a moment where Tonali had some passes with Bruno then flicked it over someone's head to nobody. Feel like that was the moment Howe decided it was time to switch.

Decided to torture myself and watch some of the second half back. Initially, I thought we hadn't done enough to stretch them to create better chances - I still think this was true going forward but I also think we temporarily used a tactic that we should've carried on. For about 10 minutes, we went to a back 3 and Trippier started playing as a DM sort of alongside Bruno. It really helped us keep possession for a while as an extra option but also because they'd sacrificed width to get numbers in the middle - it gave us some extra protection for turnovers. I reckon if we'd have swapped Murphy for Miggy at that moment then it'd have worked a treat as Miggy was the one keeping width on the right but obvs kept looking to cut in. We could've even tried a 3-2-3-2 and put Isak and Wilson on together to disrupt their defensive shape. If we'd kept on doing this, I don't think the second goal happens due to the coverage. Maybe Klopp would've cottoned on and readjusted. Bruno attempted a stupid pass but he was encouraged into that situation because they'd got an advantage of numbers on us in that moment. It's bizarre that they had 4 around our 2 mids despite being a man down.

Has he ever assisted Wilson for a goal?

It's far too early to say for definite if we needed this or that. We have plenty to work with as it stands to have another good season.