Gallowgate Toon

Isak has a good supply line, it's the exact reason Wilson has so many goals for us this year too when available. Contrary to opinion, we're generally a creative side and good for our forwards. Iirc, Isak has 17 league goals for us in the equivalent of 25 90s. There are very few attackers in the world with as good a record. I think he's pretty much in-line with his xg too for any stats nerds.

His fitness is evidently a struggle at the moment. We've seen far less of the individual brilliance we saw from him last season - the explosiveness and gliding past players has been far less, as well as less general inventiveness. It's there in flashes but his touch is less consistent and he can dawdle on the ball.

Howe said it himself on NUFCTV that we'd had a decent break since Man U. You really expect us to come out and try kill the game in the first 60 but it's easier said than done. Fatigue is a fair excuse today from 70 mins on. I wonder if we're struggling more with the mentality of our current situation at the moment. We've had so many 'big games' to mentally prepare for over the last few months, I wonder if the 'lesser' matches are proving tricky to be as up for and deliver max work off the ball.

Getting a little bit worried we're seeing some early signs of natural decline for him. It feels like the last 6 weeks or so, he's either been class or fairly shit. I feel like he's had as many bad games this year as the entirety of last season.

If we had a relatively normal level of injuries, our away record wouldn't be anywhere near as bad. Not saying it'd be great but it seems obvious that we'd at least be doing a bit better. Going on about rotation being the cause of our injury problems that started only 2 months into the season feels short-sighted. To recap: - 2 dislocated shoulders - 2 back injuries, one not even in a game - 1 broken toe or whatever it is - 1 rolled ankle from a tackle - 1 gambling addiction There are a few muscle-y ones, sure, but they're at a normal level. You'd also say that a lot of these injuries have happened to our rotation players too rather than nailed on starters at the time who are 'fatigued'.

They are really boring. They looked scared to take risks tonight, fearful of Villa's threat on the break. Didn't seem to want to turn over possession and kept looking for the perfect space to appear. They actually had some decent looking opportunities with longer balls but decided not to play them much. Ended up doing nowt while simultaneously leaving massive gaps in the middle. Villa were very smart tactically.

Ooof going to be tough going with Villa.

Do City not know that they're a goal down? Cruyff turning 20 times on the edge of the box when you have one of the most lethal strikers in the world waiting.

City have been so weird. Solo slow in possession, so few attempts to get in behind. Like they have no idea how to use Haaland Villa have looked great and mixed the game plan well between halves.

This ref seems to be blowing up every Villa 50/50 City really lacking presence centrally without Rodri.

If we did move to the arena site, could we feasibly make the current SJP a much smaller womens/academy ground + tack on a museum? Could probably put the business staff in there too as Arsenal have done with Highbury (amongst other things).

I think we'll be good for this one, tbh. Spurs is the killer being so close and then followed by Milan. Even having Wilson as a sub for 20 minutes against Spurs would be very helpful.

The idea of moving from SJP makes me feel incredibly sad It's just emotions and they'd pass but even the arena site feels so wrong.

Sentiment analysis is very common in the sports tech world now. There'll be notes about the lack of objectivity in that data but it will be information presented back in the process regardless, I'm sure.

The club has some big partners working with them now who'll go into a lot of detail analysing the results and any fallout on social too - I just hope people have given fair responses and they take heed of the data.

Haaland against the high line could be very interesting. I reckon draw.

Class. Can't wait!

We've got to learn to play without Bruno. He's almost the eye of the storm for our side. Obviously, he can be a radgepacket mentalist, but he's always calm on the ball while some level of chaos is going on around him.

As has been said, way off his clinical best finishing-wise but his overall play was class until he tired.

Think that was some of the best football I've ever seen us play, until it came to the final ball/touch. Some of the touches, interchanges, little passing moves were sublime. Absolute total football moments too, no better example of this than Schar ending up left mid on multiple occasions. What a fucking unbelievable manager Howe is.

He's not someone you want to be battling for long balls, no, but he didn't go a good job of dropping deeper and building play in that second half which is usually a strong-ish point in his game. Took too long to release the ball and dragged into battles as a result.

Aye, he was great - some really nice playmaking. The way he bodied Schar for his chance was a bit wew as well.

Arsenal fans expected us to come out SWINGING about VAR ourselves in a united effort. Howe is apparently a smug twat, we're being protected etc. etc. That's their ire. You've got to question how these people actually live in everyday life. They're all like Ty from AFTV, remembering every single tiny thing and holding grudges for decades. He's on videos still referencing poor reffing decisions from 2004 ffs

Hope we do but my suspicion is we reckon Minteh will be squad-ready next summer and that'll be that.

Really comes through watching back his highlights. Numerous fantastic blocks and interceptions.