Gallowgate Toon

But I think that's an ethos issue not a shape one. The answer for 3 one-paced mids isn't to go down to 2 imo - you're just opening up more space unless you go exceptionally narrow in the wider positions or have very aggressive CBs (who need to be excellent at it).

It's weird how formation is treated as this entity where everyone just sits in their exact zone and never moves. Howe messes with shape loads, from build ups to pressing structures to how the midfield covers space. Going on about 5-4-1 or whatever else we could cobble up with 2 fit senior CMs is simplifying things to an extreme. However, even if it wasn't, just saying switch to 5-4-1 isn't some silver bullet for all of our problems. Might help one or two things but has knock-on effects elsewhere.

Feels like he's 180ed as a player this season. Better moments/output, not doing the important stuff anywhere near as consistently.

Meh, Tuesday is a much bigger game for our season. This was the last of the big toughies (cup draw notwithstanding if we progress) so I'm glad it's out of the way. As has been said, our genuine lack of senior midfield options is a killer for rotating and tactical purposes. Willock back is class. Hopefully, we can manage his minutes for the next couple of weeks.

Brighton, genuine possession freaks, have had a terrible time with injuries this season.

The club are restructuring the business teams this summer to a much better fit for a modern club imo so I think we'll see much more progress next season (not immediately, it'll take time through the campaign & beyond). You need the right people in place with enough time to commit to doing something with the feedback. I don't think that's set up for success right now.

Think I really agree with this part. Liverpool had Edwards for a very successful period but, after he left, they seemed to shift from the process model and give more power to Klopp. Maybe @rgk_lfc can give insight into what's happened. Not great last season but doesn't seem to have been a problem this while Klopp's supposedly had his mate in-post for 6 months to basically handle transfer negotiations.

Are there any currently or recently successful teams/clubs that don't currently have a DoF?

Howe is tweaking things in-game every game at the minute, like. I'd actually suggest he's potentially overdoing it with the midfield more than anything - Bruno/Miley/Longstaff all played one another's positions for decent chunks on Saturday, as an example. Sometimes 3-2/2-2/3-1 defensive to midfield structures etc. Switching Up front, Gordon/Barnes/Murphy all played at striker for decent chunks too There isn't a magic formation bullet while keeping the current style of play imo - the short blanket will always remain and fan frustrations come to the fore in other ways. His options are to regress approach for a short-term so we're closer to 21/22 where we sit deeper as a team and break or look for solutions based on the system he's been evolving for 18+ months & beyond but accept it'll be messier while we're down on personnel.

Got a feeling that we won't look to fill this position for a while and go back to pre-Ashworth for the rest of the calendar year at least & see how things pan out. Maybe rejig some of the structure around the academy/NUFWC to cover some of the development angles off more.

It's not out of the realms of possibility that he would've been given some serious shit, along with others, for Tonali considering how big that fee was in relation to our now-obvious FFP situation?

Find Jake and his pal very tough on the ears but this was a good listen I'm ALL IN.

The interesting part here is if they restricted his role at some point during his post or from the outset - feels like these rumblings of discontent have been happening since the summer. If true too ofc.

The comment about Joe White felt very pointed.

I don't think Isak's in-game work has been much this season. His defensive work per 90 in the league this season is way down on last campaign, and I'd wager the amount of sprints & general distances are down as well. Maybe it's down to half-fitness skewing the numbers but, even in games 2/3/4, there were comments that our pressing intensity from the front seemed less iirc.

Is he involved at all at the academy, womens, and sports science levels?

Chunky injury lists have been pretty consistent across the leagues this season, no? Iirc; ourselves, Bournemouth, Spurs, Brighton, Chelsea have all at points had more than 10 players out for at least decent amounts of the year. Liverpool & Villa creeping up now. Man U too.

Solanke is having as good a season this campaign as Wilson ever has imo, maybe even better. Fantastic output and a grafter as well. Biggest worry with him is that it's an outlier.

Don't think we'll win at all but I doubt this'll be as bad as predicted. We're better off being more of a sitting team at the minute and we should have some decent bench options with Isak and Willock back in the frame.

Those 2 shots are sitting nicely in my brain this morning The Gordon one, man.

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.