Gallowgate Toon

But what does he actually do? I caught him on 3 occasions last season + this weekend and he was barely involved each time. Looking at his numbers last season, he passed the ball a bit but not very effectively when not in his own half, he doesn't make that many tackles or interceptions per game nor is his success rate fantastic, and he's not an offensive threat in any capacity. His defensive output was worse than Bruno G's who is one of the least defensively-minded defensive midfielders around.

As a sidenote, I know Brummie has raved about him before but I just don't see it with Kamara as a midfielder. He's decent & tidy but just doesn't stand out when I watch him. Feels like he'd have been great ~5/10 years ago in the world of pure defensive mids.

They had 2 nice possession moves, one for the goal and one when Diaby slipped in and fired into the side netting. Everything else they created were cheap turnovers and straight counters iirc. I was honestly pretty disappointed with them - they could've been 2 down within 10 minutes

Ridiculous VAR stuff aside, Man U are just really, really boring.

Really liked Gordon/Joelinton rotation for this. It's not quite as fluid as Joe & Jo but still worked really nicely, especially as Gordon looks so sharp taking a touch inside and driving towards the box. Joelinton almost played like an inside forward at times but would still make some great overlapping runs. You can see why Howe wants such flexible players for in-game stuff like that.

Why aren't we singing his 'gimme gimme gimme' song? I'm unreasonably annoyed that a player as good as he is isn't regularly sang about

£100m for a very good young player is the going rate for clubs that spend idiotically.

I don't think we'll ever win there but this is about as good a chance as we could have. A draw would be tremendous, tbh.

Think Klopp has lost it, tbh. It's starting to feel like late Wenger with the massive stockpile of attacking midfielders being shunted everywhere. I think Szob can become a pretty decent 8 in time but it's a big ask to come to a new league and an entirely new position.

Enzo looks much better as a CM rather than a DM.

He's going to continue to lose possession. Howe recognises the net benefit, luckily. He takes the ball in deep positions, inviting pressure by design, and opens up spaces for others (did it today expertly for the Wilson goal) on a regular basis. If this doesn't work, he wins fouls an awful lot.

Got a canny left foot. He really is lightning. That recovery run for the Diaby break was impressive as fuck.

Dare I say it but I thought his tactics were a bit arrogant Clear as fuck that playing a high line really isn't wise against us at home but he almost doubled down on it.

Thought his general game was slightly under par but he still did some absolutely ridiculous things and that finish ffs. He's the most talented player we have, without doubt - I've really missed watching him play.

He's going to be a monster for us in the final third.

Looked best when rotating into the CM position today. We made some lovely switches between the 3. Tonali will help him as teams adjust to figuring out how to deal with him which will open space back up again. Bruno had some excellent games at the back end of last campaign and does so much grunt work for us but sides had figured out ways to limit his space & influence.

He is very fucking quick and his touch is outstanding.

Brummie says Bailey is shite iirc so watch him have a stormer.

There's quite a bit of data that supports that we were pretty creative last year but wasteful. We were top of the charts, there or thereabouts, for hitting the woodwork & big chances missed last season and our chances created & xG were consistently strong too. We relied more on set piece opportunities than some of the other top sides but that's a very legitimate weapon for tight games if you don't have Dan Burn as your primary target.

Pretentiousness of his style aside, his voice is just really, really grating.

I really rate Caicedo but his form did just drop a bit at the back of the season and not just against us. It may have been down to the RB experiment by RDZ though. He was imperious for the first 2/3s of the campaign.

Almost perfect player for Liverpool's midfield. Best hope is that Klopp's penchant for injuring players carries on.

Bloom is an absolute genius when it comes to transfers. Only recent misstep has been the rumoured Mac Allister release clause.

Pretty mid season and his last months at Lyon were supposedly canny average as well (although after a sparkling 6-month period).

Isn't Zaniolo meant to be pretty shit now?