Gallowgate Toon

Immense.

Gerrin!

Absolutely deserved.

Not seen them since the Fulham FA Cup game but they look very small and easily knocked about here. They've done very well to finish 6th in a physical league when the average height of their attackers is about 5ft 7.

I think he looks either injured and/or mentally fatigued. This second half of the season has been a real load for our midfielders, like.

Murphy got a knock cause that was a weird call? I get the idea of Almiron cutting in to shoot against a packed defence but Murphy is much better at making things happen in the final third at speed.

Abso rubbish performance but a point gained. Feels like the Isak/Wilson experiment has knocked us off a bit, tbh. I thought Wilson was rubbish outside of his pens and Isak is going to struggle to build momentum with so many positional changes in a match.

Some tweaks and we can win this. A draw is absolutely fine though, to keep some perspective.

He had a presser a few weeks ago where he said he'd need to speak to the owner about future plans (think it was a question from a reporter about next season and squad depth) and was a bit vague. They've looked to be making moves ever since.

De Zerbi is intensely competitive and has been attracting interest back in Italy so it feels like strong early moves to persuade him to stay.

Do they have any defenders that even suit his style? Always felt his go-to for firefighting was buy massive defenders who can also nick set pieces at the other end.

We were getting humped by Brentford until Longstaff went off. He'll be a miss but it's not the be all & end all - the further reduction for midfield rotation is a bigger concern with a cluster of games. Expecting Isak to start and Wilson rotated for the midweek game.

Liverpool's self-righteousness about 'dodgy' money is hilarious, like. They go on as if their entire current situation, as self-proclaimed net spend champions, was built entirely organically, and often forget that their primary sponsor (ploughed in many millions) has some very questionable practices.

Weirdly, I feel pretty chill between CL and EL even though the former would be such a massive leg up for us and help us to presumably attract some unbelievable talent. For me, I feel more desperate for us to reach 20 wins than anything else. Something feels very satisfying to me about winning more than half of our games.

https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/05/guide-to-premier-league-time-wasting/

Levi Colwill seems a great fit for what we want at the back but can't see Chelsea dealing with us at all.

Liverpool's away record is poor against bottom half teams, isn't it? It's a shame Leicester are so tragic defensively at the moment, I think they've got quite a few tools going forward that are a bad match for Liverpool's style.

Wouldn't be mad if we saw Isak-Wilson here, feels much more suited than the Arsenal game. They're going to sit deep, shore up the centre of the pitch, and look to break on us at speed. On the left or as a 10, Isak should more freedom to move around and find gaps than if he was locked in up top. He's also got a good long shot on him too. I'd be absolutely fine if we had Wilson as super sub though.

I still think a 'true' DM would be too restrictive for a Howe squad. We need another midfielder of Longstaff's ilk, someone who can rotate in-game to play deeper or further forward depending on gamestate and is capable of reading danger in deeper areas better than Jo & Joe. We tried this on the weekend with Joelinton dropping deeper but it's just not suited to his strengths to play that way especially against a really fluid midfield like Arsenal's. Rice is probably the best fit for this but just can't see us going for his price tag or winning the battle to get him. Thuram, maybe?

Cabella actually turned in some really good performances in the PL in the end but was a terrible fit for us and was no point in keeping him on. Chelsea away and Hull away were class.

Ferguson would be class. Brighton are absolutely mint negotiators though and would ultimately price us out, imo.

I think we should see Wilson-Isak again in certain games but yesterday wasn't it. It was the right intent but not a particularly strategic move. The beauty of Isak is that yes, he's class, but you can move him about to suit the game so easily as long as you have good plans B & C.

For all of his improvements, I'm actually a bit surprised Howe trusts him so much against certain opposition as the defensive side of his game is lax (unless he's being instructed to stay higher up).

Don't think the answer is necessarily in midfield because our system is designed for all of the 3 to press up on their men as high as possible and we then push the defensive line up. Even a really effective press will be beaten at times and defenders will be left to deal with it. We either adapt the press to try and enable better coverage or need a CB/defenders with recovery pace.

I do think our centre mids have been hung out to dry a bit with the January window, looking back, considering how we play the game at such intensity. Obviously, we've still done so well but there's been so few options to rotate that fatigue, whether mental or physical, has crept in a few times in the second half of the season.