Gallowgate Toon

He's stretched his legs a few times since he came back and still looks a very powerful runner. He's missed a lot of football and was always a big confidence player. More sub appearances for him is just fine, for now.

I'm hoping that's the last of his managed minutes for a while. While he may not be a consistently super technical midfielder (although he has some fantastic passes in his locker imo), what I like about him most is that he picks & chooses moments in possession. He has more of a 'typical' midfielder's instinct for when to slow things down and when to speed things up compared to others we have. His speed across the middle was great at the weekend for nabbing second balls too.

To be fair, we played 4-4-2 for decent stretches on the weekend and I actually thought it worked really well for a period. Bruno and Tonali showed a really nice understanding when we were doing this, and it enabled Gordon to take some of the pressing load from Isak.

It is pretty bizarre at a time where we're looking impotent going forward that our sharpest shooter so far this season is getting benched.

I really do wonder what he offers when he's probably the 'worst' of the wingers. He can have very useful moments but he's ultimately limited in possession and not amazing at pressing or tracking. It feels like you could justify his inclusion if he was world class at one thing but he's nowhere near it, outside of having a canny early cross at times. I'd maybe understand it more against 'big teams' if he's good at following tactical instructions or something, but surely a weakened Brighton at home means you can go for it more from the off.

Aye, gets sort of a pass for the effort, but he's ultimately paid to be decisive in the final third and he wasn't.

Some absolutely fantastic passing. Really coming along so well.

For large periods, today wasn't really 4-3-3 either. It was basically 4-4-2 with Joelinton LM and Gordon playing like a LF.

Controlled the game well enough, lots of decent play towards the box, absolutely diabolical finishing.

I thought he had good, sometimes great, periods in pretty much every game he played, but he'd obviously gas out fairly badly after about an hour. Don't agree at all that he was ever invisible, I'd wager the stats don't show that either. Fairly involved in quite a few phases of the game.

We finished 4th while drawing with both Leicester and Leeds, 2 of the sides relegated that season.

Doesn't he have 2 goals in his 4 starts this season?

Personally, would've left a sub back for a striker to come on for the last portion of the game if you're still looking for a goal. Felt the Barnes sub hamstrung us a bit.

Personally, I'd have had him on for the last 10 minutes at least but this season so far is going how I expected for him. He'll not get properly decent minutes until the second half of the season, imo.

I thought Tonali was pretty decent. Clearly still finding legs and PL tempo for longer periods. Easy to forget that yes, he's been training with us while out, but his muscle memory will be Italian speed rather than ours. He never had a true adjustment period, he's pretty much just back into it now.

But they barely had a sniff. They wanted transitions/direct balls but they didn't get them as we controlled the space well. Other games this season, we've had 60% possession but allowed lots of big chances through poor shape and losing out on duels far too easily.

Felt like we had a lot of performances in 22/23 like that. If you can't win then don't lose type of thing.

A controlled performance that lacked a final ball/finish. Not that unexpected considering the lack of striker. I thought we had some really decent patterns in possession. Some of our best playing out from the back this campaign.

Watkins obviously bags goals but he's fairly massive to Villa as an outlet - someone who follows instructions and is very handy in general play too. He was directly involved in 32 of their 76 league goals last year. Villa's defensive numbers this season will be interesting considering their schedule will have some impact at some point. They conceded 1 less than us last year and I'd say we were defensively abject for 2 months of the season.

Probably suits Gordon more to sit mid and draw them on so he can hit spaces behind. It'd be good for Barnes as well, but then you never really want to give another team the initiative when they've got a home support that can generate some momentum. We could also try and use Gordon more like an AM to help control the possession and enable inside gaps for wingers to exploit, but I don't think he has the game in congested areas to perform that role as well. Midfield is always so important in these types of away games. I'm hoping Joelinton-Bruno-Tonali is a combination that'll stamp authority from the outset. On paper, they should have a good mix of aggression, physicality, and technical ability.

Controlled things professionally without getting out of 1st gear. Onto the weekend!

The 4-3-3 can easily flip into 4-2-3-1 in-game. It's why I'm so excited about Tonali getting a run in the team, he's a genuine option to enable Bruno to push up when we need to try it.

That game was well set up for him to be able to do something up front. Lots of space behind across the pitch for him to arc runs. We had good long ball playing from deep with Hall, Schar, Trippier, and Bruno rather than aimless punts to grapple over.

Very good point considering. Thought we actually could've gone for it a bit more as they were so one-paced in the first half but I would've absolutely taken a point before the match.

He's very tactically versatile as well as being a good athlete. Felt like he really found some of his touches as the game went on.