Gallowgate Toon

He doesn't sound happy with the squad's fitness. Made comments about Fulham being superior in this regard right after the game, and more noises today about having to manage the style of the play due to various factors being managed behind the scenes.

Thought this a was a pretty interesting (but long) thread, until you hear the lad talk on video. Dan Burn takes a fairly big battering

I think you could play Willock and Joelinton alongside Bruno for this one as we will likely be decently penned in for stretches - their jobs will be simpler defensively compared to Fulham/games where we'll have more of the ball, and they have good legs to get us on the break. I'd still be picking one or the other for this though as I want to see Sandro's one-time passing setting us up for quicker attacks.

He has definitely been overdoing it on occasion this season when he's had easier passes. I can't be too annoyed watching a player try something different though when everything else is so laboured (Barnes aside). He's also usually very good at it but his body looks a second behind his brain, at the moment.

It was but he was left in a fairly shite position by those not covering well ahead of him, felt like he was backing to try and bide some time for others to arrive. For some reason, Joelinton and Willock were within about 10 yards of one another miles away from where one of them should've been, and Bruno seemingly hadn't checked to cover that space either. Even if he had, he'd have been leaving a big gap in the middle, to be fair. We've been incredibly passive loads this season. Never mind high pressing, we seem to be doing a lot of 'containing' even in deep areas without taking many risks to get the ball back.

The smarter move is probably to sit deeper, narrow the pitch, and get in behind with our pace, but I want to see us get right at them. I don't know where the fuck our physicality has gone but we need to find it; it's been weird seeing some of our lot bounce off players recently.

Someone said they thought Bruno looked a bit burnt out and I agree. He's played a lot of football but he also has had so much responsibility in our team in that period too. We've relied on him massively to do a fuck load of defensive work, and take on a fairly massive mantle in build up, possession, and being creative too. It's no surprise he's covering the distances he does. Let's hope we can introduce Sandro now to take some more of that burden from him.

Some big midfield calls for this upcoming run where you expect we'll be under some big(ger) pressure against good sides. I think we have to ride it out with Bruno and get the right balance around him. Joelinton and Willock aren't disciplined enough together as the 2 either side imo but they both can offer so much running power in games where you'd think countering will be our best bet for goals. I think I'm leaning towards Willock-Bruno-Tonali is the best blend but you just know Joelinton can pull it out of the bag in these sorts of matches.

I do think it was a bit strange he didn't start, especially with Willock only just coming back from another injury. He's the only midfielder we have that can genuinely rotate in-game with Bruno - I would've thought Howe would be all over that considering all of the other tinkering he's done so far this campaign.

He showed against Wolves at home 2 years ago how good he can be at it when we unleash him but I think you're right, we're protecting him or he's protecting himself.

Still can't believe Schar didn't square it

I do think he is main character syndroming a bit rather than phoning it in. One thing that made him so good last season was he made decisions in terms of runs and passes for the team's benefit so well. I can't say it feels like that this season.

He looks like when he was injured 2/3s into 22/23. I do wonder if protecting him more while he gets through this patch would be a good move. Wouldn't be against a 4-2-3-1.

It's also massively worth reminding ourselves that we built up to 'intensity is our identity' 2 years ago. Ironically, it was the Fulham game where we really started to kick into gear.

While he can be isolated, he sometimes massively fails at a fairly fundamental part of being a lone striker with his general play. Part of the reason we don't pin teams down in there to increase his service can be that he's behind play or is really slack with his decisions. An amazing striker when in form but he has to take more responsibility if he wants to go up a notch.

Personally, I don't think today's loss was massively a tactical one. Fairly obvious missing fundamental things involved in the goals - not tracking runners, not closing space quickly, not winning your battles. Letting a ball run through your hand doesn't help either. Whether we're struggling to motivate players is a pretty fair accusation though. I expected us to dominate their midfield with our physicality but it felt the opposite - we looked weak as piss across the front 6, in the main.

We still don't look fit, to me. Such a lack of snap in battles.

Absolutely brain-dead performance. Caught offside a million times, awful decision-making at both ends of the pitch. Isak and Gordon couldn't have been more on their heels half the time. Infuriating to see them a second behind very obvious scenarios.

Lots of athleticism in the middle. Would've like Tonali for the extra patience in possession but hey ho.

Fulham are fairly front foot so Gordon up top might work if we nail counters, but I expect we'll have the issue of it sticking when we're under pressure in our usual shape. They have some good footballers but their spine lacks physicality imo, we should be going there looking to dominate the middle.

Must be nearing a return? Just watched some of his highlights from last season and forgot how good he was in bursts.

He did look a lot more defensively secure at the back end of last season so it could be a fitness thing. Feels like he does need quite a bit of protection from others, at the minute, and his ability on the ball isn't outweighing that enough. So easy to forget how green he is in terms of professional gametime though. I'd be inclined to take him out this weekend and put him back in for the cup game. At his level of experience, lower league opposition is another good learning opportunity for him.

Yeah... The word at the time was more about hiring specialists in areas of product & function. I guess we've hired the Head of Ticketing role but I'd be surprised if that person is so operational that they're involved in the running & management of the tech itself. Same with retail, hospitality etc. Things can obviously change so maybe something happened, but this wasn't that long ago.

Think I posted this before but I was indirectly privy to the app process and the budget was a lot lower than anticipated compared to similarly-sized clubs. The site was quite late too but that's not unusual all in sports tech/tech. I was also told there'd be a fairly important expansion of staff this summer but it didn't seem to happen - the club still seem to outsource a lot.

I'd prefer him left of the two but Barnes played RW quite a bit earlier in his career. In his goal comps he pops up in quite a few different positions and has finishes on both feet. Saw a goal he scored for West Brom on his left, extremely similar to this weekend's. Extremely underrated footballer.