alexf

Got to get a win over Sunderland or the season is over and ends on a real downer. If we beat them he atleast has one derby victory and then also well in the race to finish in the top 7. If we don't then it's possibly two derby defeats, a humiliating beating in CL knocked out of all cups and likely finishing outside of any European places for next season. That would feel like a real negative heading into the summer for everyone connect to the club. Really hope the players and him can put last night behind them, take the positives from it (there are plenty once you remove the 15min defensive collapse) and give it everything on Sunday to save what's left of this season.

It was just the nature of the goals conceded. Every single one felt like mistakes from us. Goal 1) Thiaw slipping and getting turned too easily then Hall slipping leaving the space. Goal 2) Burn dropping deep to play everyone onside and the rest of the team not following. Goal 3) Trippier pulling back the player because he got caught short and didn't have the reactions to get back in, also likely the player still doesn't reach the pass even without the pull. Goal 4) Tonali leaves his man to Thiaw who doesn't go towards fermin he goes towards the ball instead. Goal 5) Simple corner, marking poor and Tino outmuscled too easily. Goal 6) Burn trying to get too tight to a much more agile and skillful player, Thiaw not matched the run of Lewa when he has the pace to do so and tries to cut out the pass instead and gets all in a tangle. Goal 7) Ramsey with the sort of pass that gets punished in a Sunday league let alone a knockout cl game against Barca. All of that and not including some of the other fuck ups like when Thiaw falls over and gives a 1v1 against Burn or the Yamal miss 5 yards out. Nothing came from amazing Barca attacking. It was all avoidable mistakes. On a night where we needed to be flawless defensively to get through we instead threw in 7 goals against ourselves pretty much. So yeah I don't think we were that far off them over the two games as the score suggests, we just self sabotaged and it all went wrong very very quickly. Sure other teams will laugh at us and rightly so but internally they need to take the positives from the 3 out of 4 very good halves.

Felt like every single one of their goals was due to our own defensive errors.

I hope we can stay in touch with them. I think they will tire quicker than us at this pace of game. We're used to playing this way but I'm betting they don't play this intense for the full 90 normally. Just stop gifting them fucking goals.

Also noticeable how you can't tackle Yamal without getting a free kick given. Proper protected player. Knew it would erk that he played when he should have been suspended.

Tino now. Use the excuse of the yellow card or whatever you need to protect Trips ego but he is a weakness here. Got done a few times down that side and his lack of pace is why he couldn't react and felt the need to pull the guy. Absolute gifts all of their goals. If we could just defend then we could win this, but they look like scoring with every attack we are so easy to play through.

Fuck me haven't felt this nervous since the cup final. Really hope the lads do themselves proud whatever the result.

We struggled with top tier last summer with CL.

7th is likely best we can achieve if we get some good league form once the 2 games a week thing eases off. Realistically I'd say more like 8th if Brentford don't slip up.

Should be playing our best team if available. Tino is a more effective player than Trippier nowadays and therefore should play. Harsh on Trips who has played so many games while Tino was injured but you have to be ruthless if you want to be winners. However I suspect Trippier plays since he was rested for Chelsea.

Get in. Couldn't watch the game as not in the country but went old school and listened on the radio. Felt like we would inevitably concede when he said 8 mins added on. I take it we made changes with Tuesday in mind but then when it looked like we could win the game he might have changed plans and prioritised this instead with likes of Hall, Gordon, Barnes doing full 90 mins.

Really tricky to rotate when we literally don't have the numbers to rotate out unless it's academy kids and we know Eddie doesn't do that. I think the essentials to keep wrapped up are Hall, Tonali, Joelinton and Gordon but we haven't got alternatives so normally Tonali plays every minute of every game. Trippier looks like he picked up a knock aswell which makes things tricky as we likely need Tino for Barca also. Might be looking at: Ramsdale Tino Thiaw Botman Murphy Ramsey Willock Woltemade Murphy Osula Wissa Subs: 1) Shahar for Tino 2) Tonali for Ramsey 3) Gordon for Wissa (if he's back healthy) 4) Seung-soo for Osula, surprised we haven't seen more of him in the squad this season. 5) Elanga/Barnes for Murphy.

Softest pen you'll ever see.

Dunno if it's been mentioned but quite a few of ours kept slipping over last night. Wonder if ground staff over watered the pitch to try and speed it up and help us. However it seemed to bother us more than them.

4 goals in 20 minutes against these are rookie numbers. Gotta be getting 5 like we did

Been quietly one of our best players for a little while now. Despite missing a few 2nd halves for multiple unfortunate reasons. Said we would massively miss him for that City game and I think this game proved that. He's so much more technical than Willock and outside of Bruno is our best midfielder for asking for the ball under any condition and being brave. There was a few times he dropped deep to get the ball surrounded by players and came out of it with the ball. He's been steadily growing in performance and hopefully we are now seeing the player we thought we were signing.

Still more of a sprinter than a footballer. He's fine up until he has to do something technical with the ball. I think that's the part where people's hope for him to come good hits abit of a wall. Because yes, he is playing much better now than he was a couple of months ago, but he is still struggled alot with the basics. I think that is alot harder to overcome than just lacking in abit of form etc. Murphy kind of illustrated that point when he came on. Just whips it with accuracy as soon as he can, it's simple but really effective. I never have any confidence now when Elanga gets out through that he will make the right decision or be able to execute the shot or cross successfully.

Agreed. Was saying the same at the time. The build up was annoying with players falling over all over the place and at that point in the game that middle should be impenetrable and any attack they should be forced down the sides and then if they hit it in the box you should have numbers to see it out. One easy through ball straight into our cbs defending in their box can't happen that easy. I love Tonali but he's more of a reactive athlete rather than a genuine reading the gap, cutting out passing lanes type midfielder. Has happened a few times but I'm not blaming him individually, it's more of a tactic of Howe's to have the flat three in midfield rather than an out and out 6 sitting in deep. Think there is still a slim chance, if we are clinical and can hit them on the counter with a back to full health Gordon then fingers crossed. Defensively though we will need to be perfect as barca can't be worse than they were last night. Was odd how they didn't press us at all really, just let Burn and co pass it round the back with zero pressure.

Superb. You just knew he was gonna step up tonight and show who was boss after all the pre-game Yamal chat. Wish we could rest him fully fit next week but same for others. Unless we play all the u21s then the majority of that team still have to play at the weekend

Just wish we had more options to rotate for the Chelsea game. Cus likely alot of those players will have to go again and then give everything away to Barca then somehow go again for the derby. Is it true Yamal would have been suspended if he got booked tonight? That confirms how corrupt the whole thing is then. Ref was under clear instruction not to book him because you'll never see a more blatant yellow.

I'm just wondering how late do we need to score to avoid conceeding. Just feels inevitable every game this season. Great performance all round, lacked cutting edge for most part. Lewis Hall man of match.

That is so us isn't it. Worked so hard and had a deserved win and something to take away from home and with less than ten seconds left on the clock we switch off and concede yet again. So disappointing. Going there only needing a draw felt more realistic than needing to win.

Try and grind a 0:0? Probs next to no hope of that with our defense this season I guess.

Yeah I'll be honest. I wasn't too hyped for this but I was curious to see if Gordon could do his normal Champions league transformation into an elite looking player and cause them trouble but can't see much hope now. Osula will have been picked purely as the closest alternative to Gordon but I think he will get bullied out there.

Well that's killed any buzz I had.