timeEd32

The biggest issue to me is we seemed to be fully set on the Klopp mould and, for a time, we were awesome. But now we're not playing that way anymore, possibly wanting to transition styles, while also not having any money for a major overhaul. I can understand wanting to see more of the ball and I can understand why we can't do 90 minutes every week of a hell for leather style. But I don't get why we aren't doing a lot more targeted pressing, why we don't sometimes play that way, and why we've ended up in this sort of no man's land version of what we used to be and what we maybe want to become.

It depends which ones you're referring to. People are overreacting to the Longstaff/Burn one year extensions.

This is possible. But while revenue has grown considerably since Ashley, so have costs (wages + amortisation). Barring a not-yet-announced rise in commercial revenue the finances are very likely pretty tight.

I think it’s just you. Clubs have huge demand for tickets and TV ratings are setting records both in the UK and internationally. Some of the global viewership estimates, while likely inflated, are staggering. It makes what’s happening behind the scenes all the more ridiculous because the biggest threat to the Premier League is coming from within.

I was going to respond with the same. Some home stats were jumping out to me as concerning, but they need this context applied. And 2 of our next 3 home games are Arsenal and Liverpool, so realistically we're not going to know for awhile if there are larger problems. Based on the fixtures, if our home form hasn't seriously dropped off, we should have a barnstorming second half of the season at SJP.

How much depends on if he really was on a 3.5 year deal initially and what his original wages were.

The way it's being reported we're activating a one year extension. I would assume that carries very similar wages to what he's on. Burn's was similar. Both of those make a lot of sense to reduce the number of players we have to replace next summer. Ideally they won't play nearly as much as they are now, but they can plug in and help keep our amortisation number lower.

You keep saying this and I know what you mean, but one of the best teams in the history of the league played this way.

If we tried that I can't imagine Tonali wouldn't be part of the two.

A few of us were saying the existence of the Guehi bid wasn't necessarily an indicator that we had that much to spend without sales (whether in August or June) or new revenue. What Edwards says here matches any math that can be done with publicly available numbers.

Pretty confident for this. We're so much better at home and I assume they'll make at least a few changes. At least a couple of the better teams will be out after this round. Please don't mess it up.

16 errors leading to a shot last season (0.42 per game). This season is 1.11 per game. Dispossessed 10.5 times per game, which was 4th worst.

We are such a sloppy team. Currently joint 2nd in the league with 10 errors that have led to a shot. In the entirety of 2022/23 we made 10 errors that led to a shot (4th best). We're also 2nd in the league in number of times dispossessed (12.4 per game). This was 9.55 in 2022/23.

obligatory small sample size warning Corners 2022/23 15.52 xG | 0.41xG/90 | 8 goals (0.21 per game) 6.47 xGA | 0.17xGA/90 | 8 goals against (0.21 per game) 2023/24 9.84 xG | 0.26xG/90 | 8 goals (0.21 per game) 8.56 xGA | 0.23xGA/90 | 9 goals against (0.24 per game) 2024/25 1.71 xG | 0.19xG/90 | 0 goals 1.01 xGA | 0.11xGA/90 | 0 goals against Set pieces (direct free kicks excluded) 2022/23 8.7 xG | 0.23xG/90 | 3 goals (0.08 per game) 2.92 xGA | 0.09xGA/90 | 2 goals against (0.05 per game) 2023/24 6.44 xG | 0.17xG/90 | 8 goals (0.21 per game) 3.51 xGA | 0.23xGA/90 | 3 goals against (0.08 per game) 2024/25 0.80 xG | 0.09xG/90 | 0 goals 0.84 xGA | 0.09xGA/90 | 1 goal against ------------------------------------------- Combined 2022/23 we generated 0.64xG and 0.29 goals per game 2023/24 we generated 0.43xG and 0.42 goals per game 2024/25 we have created 0.28xG and 0.00 goals per game

Just read this in an article about baseball, but it feels very appropriate after yesterday: players’ physical failures are easier to forgive than managers’ unforced mental missteps.

24 hours later and I'm still really annoyed by that game. Isak failing to control multiple passes which led to counters, one of which was the second goal Bruno making 4-5 passes straight to them and they weren't particularly ambitious passes Tonali vacating the right side time and again. Burn deciding it wasn't important to track Jackson until it was too late (not the only one guilty of this yesterday either) Schar doing whatever the hell he was doing all day Obviously it's up to the manager to get the players to perform and I'd be very interested in seeing us try something different, but yesterday feels like a game the players gave away. I'm struggling to remember one with so many obvious individual mistakes. I can't decide if that's more or less comforting than just not really showing up.

It was 100% a foul. Should have been a free kick right outside the area.

A lot of that summer was spent complaining about the Gordon signing and debating where he'd play. I said this on June 1, 2023... Gordon started the season as the LW, but Brentford in September we started with Barnes left and Gordon right. Then three days later we played Milan with Gordon left and Murphy right (Murphy came off for Miggy early 2nd half and Gordon came off for Wilson with Isak shifting wide). Then five days later at Sheffield United we started with Barnes/Wilson/Miggy. It seems the plan was to rotate the front three to deal with the added fixtures, but then Barnes was hurt for ages and Wilson/Isak took turns being injured. Gordon turned into one of the league's best left wingers by the next time we see Barnes. The kind version of what happened is a reasonable plan got derailed by injuries and a previous signing became an excellent LW making the Barnes signing a bit redundant. Not ideal, but understandable. The negative version of what happened is we spent a lot of money on a very specialized player and we did so in the position where we already had the most options. We felt comfortable doing this because we naively thought a 29 year old RW off the season of his life would continue that form and/or we felt we needed to replace the outgoing LW because we weren't sure where Gordon fit. There's some bad luck involved, but also poor planning given our finances. None of this is the fault of Barnes, who will create and score goals, but we'd be in a really rough place if not for Gordon's versatility.

This is written as if there’s no financial restrictions. We spent everything we could and more in summer 2023. It’s largely the reason for everything that has happened since.

Agreed, not sure how anyone thinks he was good yesterday.

Very sloppy today but honestly have a lot of sympathy for him. More than the other underachievers at least. The performances we’re seeing now are why players need to be rotated.

I don’t understand what he was doing today. Felt like he left the right side regularly, which gave Palmer tons of space and left Tino and Schar exposed. If he plays on the left for Italy I’d try him there or I’d be interested in seeing him in the middle.

Things must be grim if you’re losing hope!

Really poor. I’d send his agent the ‘highlights’ of his play today the next time he reaches out.

Players passing to the other team, not controlling the ball, and regularly being muscled off it are not a tactics issue. Neither are missing 1v1s, penalties, or failing to make passes that a U13 coach would scream about.