timeEd32

Has this been posted? It’s from a Ryder article after Arsenal: “The criteria to make Hall's move a permanent deal is believed to be based around appearances in a match day squad and United's final league position, to finish in or around the top 10.”

I'm going to avoid quoting myself, but to add some numbers to the above post about what we've lost without the Pope + Joelinton: Pope had 2.01 defensive actions outside of the penalty area per 90 min. Only three GK are higher this season - Steele, Martinez, and Vicario. Dubravka has 0.90 per 90. Only Flekken, Sa, Johnston, and Areola have less. Pope's average distance from goal for all defensive actions is 19.8. Only Steele is higher. Dubravka's is 11.5, only Johnston and Areola are lower. That's a lot of space that is no longer being covered by our GK, especially with a slow back line. As for Joelinton, there are fancier stats but: In 2022/23 he was 1st on the team and 13th in the league in tackles + interceptions. Interestingly his ratio of def / mid / att third tackles is basically identical to Trippier This season he's tied for first in the same stat per 90 (with Burn). Miley actually fares well here too, but it stands out that the tackles are occurring in different places. 53% of Joelinton's tackles were in the defensive third, an almost identical ratio to last season. 40% are in the middle third. Contrast that with Miley where only 18% of his tackles have happened in the defensive third. 60% are in the middle third and 22% in the attacking third. Gordon has a higher ratio of defensive third tackles. Joelinton also has only one less interception this season than Miley and Longstaff combined despite playing over 1500 less minutes. We don't have anyone doing what Joelinton does. Willock may be the only hope in that regard. Maybe Anderson.

I think it's Joelinton + Pope. The back four has lost its protection both in front of it and behind. Add the swirling concoction of injuries/fatigue/confidence and I think you have most of the mix of our current problem.

Liverpool away would have been worse IMO. Haven't won there in like three decades, don't play well against them, and have to deal with the Klopp retirement quadruple nonsense.

https://www.90min.com/posts/ineos-surprised-man-utd-didnt-consider-signing-tino-livramento Feels like Ratcliffe and INEOS are going to go a long way to making me remember why I used to hate Man United more than Liverpool.

If she loses it seems plausible that she'd need to sell her shares, presumably to the Reubens or PIF, to help fund it. In theory she'd get fair value minus the outstanding loans, but who knows. I just don't get why, if the Reubens and/or PIF wanted to help her out, it had to be funneled through the club.

In 2000 we were gifted Tranmere in the QF. We've paid for it ever since... The last time we got to the QF we drew City also. Time before that was Chelsea away, en route to their second straight PL title. Time before that was Spurs. Time before that was Arsenal en route to a double. And yes, when you get to the last 8 your odds of facing a good team obviously increase. But other than Spurs, who were kind of middling then, we've gotten just about the worst draw imaginable in four of the last five.

Here's me trying to be optimistic. Their fixtures for the next month: Man Utd (h) CL - Copenhagen (h) Liverpool (a) (CL quarterfinal draw on Mar. 15) NUFC (h) (Internationals) Arsenal (h) Villa (h) Maybe their attention will be elsewhere? It may not even matter if it is. Really wish this was at home. Also wish they weren't comfortably camped out at home for a month.

I'm quite sure I'm going to take great joy in revisiting the last 250+ pages sometime in 2024. For future reference, the Everton game is on page 1074.

Definitely has some Sounds of Silence vibes to it.

I'm 100% with you on this. It will get branded as an excuse, which I guess it kind of is. But my new least favorite genre of posts are the ones that act like a magic switch has been flipped along with those that seem to imply fatigue issues were invented as a means to give Eddie a pass. "We were told fatigue was the reason for December..." <--- You shouldn't need to be told anything. Open your eyes "We have players back, what's the excuse now?" <--- Umm, we're still missing critical ones and the impact of the last few months doesn't just disappear overnight. "I guess 30 minutes of extra time will be the excuse for the next month." <---

Honestly there's so many unknowns here I'm reserving judgment until we see what happens after the season. If we pay the £30m then I will agree there were definitely times in Nov/Dec where we could and should have used him even if he's not fully up to expectations.

Brighton at home please. They have injuries and they play Roma at home on the Thursday before. I assume we'd play Sunday if that happens.

It's ultimately a small amount and I assume there's some plan to pay it back, but I don't love that the club was used to provide a loan to an owner for an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with NUFC. Ashley would have been slaughtered for this.

All fair. I think really the only place you and I differ greatly is on how much latitude to give for the injuries.

Kieran is great, but there's a couple problems in this comparison. Caveat that no source is perfect and I trust Kieran more than anyone, but I think even he'd agree with the following: Only 6 of the 20 clubs include 2022/23 numbers in what you linked so it's not yet a perfect comparison. Villa's wages from 21/22 to now will have increased considerably as one example. Player contracts are heavily incentivized with various bonuses and our 2022/23 accounts include Champions League bonuses, so those numbers are inflated from our 'base' wages. This is called out in our accounts: "Staff costs increased £16.5m ... the main factors being higher merit-based bonuses for the playing squad, team management, and club staff as a result of the club's 4th placed finish..." Most clubs don't separate out players from other staff in their accounts so you're getting full club wages. Since this is generally apples to apples it's fine, except the next part of that line from our accounts is "...along with the increase of c100 employees across the club as the build out continues across football operations, commercial teams, executive and central support functions." Obviously players wages are the main driving force, but we have been adding a lot of staff that are mostly not helping us today. We've added around £2.5m in executive team pay since the Charnley days, which is basically a squad player. That said, we're probably 7th or 8th. I'd put us in a trio with Villa and West Ham, who aren't miles behind and also added to their wage bill this year. Four points currently separate 7th-11th and I'd guess that group stays pretty tight. I'd love for us to qualify for Europe, but given what we've dealt with I'm not going to freak out if we finish a handful of points shy.

I have a feeling we'll get some honesty from him (and maybe others) sometime between July-September that they never really recovered from the middle of the season. I think he's one of a few that are physically and mentally exhausted, but hopefully they can give one last push with less games and a bit of rotation.

Curious to see what we do up front here. Don’t love the idea of Isak starting a third game in a week after returning from injury. But Gordon also clearly needs a rest. I hope one of them sits at least. Nice to have to midfield options for a change, though I’m also hoping we don’t push Willock too far too soon.

I'm curious what this rapid decline is based on? From Feb. 1 through Dec. 6 we played 32 games (some others played 33) and these are the xGA leaders: 1) Man City 30.92 2) Newcastle. 35.78 3) Arsenal. 42.54 4) Palace 43.44 5) Liverpool. 43.50 In that stretch we conceded 36 goals, so right in line with the underlying stats. We kept 6 clean sheets (plus a 7th where we only conceded from a FK) in a stretch of 10 league games from mid-September through November. We actually greatly outperformed our xGA in the pre-WC part of last season, so we rode our luck at times. Our defense improved by many metrics after the WC break, so what it actually looks like to me is from Boxing Day 2022 through November of this season (37 games) only the treble winners were better defensively than us. After that things have obviously fallen off a cliff for which there are many factors and much debate. But what got us to this point looks more like the chart of a famous stock market crash rather than a decline over a 12 month period.

I know it wasn't the prettiest thing, but it's only the second time we've gotten to the QF in nearly 20 years and only the 9th time in almost 50 years. Can there be a tiny bit of happiness amongst the angst?

Which of these things disappointed you in the first 15 min of extra time... the 68% possession? the 7-1 shot advantage? the 4-0 corner advantage? the 11-2 touches in the box? the fact we made more passes in their half than they made in total? the 1.08 to 0.03 xG advantage? Of all the things to pick out from tonight.

Red Hot Chili Peppers before the game Sandstorm to start the second half Blackburn entirely stuck in the 90s.

December Trippier has shown up.

Gordon's gotta score there. He looks very leggy though.