Heron

So did Livramento, Willock and Almiron who also achieved less percentage wise and in terms of number of attempts, purely from a passing point of view. Tonali is undoubtedly the better option, that's not my point, but the point I am trying to make is folk (not necessarily you) would seemingly prefer to highlight how shit he (Longstaff) has or has not been as opposed to simply saying he did well when he came on.

Unlucky not to score, good all round performance I thought.

Tonali pass success 33/45 (73%) Trippier pass success 62/75 (83%) Bruno pass success 71/79 (90%) Joelinton pass success 47/51 (92%) Longstaff pass success 19/20 (95%) Longstaff was only on the pitch for 23 minutes as well. I thought Trippier and Tonali were both actually a bit more sloppy with possession than usual, as they have very, very high standards and ability and were often under hitting passes or simply trying difficult balls which they are capable of achieving but simply didn't. Longstaff did virtually nowt wrong when he came on.

When I think of Goalkeeping greats I tend to think of Peter Schmeichel, Manuel Neuer and Mike Hooper.

It's the sort of thing where Pep would play John Stones as a keeper had be hailed a mastermind.

I mean...why would you even buy Goalkeepers if their prime objective was to be good on the ball? Just hoy an outfield player in

Love this. Entirely correct.

I actually thought that was poor decision making to be honest. Probably need to see it again like. There was certainly an element of misfortune though.

Probably, but he's French. It's not diving when it's not by an English man.

Behave man it was two.

Speak for yourself.

I don't agree that he is initiating contact (physically/literally). It is what would probably be called a 55/45 ball to be won and evidently the 45 (Ederson) miscalculated it as being 50/50. I think what is more pertinent, is whether the majority of players say 15 years ago go down here. To which the answer is no, in my opinion. As a defender, I don't see this as sufficient contact to go down (pre-VAR) but now (because of VAR and the modern "if there's contact go down cause VAR will validate it" game) it would be given a penalty and so by drawing any challenge in, as Gordon does so well, he is luring his prey into a false sense of security whereby they think it's a 50/50 and it isn't. That, is, somewhat, initiating contact (psychologically). Thus making it a game issue not a player issue. And now I'm done being diplomatic but that's helped me pass 5mins where I simply cannot sleep.

That last one is such an anomaly Which DC broke the matrix?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Hall is best as a LWB. I think that's been further proven today. I don't think he is comfortable in any other position at this level because of his lack of physicality and experience. Once Botman is fit, I could see Burn as LCB covering him in a fluid back 5/midfield 5 with the ball and Tino moving into a similar position on the right with Schar doing similar. As RCB of a 3. Those back would be interchangeable too.

Great post match press conference and he is (I am certain) referring to Longstaff et al who get occasional stick when he says we need all our players to feel loved and supported and like they can make a mistake etc.

...and then he speaks.

Doesn't kna Dennis Bergkamp. Howay man.

I didn't see much of it, but the system seemed to work a least. I know John Anderson wasn't happy with Big Jo like, said he was just fouling all the time

He has the character of a wooden spoon.

Cannot stand Cole Palmer.

Seemed to from what I'd seen. Have to love Joelinton man. What a lad.

VAR has made it a case of "Is there contact" Well...yes. There was. To Paul's point though, is that enough to go down, well...no, not at all. However, players are trained to win such decisions now rather than them simply being given. It ha been known as well, for honesty to work to players' detriment nowadays too. Sad state of affairs. FIFA should have doubled down on protecting refs but instead chose to back TV and Money with all this misguided VAR nonsense and now are being "legally" conned instead.