The Prophet

Not watched West Ham under Potter yet. I'm guessing it'll take some time to drill his style into them.

We're not a one man team, but we're also a far lesser team without him. Largely due to the drop off in the quality of his replacement.

From Hope: "My information today is that, while there is every chance Isak will sit out Sunday’s visit of Brighton, there are no fears of the groin injury that saw him miss Wednesday’s 2-0 defeat at Liverpool being serious. Rather, if the tightness is linked to fatigue, the schedule allows for the Swede to have a period of rest before the trip to West Ham a week on Monday."

Again, agree and disagree. There have been instances such as Arsenal away (22/23) where they shredded our press in the first twenty. In response he switched to a midblock and comfortably saw out the game. However there's also been examples such as Wolves away (23/24) where our full backs were becoming isolated v their pacey wide men and he reacted way too slowly. I definitely think his in game tactics is an area he can develop and become more proactive, but I don't think it's as simple as saying he always reacts a certain way.

Same. Neutral turf, Botman, Joe and Isak should be back and we'll be we'll up for it.

Dubravka is no where near as good as some are making out, but there's no denying having a keeper who doesn't treat the ball like a time bomb has its advantages.

Agree and disagree. I think he could be more pragmatic with his subs, but there's been times when we've been level or a single goal down at HT where hes rung the changes. It's not like he never does it, it's just that you could argue he doesn't do it enough. Of course in mitigation it's not like our bench is packed with game changers.

C. A great servant who excelled under Rafa and Howe's management. Unfortunately much like Trippier, age is catching up. While he was never rapid, he's lost a yard of pace, he's less focused and his long range passing which which was once superb is off more often than not. Even then, he'd still do a job for a side with midtable aspirations. He'll be fondly remembered as one of our best, but the time has come to upgrade.

It depends, if it's someone I like the sound of it's down to him, if not it's the defence.

Coincidentally, all of the social media personalities have managed a ticket. If I was a betting man, I'd wager all of the TF lot have been "lucky" too, despite some of them not having season tickets, etc.

It is weird how we wildly lurch from looking decent for a number of games to looking absolutely bobbins. This is probably the longest spell we've looked poor for too.

With context it also ignores that there's been no squad investment for a year and a half. The signings in January 2022 gave us momentum. Last summer seemed to do the opposite.

It's a tough one. Schar has dropped off significantly this season and on the face of it seems like the obvious one to bench. The problem is that we've seen how teams target Burn when we play with two left-footers. Even so I think the latter is probably the lesser of two evils.

No disagreement there. It had the feel of a friendly, there was no real intensity from either side. While they were clearly better, they capitalised on two sloppy bits of defending.

I didn't think it was anywhere near as bad as the City performance.

They're far from perfect like. We can get at them, but we'll have to play well.

From Eddie's prezza: "It was a late decision, around midday. He didn’t feel right with his groin, so we didn’t risk it. We’ve got too many big games to come." "We knew he was feeling something yesterday. We hoped he would improve overnight but it didn’t improve enough."

Poor Eddie looks like he's aged a bit over the last year.

A log of our key players have. Bruno, Big Joe and Gordon to name a few.

The direct alternative is Longstaff. We know what the reaction would be if he dropped Tonali for Longstaff, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

He played as much football on the right as he did on the left for Everton. We bought him as a "versatile forward" iiirc.

It made perfect sense at the time like.

What's with the sloppy early concessions? That's about half a dozen games recently where we've conceded a soft goal in the opening exchanges.

Looked to me like the intention was to sit in a mid-block and try to exploit the space in behind.

Not feeling particularly confident with this one. We're simply not playing well at the moment and look lethargic and error prone, save 15 minutes v Forest. We're incredibly "streaky" though, si hopefully this is the start of the pick up.