ponsaelius

Great touch from Tonali that.

When Howe first came in and particularly when Trippier first signed we were pretty dangerous from set pieces. It often allowed us to break open tight games, which we then went to on to run away with being able to play on the break. We look so ineffective from them at the moment. In fact I'm more worried our slow backline will get done on the break from them.

Bruno has been fucking shite this season

Three left wingers up top, with two centre forwards on the bench.

They've all been either shite or hit/miss. He's the only one I have faith in to keep doing the right thing when he gets it.

Genuinely don't think anybody has been consistently good for us this season except Lewis Hall.

Made of twigs. Sell in summer.

One of those games where PSR bites for me. Don't think we even go near Kelly if it wasn't for that. Murphy certainly wouldn't still be getting games. We lack freshness and new ideas, trying to rely on what worked two seasons ago (hence the reluctance to put Tonali in over the tried and tested midfield), and then when it doesn't click things go really shit quickly. I think Howe can take some of the blame, but the main problem for me is we have just hit a wall momentum wise as a club as a result of not being able to refresh and invest.

Honestly think if we have Burn in instead of Kelly we win the game. West Ham have played well but it's been a genesis of individual ability/confidence given to them by mistakes at the worst possible times. No idea what Howe was playing at second half. Sometimes having options on the bench is a curse rather than a benefit. I can't abide when we pull that cool trick of throwing our entire shape away to play 4-4-2 and spam crosses into the box from Jacob Murphy.

Completely lost the plot here. No idea what this formation is supposed to be.

Kelly has been disastrous tbh. Every header he's won has been misdirected to an opposition player.

He's basically an upgrade on Dummett. Probably wouldn't have even considered signing him if it wasn't for PSR.

Everything I heard about him was he was equally good at both left back and CB. I think that's the problem. Sometimes these kind of players are specialists in neither.

Think we tried quite a lot of them tbh, usually wastefully.

West Ham are a poorly coached side lacking confidence but have lots of good players and are dangerous on the break. Literally worst thing we could do is hand them a cheap opening goal from a set piece. Extremely frustrating.

Scored away at Spurs didn't he? Edit: no that was Huntingdon

Muto

I've only just clicked that Dibling is the lad who scored that hattrick of identical goals against our youth a few years ago. Went to Chelsea and got homesick so went back to Southampton.

As long as Inter don't pull away at some point, which is always a possibility, it should be a really open race. I think Atalanta might actually have a decent shout this year.

It definitely makes a massive difference to crowds at Northern League level. Less so the further you go up the pyramid.

I knew City were on a shit run but 5 losses in a row is something like

I made this point a few pages back but that's a completely unworkable location in terms of transport. The roads around there are already at capacity due to the sheer volume of car centric housing built. Trying to get 70k people there on a matchday, at the same time, with no metro/rail, is totally unfeasible. Would be a good training ground location.

Pav

Faye

I don't think there is even a viable location anywhere on the periphery of the city due to the transport infrastructure that would be needed to support it. You'd not get it past planning. The city centre location is ideal for transport because all existing public transport infrastructure already goes to the centre anyway. And because it's in the centre, with various other uses, people filter in/out naturally throughout the day anyway. SJP is remarkably easy to get out of at full time. Anybody who has tried to get to and from Brighton's Amex on a matchday knows the level of bottleneck that an out of town stadium creates. And that's half the size with regular trains. The only options if they're looking at a brand new stadium I can see are Castle Leazes and the Arena, because they require no additional infrastructure.