Stottie

After yesterday's win, Barca are now averaging 2.7 xG in their five La Liga games, which with good strikers means 3+ goals a game (they've scored 16 in the five games). That's way higher chance creation and goalscoring than anyone in our league. We did well to limit them to the opportunities we gave them, and its a shame we could not take our own.

Best striker in the league by miles.

Dreadful watch, but matched their strongest team away with a makeshift one with a makeshift formation, after us playing midweek and them not. If you told me we could get at point at Bournemouth resting both Bruno and Joelinton, I wouldn't have believed it. That's Gordon's suspension done, so lets play Gordon Wolte Murph/Elanga up front and our strongest 3 in midfield next league game.

No idea how this one works on the pitch. Hall might be inverting into midfield. If 5-2-3, does that mean our defensive shape will be 5-4-1 and not our normal 4-5-1? In attack we look lacking in pace. Other than that, in Eddie we trust.

He could be just the man, working as an extra body in middle of the park and someone to beat a man and break their lines. Woltemade is also very good at drawing fouls, a useful skill against aggressive teams. It's about time we scored from a set piece.

He looks much stronger than I expected. He's also on a hot streak with three goals from four shots on target. Since this is likely to deny Isak the game time he needs to get over his self-imposed non-preseason, it is deliciously timed.

Yeah, got to go at this with full strength, esp. in midfield. Bournemouth are a very combative (and good) team. It's very impressive for them to start with three wins out of four despite losing their keeper and three out of four defensive starters. It suggests the magic is in the recruitment and Iraola, not in the individual players. Kerkez in particular has been far from impressive since leaving.

If you want to watch Champions League on Japanese satellite tv for free, it can be done....

Derby game I know, but once again only two shots combined for the Liverpool central striker in a game they were cruising in 2-0 up. Delap averaged 2.29 shots a game in a side that was relegated.

The first was unstoppable but the second wasn't. I would half expect Pope to stop it.

The new Chelsea innit. Chequebook team.

Thanks! At the Vitality our record is W2 D4 L1 It certainly feels worse.

Pity we were too gassed and Barca too good for him to see much of the ball, even with him dropping deep. He did well with what he was given, but I would normally hope us to involve him more in 30 minutes of game time. He had under 10 touches.

Yes, but we're not going to match Barca head to head in a chess match-type tactical battle from kickoff. We're getting to the point squadwise where we can go for it and try a second half Plan B with capable players from a strong bench, but they're not fit and/or bedded in yet. Based on last year, 3 wins and 2 draws out of eight matches gets you into the knockout phase. We can afford two more defeats, but two only. The Belgian team Union SG we play next opened with a 3-1 win at PSV. We face em with the same lads as tonight, maybe Hall in better shape. We could really do with Wissa being back by the following fixture, which is Benfica home in mid October. Benfica lost 3-2 at home to Qarabağ FK of Azerbaijan, a historic win for teams from that country. They play at Chelsea before we face them.

Blitz em early and bring on the good-with-the-ball forward later to hold onto a lead was a decent plan, and not that far off working. We didn't look overawed or out of our depth, and weren't beaten tactically, so Howe gets a pass on this. I was baffled by the Elanga sub, but Murph got an assist and Gordon scored, a goal the lad probably needed, so chalk one to Eddie. Lingering "what if?" is if Woltemade had been brought on five-ten minutes earlier before Barca score. It mightn't be but "subs on 60 minutes" does seem to be premeditated. I would also like to see more Elanga deliveries from corners.

Pleased he got a goal and hope he can settle back in and show us what he can do at LW soon. It was needs driven, but him playing CF has not been good for us or good for him.

Did great against the highest level of opposition. Shame about out mess of a striker situation but we'll see him link with Wissa and big Nick eventually. Wissa would make more of yesterday's chances than Gordon and Barnes did.

Just some context if any Liverpool luvvie calls Isak "essentially the best striker in the world". Haaland also has 21 goals (!!!) in his last 14 games for Norway.

Decent effort overall. Contained them for an hour and had the better chances, but didn't take em and it cost us. It would have been nicer to ease into the tournament with an easier fixture and our new strikers and new midfielder match fit and bedded in, but that's not what we were given. I expect more of the same against good opposition until we get Wissa and big Nick in and up to speed. Fair play to Rashford who was clinical. I bet Villa fans will be feeling shortchanged.

Bruno close!

BDB gave it up but wow, what a punishment. Total worldie.

We've played well, contained them fairly easily, but just lacked the killer touch. Insert standard comment about striker woes.

That would be my guess. The stats nerd in me though says Ekitike is averaging two shots a game over four games and Isak had two in this game, both from the edge of the box. Two shots a game for your striker is not a recipe for lots of goals. They'll have to change the way they play, and do so without their big crosser (the league's biggest crosser) in Trent. (fwiw, "he's not a striker!" Anthony Gordon has 10 shots is one game and 30 minutes this season)

The Guardian rims Liverpool. Their football coverage is borderline unreadable. They also constantly make Saudi jibes at NUFC, which I think is them using an easy noncontroversial target to remind readers that the paper cares about something. They strike me as extra desperate to do this because of the paper's increasingly piss poor efforts at standing up for anything on bigger issues, like Gaza and Israeli influence in UK politics. It will be interesting to see if the press, the Guardian included, continue to claim Liverpool have a "no arseholes" policy after them signing Isak. Isak would have got a much more condemnation for his behaviour had he been destined for say Man City and not the media darlings that are Liverpool.

I'm hoping Sandro's shoulder has turned the tide with our luck with injuries. "Out of months" = "back next game".