Stottie

That's my impression too. I know its very different for folk who work alongside mackems but I don't care any more. My biggest concern is the potential (manufactured) over-reaction to this result, not the result itself. We are not far off self-feeding pressure on Howe. Huge scrutiny of everything he does. Its much better to take one step back than one hundred steps back. The straw that broke SBR's back was Hasselbaink punching the ball into the net. That's what little things can do. It set us back years.

Have any of the players been injured in training? Murphy was a freak fall in a match, Pope was an innocent dive for a blocked shot, Barnes was a toe injury when not fatigued, .... It is key to manage injury prone players like Wilson, but I don't think that applies to most of the lads.

Such a weak bench today. A stronger one and who knows. Must get bodies in.

Ha ha blatant dive. What scum

45 minutes of mostly not pressing, giving it straight back to them, and generally inviting them on. Some impressive last ditch stuff though to keep em out, esp. from Dubs. This is tough viewing, so I hope we do better second half. We need to win some challenges in the middle and string a few passes together. When we do win a corner, put it in the fucking middle.

The commentary will be, for certain.

If Sven Botman made the error he made against Liverpool every week, we would not have got into the Champions League. I see that error, and Bruno's, and the Alisson save, as much bigger factors in us not beating Liverpool at SJP than "Klopp knows how to play us". Liverpool have beaten us in the other games against Howe too, but the VAR check of the Isak offside goal has to be one of the least convincing so far. They didn't even bother to draw any lines. Had that been allowed, its 2-0 with half an hour or whatever it was to play. At full strength and refreshed, I'd fancy our chances. Based on recent form, we are not full strength or refreshed. So I expect pain.

The clubs around us have started beating each other, so it looks like whoever gets fifth won't need 70 points to do it. In the last 10 fixtures, we've gained the same points as Tottenham, one fewer than Brighton, and three fewer than Man U. We've had some very poor results, but its not a complete disaster. We need to tighten up defensively and start hitting a barn door instead of missing easy chances early in games. Both are things we've been able to do before under Howe. Fewer fixtures overall should mean fewer injuries and more time to regroup.

I thought Liverpool's win at SJP was flukey because a very rare Botman mistake and a not-so-rare Bruno one were finished Thierry Henry style by the least clinical striker in the league. Versus other teams has 2 goals from nearly 9 xG, a litany of misses. Liverpool with 10 men have a cheat code in the ol' hoof to Mo Salah, the best fast break threat going. He's fast as anything and strong enough to brush defenders off. I reckon he was the nail in the Cancelo coffin for Pep.

The SJP game was flukey as anything, and I wouldn't dwell on those particular 90 minutes. However Liverpool are the strongest team in the league in the second half. They've only conceded five second half goals in 19 games. They've scored 15 out of their 37 goals in the last 15 minutes. https://www.soccerstats.com/timing.asp?league=england We have conceded 7 in the last fifteen, nearly double any other 15 min period of games.

I foresee us losing this match in the most upsetting way possible, like the last game at SJP. I doubt it will be a straight incident-free 5-0 or the like. What I imagine is more like a crappy Szobo dive to get Bruno sent off, followed by some other shite, maybe a goalkeeping error, and a couple more on the counter. The result will then be presented as a glorious win by Liverpool FC who represent all that is wonderful about football.

Last six games we are top of the league in xG! 14.3! Unfortunately, those chances have only produced 6 goals. Insert your own comment about barn doors or cows' arses and banjos. We are also top of the league in xG against. 13.2, for 11 goals conceded. The lazy and predictable comment is that this could be another 4-3. Or us having enough chances for three but not scoring them.

Unfortunately, rating our window depends on how much you buy into the theory that "it's just Harvey Barnes". If you think he's meh, then the window is meh. If you think he's good, which better numbers for Leicester than Moussa Diaby has managed for Villa do strongly suggest, then he was a good signing. Aside from some short sub appearances, Barnes has only really played one full competitive game for us, the 1-0 home win against Brentford, You'd have to be very trigger happy to dismiss him for his performance one game. For whatever reason, he does seem to be a Marmite type player and until he's banging them in for the Toon, I doubt any naysayers will be converted. It should be obvious, but Sancho, Mudryk, and Antony prove that it is possible to spend a fuckton on a winger who does not produce very much. If anything, the surprise should be that Doku has hit the ground running. Most of them don't seem to.

I think it is unfair to assume they were "trying to be clever". They had very large constraints on what they could do, from FFP and potential approprium from selling players to Saudi. We could not sell two or more players like media darlings Liverpool and Chelsea did. The irony is that Israel has since killed dozens more journalists than Jamal Khashoggi, but this has been met with almost universal media silence. Our owners also inherited a lot of long-contract Ashley deadwood that is messing up FFP on the wages front.

We're running out of steam faster and earlier than the other teams near the top are supposed to run out of steam.

Clearly worse of late. Doesn't look fit.

Ferk it, I'm going to work it out Darwin Nunez: 2 goals in 13 mins vs. NUFC, 2 goals in 958 minutes vs everyone else Ewan Ferguson: 3 goals in 81 mins vs. NUFC, 3 goals in 838 minutes vs everyone else Richarlison: : 2 goals in 73 mins vs. NUFC, 3 goals in 700 minutes vs. everyone else Chris Wood: 3 goals in 90 mins vs. NUFC, 4 goals in 549 minutes vs. everyone else Wood is actually the most prolific, though mostly thanks to two against Luton. There seems to be a pattern there of us struggling against the big man, the big man who other teams deal with comfortably.

We took the lead and even looked likely to get another. They equalized from our attack. After that it was like the wheels falling off a clown car. Chris Wood scoring three and even rounding the keeper is serious WTF territory. Our center halves should be ashamed of themselves. Fuck whatever happens at Liverpool but we have to regroup before Wearyside. Play like this and they'll beat us too.

Lordy dordy. Terrible stuff. We really need a reaction here.

Deserved, but WTF?

Yeah, that about sums it up. A lot of good, but the little bad there was was enough to cancel it out. We need to come back and win it now though. We've not be resilient enough this season, losing points from winning positions and falling behind and staying there.

curse of the former player

A soft penna but hey, we need some luck. He waited to see the keeper go one way, so his movement in the other direction would then be very limited.

Strong team, options from the bench too. I feel quite confident now.

Getting knocked out of Europe and the Carabao has at least solved one of our problems, which was fixture congestion. Obviously its the busy festive period that we first have to navigate, but the lads will have more time to prepare for games in the second half of the season. Fate kicking us in the knackers again this season means these fixtures begin with City, Liverpool, and Villa, along with a must-not-lose on Wearyside. However, the cup runs ending does mean things will get easier. I suppose the concern is that our down-to-the-bones team will put us so far behind that we won't be able to catch up. We beat Arsenal, so we're not mugs. Our team is really really good when it is firing. Remember that and a Merry Christmas to you all.