Stottie

This season man. It just doesn't stop.

Yes, our league away games this season are a weird small sample that do not feel reflective of what we are capable of. We have better away form in the CL and Carabao (Old Trafford) P4 W1 D2 L1 than in the league P6 W1 D2 L3. We were outplayed but still clearly robbed in Paris, so that should be P4 W2 D1 L1, mostly in the CL "group of death". PSG and Inter aren't supposed to go out at the group stage. With so many injuries, "undone by fatigue" remains a geniune concern in matches, but yeah, hopefully we'll get to see more "normal" away games in the next couple of weeks, starting with this one.

Just on Nut's point, but Bruno's missed one game this season, Bournemouth away. It was our worst performance of the season. Some late goals on Sunday meant this wasn't quite as good a weekend as it could have been, but it's still a step forward for us. We're now P8 W7 D0 L1 at SJP with five clean sheets, no problems there, but have only played six away games, against a generally hard set of opponents. P6 W1 D2 L3 so far, so plenty of room for improvement in the remaining 13 games. Everton have lost five out of seven at home, so a fine opportunity for us to get a second away win.

One win in eight now for Brighton. W1-D4-L3, so only seven points. They won five of their first six back in August-September. Tottenham were hopeless defensively against Villa last week. They looked like a comedy version of a team playing fullbacks at center half, which is what they were doing. You can't afford to do that against Haarland.

Age profile says Miggy and Murph as the players to sell if we need FFP funds. Since both are RW I'd guess it would have to be either/or. It's a real shame Barnes has been out because I think we'd have been trying to shoehorn him and Gordon into the same team. That's his record for BRodge, not Eddie Howe. He's already the finished article, but I expect Eddie to get extra out of him.

Every opponent will now know how we play and how key Trippier is to it. That they still cannot stop it just shows how good we and he are at it.

I love a far post tap-in. That's a Pep-era Man City goal. Brilliantly worked. From fbref. Trippier is now joint leader with Neto on 7 assists. Pity the lad doesn't have a goal because he's come very close.

Opta's supercomputer has started to see daylight between our chances and Tottenham's. It still puts us behind Villa, presumably on calendar year 2023 form. https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/08/opta-football-predictions/ Villa have City and Arsenal at home before we play Spurs next Sunday, so a big week ahead.

Great result and much relief that we finally managed to turn an hour of dominance into the deciding opportunity. Credit to their center halves for not giving us many clear chances before that. I saw the match live on a sober Sunday morning, but hope everyone who got to see it on Saturday night got to enjoy themselves. Games are coming thick and fast, but this was an especially good three points. A CL qualification six pointer against a team with plenty of previous against us. Its important to celebrate wins like this.

It's four years since the ridiculous handball called on Sissoko in the Champions League final. It was pretty much identical to the Tino one. That's a long time to sort the rules out, and evidence enough that it can affect the highest profile of matches.

Contrast with Spurs' backup center halves yesterday. Completely AWOL for the Watkins offside header and the Torres headed goal. They look way more defensively frail with the backups in. I do not see that level of dropoff with Lascelles.

I don't think I've ever seen as many throughballs in so short a space of time.

Mad game. No VAR, but that looked like an elbow in the box by Diego Carlos.

There was a great article on the Athletic last week about our set pieces, about the variations, choreographed blocking, misdirections, etc. we do. Following on from it, yesterday we manufactured a free header for Joelinton that he should have scored and a free header for Lacelles that hit the back of the net. It was three or four passes after the free kick, so maybe won't count in the stats as a set piece, but was clearly us working the ball so it could be delivered from an unexpected angle to an unexpected target. That would be a set piece goal in my book.

That's in fixtures including 10 of the top 12 other teams. We've only played three of the bottom seven.

We've now scored four or more in four out of thirteen league games.

BIG JOW PICK THAT OUT!

If fairness, most of Nick Pope's mistakes are sweeper keeper rushing outside the box. This always carries some risk. He doesn't fluff kicks from the hands, or let many soft ones through his hands. A bad Nick Pope clearance sails out of touch, not 30 yards to one of them.

I have one medal (!) for winning three games in the first round of the Northumbria Police 5-a-side in 1981 or 1982. I was in goal, but scored the winner in a penalty shoot out. We got hammered in the second round. I was basically useless at football, but got stuck in goal enough to get good at angles and stopping shots. That's enough for 5-a-side, where you have the protection of your own area. For an eleven a side, I was too lightweight and just got shoved about. When I played as an adult, I was amazed at how knackering all the sprinting you do as an outfield player is. I've run half marathons and a hilly 20k trail run, but football is a completely different type of fitness.

Perhaps its possible or best to view FFP through different lenses at the top and bottom of the table. At the bottom of the league, it stops any wealthier club just blitzing the transfer windows beyond their means to avoid relegation. Everton's gain is someone else's massive loss. Its not hard to make a case for FFP in this situation. At the top of the league, if you limit spending for less established teams, you prevent them from making a realistic and sustainable assault on the title and the Champions League positions. This is an absolute necessity to increase revenue and reduce the FFP exposure. The equation for us is that if we cannot keep it up, we lose Bruno G. An inabilty to keep going forwards will cause a huge step backwards. This is FFP acting to close the door, just after Chelsea and Man City were allowed to spend what they liked.

It sounds like Chelsea and Man City are being investigated by the FA as well as the Premier League. So yes, having FA-connected people on our staff is probably an advantage.

I'm fifty-five, so my ambition is to become a pensioner. Unfortunately that's almost as far away as being a doctor.

I'm not a doctor, far from it, but I see Murphy and Burn's upper body injuries as freak and nothing to do with stress. Murphy in particular is our Swiss Army Knife covering several positions, useful in injury crises like we have now. It leaves us with our second Swiss Army Knife that is Ritchie, who still has a tooth pick, a fish scaler, and a can opener, but no cutting edge.

Isak featured in 30 plus La Liga games a season three times for Sociedad. I think we've just been unlucky with him.

Just to save someone else counting them, but we play Liverpool at Anfield on Jan 1 and that's the eleventh (!!) game from now, Nov 16th. That's a lot of making do with who we have available. After that, we have an FA Cup tie and Man City home for which Kalvin Phillips would be banned anyway.