Stottie

5 changes? Willock for JL7 Schar for Lascelles Isak for Wilson Murphy if true for Miggy? No ASM? Fifth change is Targett for Burn? ASM for Gordon?? Murphy playing suggests no ASM. Murphy RB and Tripper LB??? Weird but would let ASM play. Id play Pope Trippier Schar Botman Targett (if fit) Willock Bruno Longstaff ASM Isak Gordon (both wingers to swap sides at some point) If Wolves concede many from set pieces, possibly leave Lascelles in. The other CBs and Burn have been poor.

Deffo out of control.

Beat Tottenham and Brighton at SJP and it's probably still on. 65 points, or 24 points from the remaining 14 will likely be enough. Tottenham have pretty much run out of easy home games, their main source of points. Brighton's is games against the bottom six, and has similarly run out. Liverpool have lost 7 out of 13 away games. A win today would go a long way toward raising the mood and getting us back into it.

Not the only one to be struggling for form post WC. Look what's happened to England's two keepers.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/08/kyle-walker-could-face-police-action-after-exposing-himself-in-a-bar I demand a replay! Of the match that is, not Kyle Walker's ....

Brentford run on hardcore stats analysis. They're third top and just behind in Man City in top in goals per shot. Their team is designed to create high-probability goalscoring opportunities, not simply chances to shoot. Their shots per game is actually low. They've outscored us by five goals despite taking 80 fewer shots.

Our ten men were better than Man U's eleven. If anyone has a right to stop trying, its a team 2-0 down within twenty minutes with their keeper sent off. Man U were only one down at half time. Re: Man U, Barca didn't create much against them either, so I wouldn't deeply question what we managed in the final. Fair play to Liverpool for completely ripping through them. I only saw extended highlights, but does sound like Man U gave up at 3-0. Re: Liverpool, the attacking talent has always been there, and their questions lie in midfield and defence. When they play like yesterday, the suspicion is they'll outscore most teams anyway. After yesterday, perhaps its time to review the quality of their goals against us, which rivaled anything they did yesterday. Liverpool had their own collapse last week vs. Madrid, so it was a great reaction to that. So to repeat, our of our rivals loses 0-7 and the other 2-5 at home in just the past week. We're apparently in big bother despite missing three big chances at the Etihad with the score still at 0-1. Remember that when folk talk about foregone conclusions. There is still a lot of football to be played.

At Everton, there was clear pressure on him to be the main man and make things happen, like ASM under Bruce. Now he's a cog in the Howe system. This may sound bad, but is the way it should be if a manager is doing his job and not just dialing it in like Captain Steakbakes. In the Merseyside derby last year, Gordon beat his man a couple of times early doors and spent the rest of the game being fouled. Liverpool were terrified of him getting in behind. Gordon is apparently the second fastest sprinter in the league. Give him opportunities and I'm sure we'll get to see what that means.

After Botman, Gordon has our highest passing completion ratio. My impression is that Gordon is neat but kind of playing within himself and not taking risks. It's speculation, but this is what you might expect with a young player who has joined a bigger team and doesn't want to make mistakes and mess up. There's definitely more to come.

Given the manufactured controversy about our owners, a country to which the UK happily sells lots of arms, it is understandable for the club to not push the envelope on any FFP matters. There will be far more scrutiny of us than others. As for Top 4, we're doing pretty much everything but scoring. Some of this is variance but unfortunately some of it will be a lack of quality in the team that will take time to remedy. With the overhauled off-field, scouting and youth teams we now have, the rewards should come if we can be patient. I've not given up on Top 4. There is still a lot of football to be played and a lot of teams in the mix who will take points off each other. As with Leeds away last season or Fulham away this, it does feel like we need another "turning point" game to get us back on track and get some momentum going.

After the foul on Rashford for the opener last week, he dived in again this week and gave up a direct free kick in a very dangerous shooting position. That's after diving in and getting himself a straight red and ban in the previous game, the far more nervy than it should have been semi final. Bruno's a fantastic footballer we are lucky to have, our best player, but the above is not the behaviour of an elite "6". Since he's also about the only player we have exceeding his expected goals and are missing chances galore from midfield, the case for playing him at 8 just grows stronger. This is definitely something that our recruitment in the summer will have to consider.

Conceded from a deflection, were in it for most of the game, and created two or three chances that should have got us a goal. It would have been interesting had we got it back to 1-1, especially the Joelinton one. As it was, we didn't get to see if Man City did have another gear to go up into. Terrible miss by Wilson, and such a poor effort from him that does suggest something is up. Niggle, illness, mental health or something.

That's a great comment and I'll just add that the press is not just to "defend from the front". Winning the ball high created a lot of goals for us in the first half of the season. The caveat here being that most of those goals were against weaker sides, not Top 6 teams like Man City. The second goal at Spurs being the exception.

First game in weeks to not be on in the middle of the night in the Far East, so good for me!

More than anything, I think we need the ball to hit someone's arse and go in. A match like that Southampton league one where we got four (five?) off the same number of chances. Sunday was disappointing, but Man U are good. For context, in both legs, Barcelona had 1.2 xG vs. Man U, the same as us on Sunday. No-one is calling for Barcelona to reinvent their attacking play. In Isak and Gordon, we (finally) have quality attacking players who can come in. The most concerning of our recent games was Bournemouth, but it's been like that every time we play them under Howe. Maybe its a voodoo/them finding an extra 10% for Eddie thing. Time to refocus, stick Isak in for Wilson, and go again. Our first team is great but the squad is threadbare, so shocks like the Bruno red card end up having much bigger repercussions.

We can't press as hard with Maxi in and Willock out.

I think he picked the right team for the occasion yesterday, but various setbacks and dips in form meant it wasn't to be. We needed more things to go right for us to beat Man U on their current form. Going forward, it's looking like he'll have to play Isak over Wilson, who's struggling. Gordon wasn't available for this game, but with Miggy's dip in form, the case for integrating him sooner rather than gradually has also become stronger. I wouldn't change anything defensively just yet.

Disappointing. We needed our big players to step up, Wilson, Trippier and Bruno, and they didn't. Wilson was invisible, Trippier's delivery was very poor, and Bruno gave away a silly one for their opener with Trippier right next to him. A bit vexing that we couldn't put in a decent corner, with the height advantage we have. I thought Man U looked beatable today, but we made it easy for them. Their first looked borderline offside, but whatever. They'd have found a way to score before we did.

A bit soft, and nice camerawork to have that angle available. Arsenal get away with it otherwise, not least because of how unconvincing Ward is.

"FTM" on the Mackems flag. We're living rent free in their heads man.

We're joint top in goals from outside the box, but yeah, not so many recently. We're also top in hitting the woodwork. Third top in "big chances missed". All three are on the Premier League website According to understat, we're massively underperforming xG for attempts inside the six yard box. Seven goals from nearly fourteen xG. This will mostly be from set pieces.

Ich nichten lichten!

Man U should have played 50 minutes with 10 men yesterday, which goes a way to mitigating our advantage here. The match was 1-0 when it happened, so it may have cost them points too.

Just on the Liverpool game, but his best chance and the ball in for the Isak swivel shot came with ASM on the right.

Here's a table from the post WC restart, ranked by expected points based on expected goals (chances created and allowed). The obvious takeaway from it is that we are still making lots of chances. A team that creates chances cannot be massively "leggy". The usual short-term fix for poor finishing is to buy far more expensive players. However, the other team that is vastly underperforming xG in the same chart is Chelsea, who've just bought loads of far more expensive players and have a squad so good that Raheem Sterling gets forgotten. Since we've not underperformed xG by such a large margin all season, there is no fundamental lack of quality in our players and this is simple variance (i.e., form that's likely to improve). xG is based on a calculated average player, not the most clinical finisher in the league. In more immediate matters, our expected (not actual) points from the last eight or so games is actually better than Spurs and Liverpool. If we play better than them, we should finish above them and for top 4 that's all that matters.