Stottie

Strong team! Here we go! No Anderson on the bench. I think the Burn over Target is because we effectively have three at the back with Trippier playing RM.

I would say we are competing with Tottenham now, so we can't just gift them three points. We have to go to there to get something. It would be better to beat them and lose to Villa. If FFP actually is a thing for us, any chance of CL qualification has to be grasped, because it means 80M or whatever in revenue and justification for Arsenal/Tottenham sized sponsorship deals. No-one can accuse Aramco (or whoever) of overpaying us if we are in the CL and Arsenal were paid the same by Emirates for not being in it for years.

Five thirty eight reckon Liverpool will finish third with 70 points. They have CL as 68 points. I think that's a bit low, but with at least seven teams in the running, the points total will come down as they take points off each other. If Brighton buy a goalscorer or Welbeck hits a purple patch, it's eight teams. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/premier-league/ Since Jan 1, Eddie Howe is P 30 W16 D8 L6 F43 A29 points 56. That's 1.86 pts a game, which translates to a 71 point season. Under Howe so far, Chris Wood has played in more games than Callum Wilson. We now have Isak and Botman, a better keeper, and an in-form Miggy. It mightn't happen, but it's certainly possible, and that's before any money is spent in January.

Liverpool fifth bottom in expected goals against. Below Leicester even. If they swapped goalkeepers, Liverpool would be bottom three or not far off.

Eddie's done a full season's worth of league games now and the record is. P38 W17 D11 L10 F50 A47 Pts 62 (1.63 points per game) fwiw Klopp's first season at Liverpool 2015-16 (who were already in the Europa League after finishing sixth under Rodgers) P30 W13 D9 L8 F55 A40 Pts 48 (1.6 points per game)

Five wins out of five games at home for them so far, but the highest placed team they've faced is Fulham. Their games against the top half have all been away, where their record is 1-1-2. The win was 1-0 at Brighton, and the defeats were both by two goals. The draw was with Tuchel's Chelsea. So we're their first hard home game, a new test for them.

After last night, we are now joint second in points in the "first half table". https://www.soccerstats.com/halftime.asp?league=england The only two goals conceded were the City sucker punch and that Ruben Neves wonderstrike that went through Willocks legs (i.e., was nearly blocked). Doing so well in the first half suggests we are going into games with well-constructed game plans, no doubt the result of Howe's hard work and perfectionism. If we're winning at HT, there is no need to go hell-for-leather second half, so game state will massively affect our second half stats. However, we do seem to be tiring in games, and unable to do much from the bench. The bench is so weak that it would be unfair to judge Howe on his own ability to change games. As a bonus, look at Liverpool's first half stats.

Does anyone reckon the World Cup break is to our advantage? A chance to get lads back from injury, others to overcome fatigue, and for Eddie to work with them. With an overperforming team (which is how many view us), normally you don't want a break because it risks breaking the momentum. Personally, I do not think we are overperforming because we are near the top in lots of stats categories.

Irony overload with the most consistent (greatest??) goalscoring midfielder in modern times presiding over a team who doesn't shoot, never mind score. Irony sugar on top with Lampard taking off Iwobi, the most creative of their mids. The one time Gray did get in behind, a fine run starting with him doing Trippier inside their half, there was no-one coming in on it. Lampard himself would have lashed that in. Getting the first goal was always going to be key, and big credit to Miggy for doing it in such style.

Understat gave Everton 0.08 xG. Man U have just gone 2-0 up, so 0-0 at OT may be a better result than it seemed on Sunday. They've had 25 shots against Spurs in 70 minutes.

Fairly confident here. Everton have only conceded one first half goal in four away games, so patience may be key. I expect something akin to the Palace game, which we did enough to win but it was wrongly taken away. Everton conceded much more in the second half than Palace. so just keep plugging away. If we do score fairly early on, I'd expect us to go on to win comfortably. Last time a team outside the Top 4 scored twice against us was Leicester away nearly a year ago. It'll happen someday, but there is nothing to suggest its going to be at SJP and that Everton tonight are going to do it.

Just adding to the ESL discussion, but it was notable that the least enthused English club were Man City, followed by Abramovich's Chelsea. The clubs neutrals are told to dislike for their owner's source of wealth. All the clubs with American owners were pushing it as hard as they could.

Here's the Fred chance. I thought it looked well off in real time, but the commentators seemed more interested in having a go at Pope. Man U get 0.4 xG for a chance that would not have stood as a goal, but I'll take that so long as Schar didn't injury himself in challenging Fred.

Two super expensive wide players who wouldn't go to the byline was obvious even three beers in. Ten Haag could at least have switched them for a bit. Tifo is probably correct to highlight that their inability to play through the press prevented them the kind of 4 v 4 attacks their forwards would thrive on. Their fans may rue the absence of Eriksen to magically do something with a wonderball, but the Brazilian double pivot successfully snuffed out Bruno, and limited our attacking to mostly set pieces. No Maxi meant no defenders being sucked out to leave space for Wilson. No getting dribbled past either. We struggled to get Trippier up the pitch, so he only contributed from dead balls. They had most of the ball but their midfielders committed 8 fouls compared to 4 by ours, another reason why we struggled to get anything fluid going in open play.

In ten games so far, we've only played two of the bottom seven. https://www.soccerstats.com/team.asp?league=england&stats=9-newcastle-utd

Arguably our best away result under Howe today. The best team we've beaten away under him is (probably) Brentford.

Fred chance is probably offside. He missed so they didn't go back and draw the lines.

Antony expected assists. = 0.00 https://understat.com/match/18308 Against a 6 foot 7 makeshift leftback on a yellow card. He didn't dribble past him once. Nothing from the byline. Didn't cut in a create a decent shooting chance either. Sancho created very little too, but everyone has forgotten how good he was at Dortmund. fwiw, I reckon VAR would have to disallow the Fred chance for Rashford being offside. The check is only performed if he scores. The Rashford one was a big miss though.

Antony though, 90M and he won't run at Dan Burn. What a load of shite!

That'll dae! Until 80mins in I thought we were unlucky but the tables turned after that. We'd have pissed it with ASM.

Pretty good, had the better chances, but almost all from set pieces. From open play, not getting Trippier in their half on the right, and very little down the left. Need to take one of our chances.

Ronaldo starts. For us, Beg Jow in for Willock. Not full strength, but enough in there to trouble them. Bruno against Brazil's regular double pivot. Big chance for him to impress.

Burn out for Targett is understandable but Almiron is on too good form to rotate out. Not another injury?

We've conceded three three times in 2022, Man City x2, and Spurs. That's in 28 games. Maybe a little wager on us not conceding three might be in order. Liverpool are the only other team to score more than once and it took them 98 minutes.

Is this from that sprint back in the Wolves game, for the goal they scored after the clear push?