Stottie

Great post HawK. The team definitely needs more goals to sustainably push on, but I'm unsure whether LB is of immediate concern as the place to get them.

It's interesting and overdue to see his stats when compared to midfielders and not forwards. ASM's worst trait is the same, losing the ball in bad areas, though in ASM's case he should not be expected to be working wonders there. We need to give him the ball higher up the pitch. Joelinton needs to be coached into being more careful with it now he's playing much deeper. It's interesting also that Kev at Statsbomb picked up on Joelinton improving under Bruce. The numbers even then showed that he was best suited to a defensive #10 role, like Mo Diame under Rafa.

Teenager outscoring his xG is a risk, but one I'd take. A high percentage (50%?) of those who get 10 a season in a big league as a teenager will be greats. One Anelka for every Frannie Jeffers. Ekitike in that red strip with the white shoulders has major Anelka/Henry vibes. Even if he's more Theo Walcott, let's see what Howe can do with him. For the selling club, what you want is a big chunk of any sell-on profit. 15M now and potentially another 30M in the future when he goes to PSG. Do that and It can be win-win for all concerned.

It may be tactically naive, but I'd rather have a full on AM in the midfield three than ditch Targett for more creativity from LB. It's not absolutely essential to play 4-3-3 in the same way as Liverpool. Just on the list of realistic wide forwards available in 2023 but I do not see why Rashford would not be "realistic" for us now.

All time Prem front three CR7 ------ Shearer/Ageuro------ Henry No Liverpool players.

They did in the FA Cup when City the City reserve keeper had a mare. City got it back to 2-3 from 0-3. Other than that though, no. Villareal did the hard work for them in the CL. Imagine if Pep had lost this game in this manner. He'd be getting pelters. Chelsea and City had no problem scoring against Real.

Five and a half hours of finals football - no goals.

If someone is for sale, they are for sale and if the player agrees terms with both clubs, top bid wins. An actual scenario where a foreign club says the price is 30M to Villa but 50M (i.e., not 31M) to NUFC is hard to believe. It is even harder to believe when clubs have just had a season plus whatever with no matchday revenue and need all the money they can get. If a player we've bid on looks like heading elsewhere for a lower fee, I don't see why the agent would not contact us and invite us to bid again. Any agent not doing that is not going to get the best package for the client. I'd love Paqueta, with the only proviso being that Willock was one of our most Brewced players and deserves a chance with the new setup.

Grudging respect to Villa's owners for them having a go. fwiw, like us, they only took four points off the Top 6 last season. The fewer easy wins the top teams have, the easier it will become for other teams to break in there.

I love Callum Wilson. I think he's great. So tough and determined! Look at him grill Miggy after blasting that one over. The man wants to score goals. When we got him, I thought Wilson was like Jermaine Defoe, but he's actually much better, much more than a smart-moving moocher. He's more like (post-peak) Jamie Vardy, who is himself underrated, basically because he plays for Leicester. If you look at the last four seasons, here's the chart. It's two seasons of Wilson under Howe at Bournemouth (one the relegation season), one and a bit seasons under Bruce, and the last two games for us under Howe. In those four seasons, he's only played 11% fewer minutes than Vardy despite the well-documented injuries. In the chart Vardy shoots more (Sh90) and scores more (G90), but some of that will be playing for a better team. Vardy is a better finisher, but only just.

5 of Toney's 12 goals were penalties.

Yes yes to Paqueta. I didn't know he played false 9 too, but I'm a big Cesc fan and that just makes it better.

He'll need to work on his shooting to get 10 goals but I also expect much more production next time. For the Wilson goal, look at where ASM gets the ball and contrast with where he has normally received it in the past. See also the decoy run to his side. Kev Lawson the Statsbomb guy reckons ASM hits more dangerous passes, especially cutbacks, when he plays on the right.

The non-automatic signing of Targett suggests we must have a massive budget. Creativity from the left back position is not that high a priority, so going after it means we must have plenty of money to address the more obvious issues.

In fairness to Lampard, Everton had a hard run in but stayed up with a game to spare. As a warning going forward though, they clearly fluked some of the wins, the one against us included. Maybe this greatest achievement BS is some "control the narrative" advice he's got from his uncle. who would come out with the same level of comment.

I'd like Targett myself, but if Howe thinks he's not good enough, then wow, we must be setting the bar very high. So high that the budget must be very large and exciting times are ahead.

Player: Joelinton Improved: Joelinton, Krafth Disappointing: Wood. He's getting back there, but Willock's struggled too. Signing: Trippier. "Who'd go to Noocarsel?" is now dead in the water. Goal: Bruno thunderbolt backheel Game: Win at Leeds Moment: The first time Dan Burn appeared next to Ryan Fraser Manager: Bruce 0 Jones 2 Howe 10 Season rating: 9 out of 10. 10 is winning something

When we signed him Villa were 11th and us 18th. We finished 11th and them 14th.

That was before today, so 8 in 1395 puts him at 173 minutes per goal. Wissa played but didn't score today, leaving Wilson second in the Other14 table.

Disappointing, low-quality performance from us today, but 11th is a great achievement. What a second half to the season! Well done everyone. Hope big Joe is okay, and enjoy the rest everyone, Eddie in particular. Burnley deserve to go down for that gormless display from their fans, never mind the type of football the team plays. It took Wood coming on to rouse them. After letting one slip before, Gerrard lets a two-goal lead slip this time. What a legend! It should shut up all those ex Liverpool cunts and celebrity fans on tv. All in all, a good day.

I hope Howe is laying into them. We're winning, but this is too flat. Let's turn it on and get a second.

That's what I want to see. We've been brilliant since January, but never at full strength. Willock too would have be ideal, but never mind.

I'd go for Nketiah over Toney and spend the money saved on Paqueta. Toney doesn't have good shooting numbers and only seven non-penalties. We can look again for a striker in Jan 2023 because many players have contracts up in summer 2023. If Bruno and Trippier are the level of players we want to buy, then yeah, there will be windows where no suitable proven players are available for a non-crazy price. Liverpool and Man City identify players and wait for them to be available, they don't just pay big for who is out there.

104Kg. It's bringing back memories of William "the Refridgerator" Perry.

Sign all the Brazilians! An impressive number of elite players have contracts expiring in 2023. There's pretty much a title winning team here on the first page, all potentially available for free next year. https://www.transfermarkt.com/transfers/endendevertraege/statistik?plus=0&jahr=2023&ausrichtung=alle&spielerposition_id=alle&altersklasse=alle&land_id=0&yt0=Show