Lush Vlad

He has something. First thing he did was win a big header and batter one of their CB’s, giving a foul away in the process. Back to goal he was solid and he made 2-3 unselfish runs to open up space for the man on the ball. Unlucky with hitting the post and all. Promising.

Very good. Game of two halves and all that. In the hat.

WTF is Gordon doing. Had all that room down the right. Did his usual of this season, cut in and ran straight into an opposition player. Horrible challenge. Looks like he is sulking on the right again, to me.

They may have made 11 changes. But they have some very good and very expensive players on the pitch. Our back 4 is nowhere near full strength and we’ve rotated the midfield. It was a near perfect performance for 30-35. They were always going to have spells in the game.

Nearly a perfect performance so far. Getting sick of Schar’s half arsed defending and backing off the last two games, mind. Willock and Tonali look much sharper than recent weeks.

They weren’t, were they? That pass into Palmer took Bruno and Tonali out. Joelinton was doing his usual weird left CM/left wing role. I’m not watching it again. It was too infuriating watching a catalogue of errors. The argument could be why was Bruno not sitting closer to Palmer/Schar engaging him. But it was a bit of an unexpected quick turnover and inexplicably shoved it in reverse for some unknown reason.

Guessing it must be this. Don’t mind it….. if it is. Then even when Gordon plays right. Barnes can’t get a gig

Terrible passage of play to use, mind. Wasn't that when Isak managed to fuck up a flick and then his 2nd touch, as well. Meaning we lost the ball when on the attack, so players would naturally be a bit out of position and they hit us on the break. If our CB's are supposed to engage players aggressively. Than Schar was struck down with a terrible case of the Danny Simpsons. On a yellow and all, which wouldn't have helped. But yes. I'm sure you could probably use other times in this game and previous matches to highlight how flat and wide it often is. I'm just being pedantic.

Not sure that was the best game to go with. As it was very Basketball and Barca got lucky a few times with their high line. But I disagree with the overall point, especially that they are just athletes first and foremost. I think the standard of football as a team game and in some ways as individuals is much higher. The fitness levels is one thing. But also the ability to retain possession, passing, the amount of tactical information they have to take in, the data, the analytics. Everything, basically, is at the highest standard it has ever been. It has evolved so much as the science and standard of coaching has improved. But not all for the good of the sport, IMO. Do I think it makes for a more interesting game or means that we see mavericks, or people scoring thunderbastards on the regular, or flair players trying to skin whole teams? No. Because the data driven approach and how tactical it has become says that it is better to do X than Y in certain situations. Feels like we have built a load of footballing robots in some ways. All amazing at understanding their role and the tactics the team are going with. But not individual, skill based players that take a man on or try scoring from outrageous positions. The game can be quite dull at times. I thought Clasico was a great watch, mind.

Very good at that aggressive defending style, though. Bringing the ball out from the back and his passing, also. Plus his pace. Partnered with Botman, I think he would have been great. Still might be at some point. But I think that ship has sailed.

I think in certain games, it would be a good way to go. Especially if we want to continue with the CB pressing the striker deep into the opposition half. But Howe recently mentioned about height in the team and losing the likes of Botman, Lascelles and Wilson for aerial prowess at set pieces. Think it is either on record or regularly alluded to, at least, about how much he favours height in his back 4. So I just can't see it happening.

But 2 seasons worth of stats for 19 home games, against similar level teams across both seasons. Makes sense to me. You can draw some conclusions and perhaps follow a trend across certain metrics up to a point? 4 games, two of which were against decent sides (City more than decent), plus a game where we had 10 men for an hour and then the Brighton game where we actually looked good for the most part. Is surely nonsensical? What can you take from that? We are certainly not scoring enough home or away so far. That is a concern, for me.

Pens have been high quality so far.

Isn’t he a vegan and votes for the Green Party or something? That is so woke. What a soy boy cuck beta. MAGA.

Obviously in that order. We’re not winning the league any time soon and the FA Cup is no easier or harder to win than the League Cup, IMO. Even if it has more prestige. Nobody will remember or care about Arsenal finishing 2nd or all the times Liverpool pushed City close with record points totals. We have won fuck all for so long. I think we need to get that monkey off our back and some joy back in fans lives. If it was some hypothetical deal which was finish top 4 for say, 4-5 seasons on the spin or this 17th and the league cup. Then I’d take the former. As it would help the club grow and mean we are closer to becoming a team that wins things. But as a one off, give me the cup every fucking time. Sounds absolutely ridiculous reading that scenario back. But you know what I mean

I do. I actually think we don’t create enough or trouble the opposition keeper anywhere near enough. Especially with some of the attacking players we have. The build up from the back and how we try to open teams up is often lacking IMO. On the flip side of that. How many games this season have we relied on Pope to make save after save, heroic defending or really bad finishing to get us a result? Bournemouth in the first half, maybe? Do we give up loads of chances, it doesn’t feel like we do. Individual mistakes have been a worrying trend, mind. It’s almost like we are in this transition to a new style/playing a different way because of who is available and it’s not really working overall.

A few thoughts on that without any actual research. Teams respect us a lot more (or have figured us out) sitting a lot deeper. Meaning we find it harder to break teams down. We don’t have the technical players to do so. Last season we seemed to go gung ho. Once we realised we were no good at defending, the press wasn’t working with the lack of rotation and the injuries. Not sure what that passing stat per defensive action said last season. But we did not have control or play well a lot of the time at home. It resembled basketball at times. Is it really a big enough sample size? 4 games?! Considering the games in question are the below: Southampton love passing for passing’s sake and we had 10 men for an hour or so. Spurs had a lot of the ball and we really struggled with possession that game. We were poor and kind of lucky to win. They didn’t create loads despite loads of shots. We then had Man City….. value for the point. Did they create loads? Trappy game. Brighton I have no idea what the numbers say and we did at times look a bit clueless. But fuck me, we really could and should have scored at least a couple. I don’t care what xG or any other stat says on this one. I’m using my eyes

He did seem to come back really quickly from injuries last season. Hopefully the same this time. I’m guessing he misses out tomorrow. Back for Arsenal or Forest.

How could I forget them. Absolute route one merchants!

“I think we have a set play analyst who is very good, Kieran [Taylor] does a lot of work with Jason [Tindall] regarding our set plays," Again, not expecting him to say they've been crap and that the coaches haven't been good enough. But the evidence suggests they are not very good. We could at least attempt some variation or work the odd short corner or free kick now and then. Especially if like Howe says in that piece, we are missing some key players that help with corners. Sort of related, but I always find most of our free kicks to be dreadful and have been since he joined. First season I was fine with it, we were fighting for survival and he was new into the club part-way through the season and maybe the players suited it. But they haven't massively improved the whole time he has been here. If we get one anywhere near the halfway line. We always load it up for the lofted ball up the middle or a long diagonal to one of the CB's. We take an age to set it up and it feels very Stoke. I wouldn't mind if it was effective, but it really isn't. I can't think of many other teams in the league that do it regularly other than Brentford and maybe Forest, at times?

Surely you look bigger picture, though? Did you genuinely think what he was doing was sustainable? Did you think you were going to build on the previous seasons and improve year on year? Your goal dif and performances have been terrible a lot of the while, no? I know plenty of Man U fans and not just the usual glory boys. Our office is in Ashton, so quite a few actually from the area So many of them were fed up with it, the style or lack thereof. Baffling decisions with certain players, getting results you didn't really deserve. Ironically this season, when I've seen you. I actually think you've been quite unlucky at times. But the results have gone against you. Felt like a dead man walking for months and was only a matter of time.

On the left, Gordon on the right. The same argument about Gordon 'not looking good enough' on the right. Can be applied to Barnes. I don't think we have seen it enough to really know. But as I've said numerous times. You can't tell me it will be worse than having Almiron/Murphy on the right and Gordon left. Moot point, though. As nothing Howe has done suggests he will do that or that he trusts or wants to give Barnes a run of starts on the left.

I don't mean change the players. They are the best midfield 3 by some way if we persist on playing with this formation. Hence why I mentioned adjustments and not changing personnel. If we changed formation slightly, then I can't have Joelinton playing as the deeper midfielder or in a 2, at all. So then I think there is an argument for bringing other players in. Like TRon alludes to above. If we carry on playing high and wide in and out of possession with the two 8s and having Bruno as the only player available to receive passes from the back 4. Then we are going to carry on getting exposed on and off the ball.

Hardly doubt with how guarded he is at press conferences. That he will come out and say "yeah, the midfield hasn't been working at all. I'm going to change formation and maybe drop certain players". If he genuinely thinks we don't need to make adjustments and he carries on as it is. Then I think we'll eventually come fully unstuck and he'll be replaced.

Is it? I personally wouldn't want Joelinton playing in a midfield 2. He already plays some kind of hybrid role and I don't think he is anywhere near good enough on the ball to play more centrally in a deeper 2 man midfield.