Lush Vlad

Had a nice mix of some moments that didn’t go our way, some that did a quality goal at a good time. Followed by us bombarding their box for 15 mins or so. Then the late winner. But even factoring all of that in. The atmosphere was miles better than it has been than other games I’ve been up for this season. Felt like it was going to be flat pre-game. But actually got load at times and people in the Leazes were actually joining in a bit.

Just got back home. Well worth the trip when we win. Thought we played well in patches, lost control a few times and a couple of below par performances from our star players in Trippier and Bruno. However, today it felt like it was all about the result and actually scoring. The fact we got 2 is a bonus. I thought Schar was MOTM, Willock was in and out but did his usual and was quality late on. Botman was class, Burn was solid and Isak was unplayable for 55 mins or so. Watched the game in the company of the forum’s own @AyeDubbleYoo

Decent results for us all round bar Spurs. But Forest were never getting anything against them away from home. Not counting Chelsea. Yet….

They’re shite at Tetris.

I’ve only done one European away game. They said the same for Brugge about ID matching the name on your ticket. Got there and they couldn’t give less of a fuck if they’d tried. Which was handy. As it wasn’t my name on the ticket!

That’s a great motto he has. Not heard it before. Might use that one. Good to see his recovery is going well.

Aye. Not sure a player who can’t get a look in for a Man U team who have desperately needed a bit of rotation this year. Is worth £40m and will push us onto the next level. Hope this is all paper talk and not another ‘Prem proven/overpriced’ player that we’re desperate to sign.

Yeah, that’s all fair. I just feel like we are not a team that is built from coming from behind. Not that many probably are. But we have been in plenty of tight games this season. But we often grab the lead. Maybe it is just under the microscope more. As we currently don’t score. So it feels even more like if we go a goal down. We aren’t winning.

That is probably on there. It’s a decent page, The Other 14. But hopefully we won’t be included for much longer.

I know we don’t go behind much these days. But this has been a problem right back to the Pardew days, hasn’t it? I suppose with better players and more squad depth. We’d be able to improve on this.

What’s the xG against like post world cup, though? Can’t remember many/any goals where you thought ‘he should have done better there’. It’s why save percentage is a flawed metric. Maybe against Liverpool he was a split second slow to react on both? Not that he was saving the first, regardless. Using your eyes, bar that moment of madness when he got sent off. Pope is not playing any or much worse than pre-WC. A lot of the team in general and particularly Wilson, are.

Three limp performances in a row for them. Lovely stuff. Long may it continue and let’s hope we can overhaul them.

Romero is just a walking yellow ticket. Great player, but rash as fuck a lot of the time.

Milan trying to walk it into the net.

Was mainly on about strikers/wide forward types. As I was referencing a post mentioning Diaby and the lack of defending

That’s what I thought? No idea what the law states these days or how we are meant to interpret it.

Probably recency bias, ignoring Haaland, of course. But seems like a lot of attacking players from the Bundesliga come to the prem and then struggle. Havertz and Werner being the big main two that spring to mind of late. I think I read they both massively underperformed their xG in Germany and should have been scoring a lot more. So then they come to a better league and struggle. Sancho and Pulisic to a lesser degree? Joelinton……. Edit: Had a quick read to see if I was talking nonsense Haller, Bailey, Podolski have all underperformed over here.

Spurs booed off

I think Leazes L4 and below right down to the pitch is a great shout. As you could get a decent number in there, at a guess? As others have said. If you are going to do small corners with a tiny capacity. Or sections miles away from the away fans, where nobody can hear you and a restricted view. Then it seems a bit pointless.

Whenever I watch highlights back. I notice how crisp his passing inside often is. He receives it on the half turn all the while and is really good at drifting in off just a touch or two. All that said and still factoring in that he was playing against Walker. I thought he was too safe and playing it backwards a lot of the time against City.

Whenever the crowd is shown on screen. Half their fans look like farmers. But cockneys, at the same time. Absolute Tories.

Could be that he is a bit stubborn and/or loyal to certain players he trusts. But also that he has faith in his system and feels that with minor tweaks, he can get us back to winning ways. It can be frustrating to watch at times. But I think I’d rather that than knee jerk reactions from managers week to week. Which we saw from the likes of Bruce, Pardew, Allardyce etc over the years. My biggest concern is how stale it has all gone. I know basically every team at this level will have rehearsed passages of play. But we have just become so predictable with what we try and do. There never seems to be any fluidity or flexibility with how we play or what we try and do. Hard to argue against it, when it has served us so well for a year or more. But it does feel like something needs to be changed. As I’m not sure we can just keep playing out of form players and saying ‘goals will come.’

Have Brentford had shit loads of pens the last two seasons? Seems whenever I watch them. They get one. We could do with a penalty or two at the minute!

We do go route one quite a bit, I think. There have been some games where I wish we would be more patient and have struggled to build from the back, at times. Especially when Bruno is missing. We’re by no means playing Pulis or Allardyce ball. But Botman, Trippier, Schar, Pope and to a lesser degree, Longstaff. Will all look for a long diagonal/pass or one over the top into the channel. Bruno is more cultured and shorter with his ‘long’ passes, of course We are also very direct from set pieces. Which is probably why the ball is in play less than a lot of teams. As anything near halfway and beyond. We chuck all the big boys up there and just hump it up to them. Considering how ineffective they are. It’s pretty boring to watch now. Almost Pardew back post to Williamson levels of ineffectiveness. Goal kicks are almost always long, too.

Report: Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea. Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelseeeaaaa, Chelsea.