Smal

Been missing those runs from Longstaff recently

I wish Hughton had never gotten sacked. Ben Arfa could've had 10+ years here doing mad stuff never seen before.

The major risk of playing Isak and Wilson together is that if one gets injured - which they’re quite likely to if history is anything to go by! - then we have legitimately no back up. Putting both on the field at the same time increases the chance of one of them getting injured.

I think it's definitely time to get Isak in the team. If we're going to do that he needs runners beyond him based on what I've seen of him so far, so that means Willock and Almirón. Pope Trippier Schar Botman Burn Guimaraes Joelinton Almirón Willock Saint-Maximin Isak In defence this can become a simple 4-4-2 pressing shape with Willock and Isak pressing from the front: Pope Tripper Schar Botman Burn Almirón Guimaraes Joelinton Saint-Maximin Isak Willock In possession if might be something more like a 3-2-5: Pope Schar Botman Burn Guimaraes Joelinton Trippier Almirón Isak Willock Saint-Maximin 3-2-5 gives us a good rest defence to prevent counters and gives us plenty of passing options from the back. Bruno should be able to progress play better in this kind of role too. ASM and Trippier holding width. Almirón, Isak and Willock occupying the channels.

Howe held Guimaraes and Botman back initially. We have to hope he's getting the Isak call as spot on as he did with those two.

A non-entity. Whenever he got the ball his immediate thought was to move inside and play it backwards. A bit like a left-sided Miggy on one of his most ineffective days.

It's not like we haven't been creating chances like. Ignoring today, since 31st of December we've scored 3 league goals from an xG of 11.67. We need to be working on finishing and attacking set plays.

Murphy looks more threatening than Miggy atm

We are absolutely hopeless in both boxes this year

Lascelles has actually been decent with the ball.

We've been all right. Get ASM on for Gordon at HT to run at Akanji and Walker and we're golden.

It's concerning how quickly he looks for a safe pass backwards.

Lascelles spraying passes

The wide players should be the threat against Man City because they largely surrender their full back areas. It's one of the reasons ASM was able to play so well against them earlier in the season.

Gutted for ASM. He's our best counter attacking threat so ideal for today. He'll be off in the summer. I guess we might get to see if Gordon has anything today.

yeah maybe, but I feel like if we're going to play more attacking full backs on both sides then we probably should've signed a more defensive DM so we're not exposing the CBs.

Teams have mostly been playing deep against us since the world cup restart tbh and it makes Miggy and Wilson much more ineffective. We have to work on some new patterns of play. Like, I haven’t seen the Bruno clipped ball over the top for Almiron for ages, or even much of Trippier’s through balls for him.

Will say one thing, I’m not sure this approach of sending all of our attacking play down the right is sustainable long term. It was great when Miggy was having his purple patch but when he’s not on it or the opponent has worked him out it really doesn’t work as we have seen this year so far. ASM is mostly isolated when he gets the ball too so it’s no surprise when it looks like hard work for him. I think it’s time to take Miggy out for a bit tbh. He was maddening today.

thought his set pieces apart from a couple were absolutely fine or good, even. Burn missed another really easy chance. Ultimately we have the highest xG from set pieces in the league iirc. Underperforming on that means our delivery is good overall and the lads attacking them should be putting more away. More generally I thought he was back to his best today after some sloppy performances since the WC.

Burn should’ve scored as well.

Very strange of Eddie to take ASM off and leave us with literally nothing in the left hand side. We were tragic after that sub.

Need Isak to go over and play closer to ASM. He’s not beating AWB one on one so needs help.

Wish we had someone decent to bring on for Miggy.

fairly typical 2023 performance. Good everywhere apart from either box.

please make this a chant when we win, cheers