Smal

Thanks I think it's easy to bemoan our lack of individual quality at right wing but for me the biggest issue is systemic rather than personnel related. You used to see clear patterns of play, rotations and combinations between Trippier, Longstaff and Almiron which were really effective, but the latter two of those 3 are hardly high quality individuals. Our in possession game hasn't really evolved and if anything it's gone backwards. Howe has tried a couple of things earlier this season like Livramento inverted which haven't really worked, but at least he's tried something. Imo systemically a lot of it has gone to shit since we started trying to accommodate for Bruno wanting to play higher up the field last season. He presses way higher than he did in our 4th season, and he doesn't show to receive the ball in the first phase of build up as much, or is too easily marked out of it. I think we'd do well to prioritise an athletic DM who is comfortable receiving the ball from the CBs and GK with his back to play, and can defend transitions better than Bruno can. That would free Bruno to play higher which might alleviate some of the creativity issues we have there, and Bruno would still be able to help with build up from that position better than a Tonali/Joelinton/Longstaff can. Unfortunately the profile of DM I'm talking about costs billions for an established player... we'd need some good scouting. I actually think Hall could do it and has the right attributes - and clearly used to play midfield in his youth career - but he's been good at left back and solved an issue for us there. There's also the issue that if we were to bring a DM in it would mean dropping one of Joelinton or Tonali to the bench. We're too well stacked in the box-to-box 8 role. Agreed that our recruitment has been an issue. Getting ourselves into a situation where we had to sell a really good prospect in our main problem position is crazy when we've got two CL quality left wingers in the squad. Barnes is a really good player but can't help but think we signed him because we could rather than having an actual plan there. If Howe makes it to January (which I hope he does) then it'll be interesting to see what happens. We should have some money to spend. I'd hate to think we spunk all of our budget on a CB tbh. There are two other positions which are more of a priority imo - a DM for the system and a RW who actually fits the profile of what we want there.

Burn is clearly instructed to play higher and try to win the ball aggressively which is why he was seemingly "out of position" (though he wasn't actually). This has always been something we've done under Howe - the two full backs are supposed to tuck in when it happens. When Trippier and Burn play they fully understand this but Tino and Hall are obviously still learning. They did tuck in eventually, but Schar didn't challenge for the ball well enough and Livramento's attempt at a challenge was really poor.

Still developing defensively of course but yeah… really important for us on the ball. Take him out of the team for a Kelly or Burn and we basically wouldn’t be able to get the ball up the pitch.

He should’ve done a lot better for their goal as well tbh. Think he’s been really poor this season which has surprised me.

I think we’d have been worse off than we are with Guehi tbh. Big Dan has been the least of our issues this season and arguably our best and most consistent performer.

similar story against Everton (the strength of the white arrows indicates the frequency of combinations): I think Bruno has been really poor this season. Need a lot more from him.

It’s not the lack of a number 10 in this instance that’s the issue though. It’s the first part of build up. We should be playing through Tonali and Bruno more but they’re basically never available. Joelinton is off playing left wing. Tonali attempted just 22 passes in 66 minutes and we had most of the possession. When the CBs have the ball Bruno and/or Tonali should be available to receive the ball but it’s rare that they are.

Think we should try playing with a midfield a bit more. Too often our only source of progression is a CB playing it to a full back who plays it down the line for a winger.

Has not been decent defensively either. Really poor.

I've only managed to catch the second half but I have to say AG has been absolutely shite

would like to see Miggy on tbh

Isak disasterclass

Hall is our new Trippier

we are surely scoring here.

Longstaff consistently played to that level from the start for near enough a whole season a couple of years ago tbf. He really needs some confidence back in his game. Perhaps coming off the bench and putting some good appearances in from there can help him do that.

the other alternative of course was to sell Minteh and actually buy a right winger instead of fucking around for a month chasing a centre back who we didn’t even sign!

guys our current right wing options are Miggy Almiron and Jacob Murphy . Of course it was terrible business to sell this guy and not get a RW in.

Don’t see why those attributes have to be limited to a double pivot role tbh. They seem transferable to an 8.

think he looks understandably rusty with the ball but I really like how he’s constantly trying to make things happen, either it be through movement, winning the ball back or first time passes. Confident he’s going to be really good for us once he gets some match fitness. Next step for him would be getting himself into the goalscoring positions that Longstaff constantly gets himself into from that position. He will need to contribute goals for us.

I don’t think we created plenty of chances at all? The Gordon penalty came from mental defending rather than good play, and aside from that we had <1 xG. Only other good chance I can think of was Gordon’s poor effort over the bar.

thought Joelinton kind of got in his way and dragged more defenders out wide than was necessary, which made it tough for Barnes as he was often crowded out and couldn’t create a shooting or crossing position. There are some occasions where crosses come in from the right and I feel like Barnes needs to make more of an effort to get to the back post though.

I don’t think you ask him to be our primary source of ball progression from the back 3 and then also ask him to provide threat in the final third. It wasn’t his role in the team yesterday to do that… you could see it was clearly Joelinton’s role to back up Barnes and provide overlaps. That’s very much a tactical decision from Howe.

I thought he was good actually, and grew into the game. He’s improving in duels but the main thing he brings will always be this: He’s a real upgrade on Burn in that LB/LCB role for our build up.

dire game and another poor performance from us. 1 good performance this season?

bottled it