Smal

What a cross that is, man

Stick him on gardening leave for the rest of his contract and get someone else in. Don’t let Man UFC have him.

How many goals are you allowed to concede in a home game before it’s a sackable offence? I feel like 0-7 would do it.

Posted this in the Botman thread yesterday: To underpin the difference further: Pope: Dubravka: It’s never been clearer than the Awoyini pen shout yesterday which came from their keeper taking a long punt forwards from the edge of his area. The comms talked about Botman’s poor defending, but Awoyini didn’t actually touch the ball until he was a yard inside our own area. Any goalkeeper should be looking after that situation and any defender will be expecting them to do so.

Yep, definitely looks like he should be playing at a higher level. Fantastic passer and really quick too. Think he'd be an ideal Burn upgrade in our system with some coaching. edit: see 1:16 on the clip below:

The injuries definitely play a part aye, and I don’t even think Dubravka has been playing badly, but he’s just the opposite of the right profile for us. I don’t even really rate Pope either, but he is a completely different goalkeeper to Dubravka and it’s shown massively during his absence what a goalkeeper of Pope’s profile gives us. Relatively slow back line that regularly plays high up and man to man? You need an aggressive keeper who will dominate large spaces, not a meek one who hasn’t got a clue how to come off his line.

We have Gordon as a third choice striker which is probably the best third choice in the league tbh. With Murphy, Barnes and Almiron all fit I’ve not really got any worries about AG up top.

our xg conceded per game before and after the Pope injury (not including today): Before: 14.3 in 14 games = 1.02 After: 26.1 in 9 games = 2.9

Not been Gordon’s game to say the least

Murillo is way too good for Forest

Burn is losing aerial duels to MGW now… confidence is completely shot.

Awoniyi doesn’t even touch the ball until he gets into our box, man. How on earth can the keeper let that happen.

We are missing Bruno in deep build up. Would consider swapping him for Miley and getting Hall on for Miley who’s looking a bit spent.

How’s Dubravka not saving that mind

We were so good on the ball before their first. Need to try and settle back into that possession again.

I don’t think Livramento being on the field makes any difference there tbh. Elanga is comfortably quicker than him too.

it’s absolutely no coincidence that our defence has gone to shit since Pope’s injury, like. Pope comes and gets that every time. The keeper sweeping is so key to how we defend and Dubs is just never there.

Dubravka is so bad at coming off his line, like

25 minutes played lol

We ask too much of Dan Burn sometimes.

Sven Botman distribution masterclass so far.

wew

Bruno most advanced midfielder… Trippier inverted?

he did look really, really good as a number 10 in the second half, mind. We desperately need a DM if we want to do something like that though.

I dunno. I just think it’s really obvious we need to do something differently defensively when the team has a lot of a games to play in a short space of time. It’s the same issues every game we’re not quite at it physically - we just get destroyed on transitions.