Cf

Well I've been drinking all day and feel appropriately tipsy. I hope this goes well.

Next time you all do this I need to get you all into a castle...

No-one signs up for that of course. But you might consider the chance of it happening.

I really like ASM and want him to do well but something just niggles at me that he's not quite right for us. Obviously at the moment with our various squad issues he's in the team. One of the problems he poses for opposition is he's unpredictable. But on the flip side one of the problems he causes for us is he's unpredictable - it's hard for the rest of the team to know where they should be. This won't be helped with his time out of the team and there were some encouraging signs with Isak in the last game so hopefully this understanding starts to develop. But at full strength when we've solidified ourselves as a top 4/6 team? Not so sure.

I know not everyone is a fan of xG but variance is a real thing and xG/xPTS are a great piece of the puzzle in determining if anything is wrong. Against Liverpool despite being down to 10 men it was essentially 2-2 (narrowly I'm their favour) in xG. On another day Almiron and Wilson's chances go in, and they don't score two greatly taken goals from nowhere. When your xG/xPTS is good and we can see ourselves the performances are good is when you can have confidence what you're doing is working. As much as e.g. Almiron had a purple patch earlier in the season we were still performing well. Compare to Bruce when our xG was continually awful and we kept getting last minute headers from defenders salvaging points. In short I'm happy we are doing things the right way. Howe will no doubt continue to tinker and clearly the squad needs improving as time goes on. Continue to play like we are doing though and top 4 is very much still a possibility.

You pretty much have to have a suspension though because otherwise a red card in say the 90th minute essentially carries no punishment. You could maybe say if it's in the first half no suspension needed.

Whatever. Onto the final.

That's a generous roll back. We fucked up the move.

Why is being a cup tied a rule? It's not like you can be league tied.

How the fuck don't we have a goal?

That's a bit of a sitter isn't it?

Think we've been good apart from being switched off for both goals and Pope's moment of madness. If we can get a goal will be a nice confidence boost. Think we deserve one.

It's just not our day is it?

So we wanted that to be a penalty then. VAR is fucking stupid.

For fucks sake. Salah offside to save it?

Why the delay? He's onside. Get on with it.

Not sure what VAR needed to spend 2 minutes looking at there.

That's a ridiculous bit of control.

Ouch.

It was a potential ankle breaker so yes. A sin bin for getting in refs face etc does seem like it could have a place.

It's our first season after being bottom at Christmas. I think it's clear the club wants to go places. A transition season of 7th/8th is hardly the end of the world.

I think my main problem is that on paper we had what a lot of us will consider to be our strongest attacking players on today. But they've just not played together really and there were plenty of examples today where they weren't on the same wavelength. Both an advantage of playing the same team week on week and a disadvantage because it meant others were being frozen out and those relationships weren't being built.

Didn't realise Howe learned the shithousery from Bournemouth.

In league terms this feels like something of a season defining game in terms of the top 4. We've dropped a few points recently and really need the win here to keep momentum and confidence on our side.

He's taken up the vacant Chris Wood role. Ok maybe he hasn't been that bad but clearly a long way from where he should be.