Shadow Puppets

I’m not sure I understand the question. I think Gordon is a better player than Elanga, definitely… but he’s also been a much bigger disappointment to me because of how good we know he can be. His application and effort and body language is just all wrong.

I completely disagree. Gordon, for all the odd flashes of pace and dribbling, has had next to no end product for us for a year, barring penalties and scoring against European minnows. He’s been a major disappointment, specifically because we know what he CAN do. He’s been the seasons biggest disappointment for me. Awful body language, dreadful mistakes costing us a good few times, and just a general lack of performance barring 10 mins here of there. Barnes has been far far far more productive in open play AND gives 100%. Murphy and Elanga haven’t had great seasons, but you can’t fault their work ethic. Gordon just looks like a player who either a) doesn’t want to be here, or b) thinks he’s better than everyone else. (And no, I didn’t boo him, but I can completely sympathise with the frustration)

I thought he was absolutely shite barring one or two runs in the first half. Half arsed effort and absolutely pathetic for their winner.

What the fuck are Shearer, Murphy, Dion Dublin on about? Keep saying he was dropping too deep and should have been between the centre backs all game, despite ignoring that he was playing as a number 8/10 today 🙄

I think Big Nick has been one of our best players, in that deeper role. Al clearly doesn’t understand that Nick isn’t the striker today.

I've been told (from usual sources) 10-12 weeks.

Completely disagree with this like. After a shaky opening 10 mins for both fullbacks, they all played a big role in the team performance. No one was remotely close to “terrible”.

Burn was struggling? Apart from the first 5-10 mins when he got caught out once or twice, I thought he was excellent.

We were comfortably the better team for 80 mins of that game. Not sure you can ask for much else in a PL game.

Chuffed to bits for him. Fingers crossed this is the start of a change of fortune.

Excellent away performance that!

I thought he played well for the first 25 mins of second half in that withdrawn role. Good with his feet. Good link up play. Only disappointment with his performance was that one opportunity where he should have shot with his left.

He's the definition (on his showing so far) of a bang average premier league player. I'm yet to see anything to hang my hat on to say "he's good at that", or "he's that type of player". To me he's just a body on a pitch offering almost nothing in any regard. Pretty dreadful movement, slow, poor finishing, no link up play etc. Compare that to Nick, who has been poor recently granted, but at least you can see what he's good / outstanding at, even if we're not playing to his strengths. For me, I'd play Woltemade every game and use Wissa / Osula as subs. It's the only way to get the best out of Nick long term and get him back amongst the goals.

I genuinely haven't got a clue what some of you guys want, like. Absolute fucking misery this place. The interview was good... optimistic, forward-looking, ambitious. What exactly is wrong with that? (ps. for what it's worth I do think it's possible to be challenging for the title by 2030... not Champions League... but last season we were basically as good as Arsenal who are this season's likely winners. We've taken a step backwards this season, and they've taken a step forwards, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility to think that with 3-4 good windows we could be challenging)

Good interview that. Maybe I'm in the minority on this board, but I do believe we have the right people in charge in the right departments now.

Played very well for most of first half, and decent in first 10 mins of second half, but 3 individual mistakes really cost us badly. Shame, as first half was great.

I thought that was just from the last 16

Sorry if it’s been mentioned, but I thought PSG can’t play Monaco, so therefore we do?

Barnes?

For me he was one of the plus points of today. Looked much more involved and starting to build some confidence.

I think it was pretty clear that we were more in control of the game in the second half, and played it in their half, albeit without creating much of note. First half we had a few nice attacking moments but Villa were more in control and played it in our half.

We were better in the second half in our all round play. Didn’t create as much though.

I don’t see it at all with Wissa sadly. I see a relatively immobile and/or unfit player whose only attribute appears to be potentially finding himself with a tap in opportunity. For me, he’s no better / more useful than last season’s Callum Wilson. Woltemade is a considerably better footballer with considerably better technique, but we’re not putting him / finding him in the right positions, yet. Woltemade also pressed more when he came on that Wissa could be arsed to do all afternoon. For me, we should be pushing Barnes and whoever the other winger is past Woltemade when we attack so he can thread balls through the channels.

Woltemade linked play considerably better than Wissa today. He dropped in, laid it off, played a couple of decent balls through the lines. I’m struggling to recall a time that Wissa touched the ball without under hitting his pass or misjudging his touch. Just don’t see any stand out trait with Wissa. Woltemade at least you can see his positive and negative traits, and see what we need to work with.

I cannot see that at all, like. Wissa to me is as much of a “shrug” player as we’ve had in years. At least Nick has something about him. We actually did play considerably better a created a few nice openings after Wissa went off (having offered nothing all game). (The caveat being I thought he was ok on Wednesday)