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He made a point about how Man City players were so good at working the ball in tight spaces so for me that's at least a great sign of him recognising the sort of qualities that make a team great. I'm hoping it's at the forefront of his recruitment strategy.

We qualified for the CL with the tactic 'you don't buy'.

Think it's more to do with tactics. Drop Burn and you can't push Trippier further up the pitch (where he's very influential) and have 3 sat at the back, which changes the entire dynamic of the team. Replace Longstaff with who? Miley? For how long? Is it the best way to manage a 17 year old?

I ultimately agree but I do still think there's questions to be asked though. Freak injuries aside,we have also had numerous muscular injuries you could attribute to training methods, like Trippier, Wilson (unfair to include him tbf), Longstaff, Isak, Willock, even Almiron - who as far as I'm remember has barely been injured in his entire time. There's precedent with this happening at Bournemouth, so it does set off alarm bells for me.

Doesn't take game time to understand you can no longer make cynical fouls like that with VAR around. He's still a professional footballer.

Legit bargain

"I have not written it off" *writes it off in the very next sentence*

Hmm didn't really get that sense. Schar was pinging through balls to him minutes before he was taken off but either way, he had far more composure and control witj the ball than Longstaff had today, so Id have kept him on.

Think taking Anderson off was a bit of a mistake

Those 2 and Barnes seem to have a decent connection down the left.

how did we sign this guy

Doucore doing a man marking job on Bruno by the looks of it.

No we wouldn't get relegated and yes we would still win game. I think you took what I originally said very literally.

I can only use the small sample that's available to me but it tied exactly in with what I observed as well. We had less control in midfield, conceded possession a lot more, didn't have as many turnovers and most notably we had no one who was able to break the lines as consistently as Bruno does. You can't underestimate the importance of the latter. That spell last year stands out to me not because of the result but how noticeably poor our performances became. We coincidentally returned to form and our performance levels as soon as he returned.

None taken but you're gonna have to show me why it's objectively and observedly untrue. I can only go by the sample of matches that he's been missing for, right?

We can win games without Isak, we can't without Bruno. Both players are absolute unicorns but history and thr stats tells us that losing Bruno has far more impact on our results than losing Isak.

Ok, so that's Dubravka he has to compensate for, what about Trippiers playmaking skills? What about Joelinton's robustness and physicality in the middle? What about Wilsons hold up play? What about Isak's link up play? What about Willocks driving runs? What about Botman's anticipation and reading of the game? What tactic compensates for all that? Because that's the task at hand and according to some there's a tactic that would negate all that.

Peps win rate goes from 75% to 50% when Rodri is out. By your own logic that makes him tactically limited as he's unable to adjust his tactics to compensate for that despite having 24 other world class players at his disposal. Now let's test his tactical nous when 7-8 first teamers are out.

We need to concede less and score even more. I'd even go as far as saying we should win more games and lose less. Thank you for reading my tactical analysis - think I've covered most the points made recently.

My MOTM today. Scary to think we probably haven't seem him in full flow and in top form yet.

That last 20 minutes was what we were doing for the whole of last season and the beginning of this. Don't think we've actually seen it for about 6 months now.

Still might not get to see much of him this season but deary me, we have not missed with this transfer, he looks a player.

Best centre mid we've ever had.

I'm firmly behind Howe but I do believe he's had a significant part to play in our injury crisis by virtue of his squad management. Rafa was the only manager I can remember who had a marked affect on our injury list and made me realise the impact of good squad management. Perhaps it's naivety, perhaps it's just a case of wrong injuries at the wrong time or perhaps it is is just freak bad luck (although I refer to his last season at Bournemouth) but something needs to change and I don't think it's the medical staff which is a lazy conclusion imo.

We're owned by the Saudi's. I reckon I can stomach taking money from NFT's tbh