Mole

Nah, nothing will change until the real elephant in the room is addressed. The midfield and wide players providing fuck all for most of the season. (Bruno and Barnes get a pass here) You can buy as many strikers as you want but nothing will change until the supply line is improved.

Too right as well, LEGO is strictly a solo endeavour designed for adults to re-learn how not to hate themselves. Firable offence IYAM

Also it's more common than people think I feel like, just most of them don't admit it.

I mean provided he doesn't fall of a cliff he's already been successful 15 goals and 5 assists in the league (which I don't think is wildly outlandish) come May would be a successful first season. (This part isn't aimed at you) Some of the discussion around him drives me a bit mad tbh. The midfield around him at best (granted it's been much better the last 2-3 weeks) has been highly dysfunctional this year all the while he's acclimatizing to a new country and league. If I hadn't watched any of the games I'd think with the way people talk in this thread he's on 2 goals or something and miscontrols every touch.

'Disinterested' is honestly one of my biggest pet peeves in football fandom. Rarely is it actually accurate but it used so often to describe a less than average performance when in reality the bloke just didn't have a good game.

I'm sure I've said this before but much of the season the midfield and how it's structured has been the biggest issue to me in terms of the defence. Well that and fullbacks missing for large chunks of the year. I rarely watched us and thought the CBs did a bad job, it happened on the odd occasion but all of them have mostly been good at a minimum.

He should have been playing anyway. Outside of Bruno he was performing better than any other midfielder when he did get the chance to play. I was screaming about this pretty much every week so I'm glad he's getting the chance to play.

The whole is he a striker or isn't he stuff is irritating to read tbh. It's like I'm living in a fantasy land where the only strikers who exist are ones who play on the shoulder. Going to be very frank and say if we won't get it to work then someone else will. Luckily I don't particularly believe there's any danger of this and it's just forum noise.

I think the right side is a bigger problem area than the left, granted if it was up to me I'd completely start over on both wings tbh. Unless you mean left footed but plays on the right side? In which case, by all means carry on.

Evidently he does but at the same time, you need your wide players to provide that and none of them do. There are far too many players who can't force a defence to react. Eventually he'll have to come to terms with that, Klopp to me has similar ideals ( tactically) but he eventually realised the football had to evolve.

Whatever the reasons the team definitely needs something in the middle third of the pitch (and on the wings) The sources of chance creation has been sorely lacking all season long, whether that be improvement from those here, the manager figures something out tactically or new signings I don't really care. But the amount of chances that gets created is really not good enough.

With how Elanga has played recently I think starting him is justified. Granted you could go with a few different options on the right side and I'd be okay with most of them. Personally I think getting the midfield 3 right is probably the most important thing, the rest should sort itself out as long as the players control their emotions. (which I think they will)

Miley is just better at all facets of the game this season, continuing to trust Joelinton because of what he gave before is part of why we've been so inconsistent.

Probably because the midfield and attack has been even worse, if you can't maintain attacks with any great regularity you're going to put extra stress on the defence. How we've played this year is just fundamentally broken, I don't know enough to know how to fix it but I do know what I see is not fit for purpose.

His movement off the ball is just way better than Gordon's. It's obviously not ideal but between the two of them he's much better suited to play on the right if you're going to play both.

Aye but we actually have a Sporting Director with contacts there now so it probably will become legitimate sooner rather than later.

In general he seems to have a good working and personal relationship based on what was said prior to Wilson's arrival. So I doubt Wilson isn't saying anything that hasn't been discussed with Howe on multiple occasions.

Very convinced the mood would be VERY different if we had. Even if Burnley still ended exactly as it did.

If we have then I think half of the league has been which obviously isn't true. The league is just extremely competitive atm so it's really hard to be consistent. I think if you ask other fans opinions of their own teams they are probably equally as frustrated but that's just how it is.

Aye you gotta just sit there and observe without reacting sometimes

Yeah I'm not talking about today so much, more of a general overview of the player, the team and his skillset.

Even if that were true, I don't agree that it is. We could do with more players who are risk adverse and value the importance of possession tbh.

Everytime I've watched him he looks like he's playing within himself. Smacks of trying to fit in to the team instead of showcasing any sort of individualism. Which seems to his detriment so far.

I've been enjoying the Bruno in a deeper role choice lately, if for no reason it gets him on the ball more. Hopefully he runs the show today.

I was going to say, it's weird to criticise him for things that happened before he probably knew anything about the club. If he fails to meet his remit fair enough, but for now what happened before he took charge is completely irrelevant.