Kid Icarus

You really notice Tonali's quick thinking here. Brilliant https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdFhXW1Y/

I love an unnecessary top bins. The peak imo:

Great minds

Outsprinting and having more desire than a player that came on after half time as well.

I was lead to believe Ugarte is really good though?

Wew. @Sempiternal Cunha:

I watched them a bit that season to try and see it and I did, but it didn't look terminal and it was easy to see how Howe would improve his off-the-ball work. I think Howe wanted him when we were looking for that RW/AM hybrid, which lines up with us going for Szoboszlai the summer after because I remember their FBRef profiles were spookily similar. Really not sure whether Howe's still after that type of player anymore (Cunha maybe?) but it would be pretty interesting to see what role he would have had here, because I think it would have been Murphy he played instead of rather than anyone in our midfield 3.

When we were linked with him and we were doing our sleuthing on Foxestalk, it was a pretty widespread opinion that he talked a good game, but did a lot of hiding when the going got tough.

Probably a bit of a sliding doors moment, he might have done well elsewhere, but tbf at the same time I think a lot of people thought Maddison made an obviously bad choice to go there at the time.

Literally that yeah. Offset by the Anderson sale the other way. Slim pickings trying trying to find a Howe signing that was a dud, so I understand the difficult position you're in.

Targett's pretty much the only signing that hasn't worked out and it's mainly because of injury as well. Brilliant when he came in on loan.

Noticed that he quite often starts to shine at the end of matches. Thought he was brilliant from about 60 minutes. Quiet otherwise, but I think we've come so accustomed to having someone in midfield who does the simple thing so well that we maybe won't notice it until he's missing.

I knew he was good but fucking hell. I hope I never take it for granted in the way I maybe have with Bruno. He has levels to go as well, in our system he still has that inside right channel to get goals from like he did today and like Longstaff used to.

You're stepping on a rake with that one Froggy

Definitely, I do love how we play and I can see why we play how we do. We so often control matches out of possession now, force the opposition into about 3 or 4 different traps then pounce. Could be wrong but it feels like we have a few different ways to win now and don't just try and brute force our way to a result in a way that might not really work, like possession football against a team in a low block.

I tell myself that Barca 08-15 is my favourite style of football, but then I watch Joelinton, Tonali, and Bruno ragdolling opposition midfielders and I really have to think twice like, I absolutely fucking love it. Reminds me a lot of how I would have never said Carroll was my type of striker, but then watching him bully defenders was unbelievably satisfying.

We're only 3 points behind our 22/23 tally in a season when a loud minority thought we should bin Howe.

Toughest match we've had in a while at home and one that so often throws up a 0-0, 1-0 either way or 1-1. Think this one will be 1-1, they're in decent form.

Still West Ham I think, but he has a few really good matches under his belt now, including a cup final.

His shot conversion rate today was 100%

Sometimes you just have to put your feet up and say hei, what a weekend of Barclays Premier League football action

Some of our best performances under Howe have been at home to this mob, always upping our game and really going for it. Today weirdly is probably the most competent I've seen Man United during this time, and the most casual I've seen us, yet it resulted in the biggest winning margin. So easy in the end and we didn't really get out of 2nd gear. Pope: 7 Trippier: 7 Schär: 7 Burn: 7 Livramento: 8.5 Tonali: 8 Joelinton: 7.5 Bruno: 7 Murphy: 8 Isak: 7 Barnes: 8.5

Absolutely bricked up whenever I see Sandro tying his shoelaces

Good subs

He's been fantastic today.