Kid Icarus

How about this, even very good teams have unfashionable players that are more important than you might think.

Actually thought that much like everyone else he had an excellent first half. Sliding doors moments and all that but I thought it was notable that when he blocked a ball down the line at 2 down he didn't do his gee up the crowd thing. Looked tired and laborious 2nd half.

I'm thinking the same thing. Eg were Liverpool fans clamouring for Thiago or someone else more naturally talented to start over Henderson?

On another night those chances go in and we're bowing at his feet. I thought he was brilliant tonight and didn't deserve to be on the losing side or come off. Correlation isn't causation and all that but when he came off we completely felt apart.

Tonight I guess you could say we were Burn...victims?

Yeah, feels a bit 'No European football for me, it'll affect our chances of getting into Europe next season'

Glad to hear it.

FWIW, Pep has just been making the same point about their poor finishing vs Spurs. Now I'm not saying I'm Pep, but... Agree to disagree, we were poor from 2-0 but I still put that situation even being a reality mainly because of shocking finishing.

Yes it can, cheers

Surely you can see that how specific your question is sort of points to what I mean about the reductionism? Their 2nd goal put the pin in us. With proper finishing from our supposed star players until that point, the game is completely different. Even after that, when they gained confidence and we lost ours, this is how the game looked overall. I couldn't put it any better than these stats tbh. They scored 2 from 0 big chances and we scored 0 from 2 big chances.

It's not blame, it's a response to this supposedly obvious decision that Howe should be making to start him over Longstaff. Whatever their differences in talent, Tonali isn't making it a hard decision for Howe, let alone an easy one to start him.

Probably because Tonali's not really performing better than supposed worst player ever Sean Longstaff when he does play. If Longstaff's as poor as people go on, Tonali should be a shoo-in, but he's not. Not yet anyway

He's missed like every chance, including a pen, though. It's been so bad.

Think people should concern themselves more with his performances when he gets game time than the game time itself tbh. He's not doing really anything to make him starting over Longstaff an obvious decision, and I've been lead to believe Longstaff is the worst player of all time.

I come out with it because some of our fanbase are wildly fickle and reductionist to a comical degree. And others only seem to pipe up when we lose. Isak and Gordon had multiple guilt edge chances again tonight and missed them all again. At least Isak can excuse himself overall because he's had a spell of form, but his finishing was still terrible tonight, and Gordon’s has been a joke all season. People knock xG, but it's generally indicative of chances being created. We've had a draw and 2 losses now where our general play has created enough to win and our finishing has let us down. It's a problem, but I don't see much with our creation that points to Howe's approach.

Aye, relying on us to miss multiple guilt edge chances can't be a game plan like.

Who could have predicted this reaction

Yet another match with absolutely shocking finishing. Isak was even worse tbh, but at least he's had a spell of form.

Bad night with a spell where he played well. Fully expect some of the comments about him to be embarrassing with barely any hindsight.

It's not the performance that worries me. That's the 3rd game now that our star boys have missed multiple huge opportunities to score.

Sometimes there are matches that really rattle your understanding of football and as soon as it went to 2-0 this was definitely one of them. But it's quite simple when you think about it, we blew our load early and made nothing count against a Premier League team. You do that and you're running a huge risk, particularly when someone in your back 4 has an absolute stinker. They went 2 nil up, any confidence we had evaporated, while their's solidified. Then we took off Joelinton, imo the main player holding us together. Really poor, West Ham offered very, very little until their breakaway second, but completely controlled the game after that. Have to admit that I'm worried about our finishing and the repercussions of how poor it is now. You can't waste that many chances, keep expecting the chances to come, and for the opposition to not take their's. Our own worst enemy to an insane level, with the same guilty parties, just as we were against Everton and Brighton. Pope: 6.5 Livramento: 7 Schär: 5 Kelly: 3.5 Hall: 7 Longstaff: 5 Tonali: 5 Bruno: 5.5 Willock: 6.5 Joelinton: 7.5 Isak: 4.5 Gordon: 4.5 Barnes: 5

Still believe we can win this like, but I can't Imagine it involving Gordon

Finding it quite difficult to process this scoreline tbh.

Feels a bit early for Barnes, we must be also protecting Willock

He has, but it was such a big bollock drop that it's hard to ignore.