Mazzy

Easy to say but Isak should've taken that first time.

That should have been 3.

Oh my days. Van de Ven needs to take off his sprinting boots and put his stay on his feet boots on.

Man he's so quick he can't stand up!

But he's so fast why give him a yellow card. Crazy stuff.

It's almost like an asymmetrical 5 at the back. Burn pushes out into LB when Anderson moves forward. Quite clever but it's clearly designed to play in the counter so Barnes is struggling to get back sometimes. Plus Longstaff and Bruno are having to do alot more legwork than usual.

The games started and Ive got even less of a clue about whose playing where and why formation. Kind of looks like 5 at the back maybe?

I agree with the first part. Very sceptical about the second. I'm waiting to be pleasantly surprised by the performance today. Not expecting anything though and that's how I'd prefer it for now.

Injured.

Because as Howe said neither have trained all week and both are recovering from injury. Sensible thing not to put them straight back in, unlike what we did previously this season and rushing players back.

Looks more like Burn at RW according to the graphic. I really hate they do it in number order rather than formation order.

If he does that from RB I'll be even more impressed.

Jacob Murphy and Krafth at full back it is then.

So Hall and Tino are there in the squad but that doesn't mean they start surely? If neither have trained all week. Guess we'll find out in 9 minutes.

Toney available for £50M. Would expect he's off to Arsenal/Spurs/Man Utd but that does seem cheap considering that's less than what Bournemouth want for Solanke (apparently).

Yikes, looking at some of these potential line ups is depressing. Hall being out just as he was getting his chance is absolutely typical of this season. Krafth at LB and Murphy at RB would be my guess. Can't see Howe throwing Alex Murphy into this game from nowhere. Really wouldn't mess about disturbing Schar and Burn in the middle.

Any reason why not? Plenty of reports linking us with Lloyd Kelly and he's mainly played LB this season. Obviously he's also a CB but I'd not be even slightly surprised to see us start next season with one of or both Schar and Burn at CB with a new LB and either Tripps or Tino at RB. Edit: just saw your previous reply.

I think this is the most important reason to keeping him for next couple of seasons at least. We can't replace him and get a couple of new CBs and a new RW and another ST and a LB. Getting someone who does what he does would cost us a fuck load and we need to focus on improving other areas far more desperately.

He'll have to be clever about it if he does get booked on Saturday and then needs to get that second yellow. Can't be too obvious about it, I'm sure players have been investigated in the past for intentionally receiving yellow cards.

Fuck yeah! Hope there's some cringe announcement video to go with it when it happens.

Brighton and Brentford could be two that might be against changing to that kind of system, but I reckon they'd be the only ones. I'm still skeptical that this is even going to change in the summer, surely there's too much paperwork and legal conversations to be had to get it voted through before start of next season.

Well you'd be worried if you were Mattheus Nunes. He's struggled since moving there, mostly because of injuries and a lot of players do in their first season under Pep. I'd imagine they won't let anyone go and Paqueta just adds to their ridiculous bench. I'd take Kovavcic here though if they are looking to offload a midfielder.

Got most of his Milan assists from corners if I'm not mistaken? That could say more about Milan's set peices in general rather than him of course. I actually think our set pieces have been decent recently with Tripps out the team, little bit more variety with different players taking them.

That's a big risk arguably. I'd say he's the answer to our 2nd option at RW. We need a proven quality player in that position and Minteh to come off the bench or play in the early rounds of cups. It does mean that Miggy and maybe Murphy can be sold though without any real doubt that we can cover that position comfortably if we get a big signing in as well.

They can get results when they play dogshit every week. We've struggled to get results regardless of whether we were playing well or not. HOWEVER these last 3 game we have managed to get decent points return even if we've not been playing our best stuff across those games, so there's some hope yet.