Nine

Tonali central?

I think we’ll see a full use of Murphy’s gas tank and then see Barnes at 60/70..

To be fair it’s the right game to prioritise those traits

Osula will be happy

Livramento was never going to fill that Trippier role, he’s just not that type of full back. Hall is though.

When Tonali played centrally it was a glimpse into why Howe won’t start Bruno anywhere but #6 in this formation, I’ve pointed out before that I don’t think he is physically capable for the further forward role in our current system and I won’t change my mind.

We will perform better here than we did against Palace or West Ham. We are generally fine against teams that want to play football against us, we will see at least a few of those valuable attacking transitions that this team was built for.

Styles make matches, time and time again we struggle against sides that don’t mind us having the ball. It’s a very noticeable trend at this point. We built a team to press, when we can’t deploy that we look lost. Same old.

The people that are seriously calling for Mourinho would also be the first to want him out, ironic isn’t it

How many goals have we given away from our own poor set piece this season? Has to be 3 or 4 already.

Tonali needs to be more aware there

Christ

Pep looks ill

Oh my god City

To put it simply - it’s slightly concerning that we havnt found a way to integrate a player of Tonalis ability into this side yet, especially when Longstaff is getting starts. And that’s not a dig at Longstaff.

First half showed promise with what we had, I said at half time I wouldn’t change much and I’ll stick by that. The changes havnt worked and the second goal was weak and we never recovered. Poor showing post half time all round, onto the next.

Second goal killed us

We’ve had poor moments yes

We havnt played badly, but tonight is more evidence that we lack creativity in midfield. We suffer in games that lack transitions with Longstaff and Willock in there.

Brutal, one of those games unfortunately

Hall is literally twice the player he was a year ago, incredible

We havnt been as bad as people are making out at all, I don’t think we need any changes besides maybe Willock if he’s hurt

429 charges

That is big time hindsight though, as no one on here would have wanted him to move on after that season. In fact I remember plenty of posts on here saying things along the lines of - that patch of form will be sustained and it’s just the player hes become under Howe.

I’m not sure it’s him being defensively lacking, although he’s not as effective as a Joe or Gordon he can still execute that role. I just think it’s that he’s simply suited to games where we see a lot of attacks in transition, most of his goals that come to mind are from that scenario. It’s why he’s a super sub for games like that at the weekend. Hes just very direct and he always wants to cut in and shoot and he’s very good at that, I think he would have been incredibly effective in our 22/23 season for example.