Nine

Convinced he’s not human, that run for the Wilson goal after he’d already been pressing and sprinting like a mad man for 90 odd minutes just shouldn’t be possible.

Sevilla Juve going to extra time

A big test passed tonight, so brave of him to set us up to press like we did against a system like Brightons and it paid off. Class.

Beast

Nights like these man, nights like these. I wasn’t sure what to anticipate as to what system we’d deploy for tonight, but the way we set out was perfect. Letting them play it out for 1/2 passes then engaging the press like maniacs setting traps for them everywhere, we did everything Arsenal didnt. Exceptional from a tactical point of view and the application from the players, we countered the anti press with even more pressing I was worried we’d gas out early second half though given how we’ve started to look tired in recent weeks and then we had that slack switch off moment for their goal.. in future with more depth to play with we’d see this same fixture out more comfortably. Great seeing the grit to grind the game out and eventually put those 2 late goals away to seal it. What a result. Miggy motm.

What a season

What a fucking beast he is

We are becoming disjointed, it’s tiredness creeping in

Him and Longstaff have been the unsung heroes of this season, hopefully his injury isn’t as bad as it looked. Get well soon king

Sleeping

Bruno and Joe need to cool it a bit, no need to get dragged into a scrap here.

Sunderland went down, Shearer got injured at their place when we beat them 4-1.. I think Shearer scored 2 that day and one was defo a penalty.

They really made an example of him, surprised it’s that long. But it’s fair, if you’re involved in the game don’t break the rules.

When Joelinton became Joelinton

He doesn’t give a fuck, he knows he’s off in the summer

We are a point clear with a game in hand if they win tonight, if we were relying on Liverpool to do it for us then we had already lost

After the summer we need him back bossing it from his #6 position, he is the key to us ticking going forward. His vision, range of passing and when he’s fully fit he’s very press resistant on top of that.. those qualities just are not easily replaceable in that position. The talk of switching to a DM there, I can’t see it and I was pondering that idea up myself up until the WC. We lose so much more than we’d gain by doing that imo, with Bruno at 8 you’d just get less from his best qualities.

Yeah if Leicester lose tonight then they are all but gone

How many games have we gone a goal down to come back to win or draw this season? Without checking it feels like it’s happened a lot.

Yes yes. The issue in this particular fixture is that Brightons set up is the kryptonite to ours if you like. We can make wide observations over league position or we can look at each fixture objectively.

The problem is Brighton want to be pressed, as we know pressing is the substance to our style. Everton beat these by stepping off and sitting deep and narrow, our management will know this buts it’s the opposite of what this team has been doing all season so what’s the call here? I’m interested to see how we set up, if we set up as usual and try to press them to death we likely lose just like Arsenal today. And that’s without taking into account the fact we have slowed down over recent weeks, 10/11 seems very short to me.

If we try and press them like Arsenal did they will use it to their advantage like they did today. They play it out from the back but are so deep they draw the press high enough that it leaves a massive open space between our midfield and back line which is usually exploited by a long ball creating a 4v4 situation. They are truly beating the press meta right now, we will have to adjust our shape and/or style.

Now he’s been out of the side for a few games I can safely say I did him dirty by saying this, he’s better than that.

Wilson has 10 in 10, I’d be amazed if he was benched for the next game

Why I don’t understand when people claim Allardyce is useless, yes his football is technically shit and ugly to watch but it’s effective in the short term when executed well. He gets teams scrapping and believing, today was always going to be a tough game for any side. People going on like we had a divine right to win today are ignoring the context of the circumstances and the situation entirely.