Solitude20

what do you guys think about the news of Mane leaving Bayern? He won’t be very expensive. Very high salary though.

They are 100% playing for a draw. They are not even trying to win.

Leicester had zero shots and zero attempts in the 1st half. Is it because we played that well? Or are they really bad?

LOL Burn what was that?

So another Isak. If he turns out as well as Isak did, that £61m isn’t much.

Since he joined, he has scored a goal every 5 games. That’s impressive considering how deep he plays for us. I am looking forward to how our midfield would look like next season with the new arrivals and how that could change the way Bruno plays.

I’d rather we face Real Madrid in the R16 or something. For the group stage, I would go with Benfica, Leipzig, Rangers, and Newcastle. With further summer transfers, we can get 1st in that group and face a beatable team in the R16. Then comes the quarter final and we get eliminated by Madrid. This would get us more than 45 million in prize money.

This GD could be huge. We could draw in our last two games and still make it.

The game changed when Mac Allister and others came on.

That’s probably his second header goal in his career or something

This guy knows how to time his tackles. So smooth.

Almiron is getting his form back.

I give Joelinton the credit for this goal. He won the goal back in their final third, made a run and then won that corner.

I have just noticed how according to the poll of this thread only 3% thought we would make it to top four. 97% of you didn’t believe it at the beginning of the season. This is just a reminder of how we have been overachieving anyways.

He doesn’t look impressed.

We started the game with 4-3-3, and we looked terrible and couldn’t create much threat. Then we switched to 4-4-2, and we improved a lot and controlled the game. We scored two goals, then we went back to 4-3-3 and lost control of the game. It is is not that 4-3-3 is bad for us, it is more like Bruno/Willock/Joelinton is just not very well-balanced. Only Bruno can pass the ball and create chances, and he is still the only one of the 3 who can play in front of our defenders and get the ball forward. He just can’t do both alone. If you think about Willock’s best moments with us, they would mostly be him playing wide or near the line. He isn’t the sort of player who can excel playing centrally against a congested defense. It isn’t that Longstaff is THAT good, it’s more like his role offers great balance to our midfield.

Our game improved a lot when Isak become a second striker and Willock became a left winger, except Willock has been losing the ball a lot. Gordon should come in for Willock in the second half.

He has literally started just two games, and he has never played a full game so far. A bit too early to call him a flop.

Bruno is just more likely to lose the ball when Longstaff isn’t there, just like what happened before their first goal. The other team could really press hard against Bruno once he receives the ball in front of our defenders but Joelinton/Willock wouldn’t be available near him to help him come out of it, and he eventually would lose the ball. That’s where Longstaff was really helping.

Yep, an English world-class winger who’s still 21 years old would be at least 100m. I am not sure if Gordon will ever be a world-class, but his ability to play on both wings with high intensity could really help the team, especially once we start playing every 3 days from next season. If Eddie could improve his decision making, he would really get something out of him.

Is that why he joined us then?

As our schedule becomes more congested when we qualify for Europe, all those players will get their minutes even if we bring in more players. At what point should a good performance prevent us from bringing in new players who potentially could improve us? Imagine if we hadn’t signed Isak or Botman because we were doing great in the second half of last season.

Fati is more of an inside forward than an inverted winger, and that’s the perfect match for a striker like Isak who drops deep and draws defenders with him. Inside forwards like to cut inside before receiving the ball, and they are more likely to receive the ball around the box. They are more of goal threats than inverted wingers. Inverted wingers are more likely to receive the ball near the touchline, and they cut inside after that in order to cross or pass. The likes of ASM, Raphinha, and Mahrez are inverted wingers, while Fati, Mbappe, Salah, and Rashford are inside forwards. Liverpool had the perfect setup a few years ago with Salah and Mane as the inside forwards and Firmino as the deep forward who created spaces for them and fed them nice passes. That trio was something else. Having said that, Fati has a terrible injury record

If you watch the 2nd Aston Villa goal again, you can see how it was mainly caused by a tactical error and miscommunication between Bruno and Joelinton. As we were playing 4-4-2 at that moment, both of them pushed up the field and left the defense completely exposed without anyone covering that space in front of our defense. You can see McGinn simply running through that area in front of our defense completely unchallenged. He really took his sweet time to run with the ball in front of the box and both Bruno and Joe were still rushing back from the other side of the pitch. I don't blame them though; our team isn't really used to playing with two central midfielders, since you don't have a holding midfielder as in the case when playing with 3 central midfielders. In a midfield with 2 midfielders, tactical Awareness and communication are crucial to limit the space between lines and coordinate how both of them can cover all that area without being exposed. I am sure Eddie will take to them about that moment, especially if he decides to play 4-4-2 more often in the remaining matches.

He looks like Eddie anyways, imagine both of them standing at the touchline shouting at players.