Erikse

I generally think it's a bit childish when fair criticism (that he wasn't getting himself into the right position at times) is met with the classic "how dare you criticise him, he scored goals" stuff. But if the purpose of the forum is to cheerlead every player and not discuss both negatives and positive, then my bad. I'm happy Wissa is back, and the impact it has on us is clear to see.

Sure. Maybe not the best post to reply that to then. Point still stands. I also think it was a fairly easy guess that we've been missing someone like Wissa when he was out. We already knew that he was stronger, faster and more direct from his time at Brentford. It fits our current 4-3-3 setup better.

We were used to a fast striker with good movement around the box from last season. And, we watch a lot of football in general. We didn't need Wissa to play for us to be able to see that Woltes movement was lacking at times.

Funny how anyone who pointed this out early season was met with snide comments everytime he scored a goal.

What a pass!

We've only kept 2 clean sheets in the league with Thiaw starting.. Bournemouth and Forest away. Against Bournemoth we were playing 5 at the back (Burn, Thiaw, Botman), and vs Forest he was paired with Botman (with Burn at Trippier at fullback). Forest were even worse at the time than what they are now. Not saying it's Thiaws fault, but our defence hasn't looked rock solid as a unit in a good while.

Yeah, I don't see Howe going to Chelsea at all. Would be surprised to see them even go for him, considering that they want to play in a very different way to what Howe usually does.

They've done better after Salah left, but their fixtures has been really kind aswell. They still haven't looked convincing in these games, so I expect their form to turn around when they face better teams.

Yeah, it's mostly xG (4,2). 2 goals from 1.6 xG on pens. 0 goals from 2,6 xG non-pen.

Isak and Elanga has never had a single assist to each other for Sweden. You'd think that they would atleast have some if it was such a deadly combo, especially given the opposition. I honestly think Jacob Murphy had a better on field relationship with Isak for us than what Elanga would have had, but we will never know.

8 points at home. 18 points away. Their identity is to never make any sense.

Yeah, this plan B thing is probably a bit overblown. The problem is, sometimes the execution has been so bad that you've wondered what the plan A even was in the first place. Joelinton and Wissa coming back could change that quite quickly.

I have a feeling that him and Joelinton could resurrect out season. I truly hope that they can both stay fit.

I actually thought they were going to win this one, but without DCL it's a lot harder..

The fact that all of his 3 goals came from a free ~80% chance is kind of an important context, don't you think? If you look at the xPts table, we're 3rd. That tells us that we've been wasting chances in tight games (and conceded easy goals). Guess the name of the only player in our team who has been drastically underperforming his xG in the league? And before anyone complain about xG, we can see it with our eyes aswell.

Agree. Bruno is soon going to be our topscorer at this rate. Barnes is our top scoring winger in the league with 3 goals, ahead of Gordon who's at pens. Wolte hasn't gotten that much service, which again is partly due to the wingers. There has been so many tight scorelines where more quality on the wings would have won us several points. Most teams has wingers who can either create something our of nothing, or who are really efficient. The top teams have wingers who do both of those. We have wingers who does neither, except the efficiency of Barnes when he's in form, and Murphys crossing ability (which we haven't gotten much out of this season anyways). I thought that maybe Elanga would be able to create something out of nothing, but it just hasn't happened yet.

Missing chances is one of our biggest issues. Gordon has been the main culprit of that.

Just 1 more to equal mr. "missed pre season", after missing pre season and further 3 months after that, with limited training.

No idea how that became a thing. If we only play in the weekends for a while, then we're not playing twice a week, are we?

They finished 8th in 20/21 and went on to spend 136m euro (net) the next season. Then missed out on CL again, and spent another 163m euros (net) in 22/23. That's how they got back into CL positions. Some great signnings in there, mind, but they were expensive.

They did counter when they got the opportunity, but some of their players like Dorgu were gassed, and they didn't have much quality up top with all the missing players. We sat this deep against Brentford after going 1-0 up in the 27th minute, and didn't create anything after that. They guy I replied to claimed that no team ever sits this deep on purpose. That includes Southampton against Man City in that 0-0 draw last season when Ruben Dias were complaining that only 1 team tried to win. According to this claim it wasn't a deliberate strategy from Southampton, as they wanted to have the ball and attack, it just turned out that way.

What? Most bottom teams vs top teams in general? Us vs PSG when they scored at 98 from that handball? Actually, we've sat deep many times and come under a lot of pressure. We did that in most games where we took the lead at the start of the season. Heck, even Liverpool sat deep and invited pressure against a 9 man Spurs. Was even worse when they had 10 men. Why are we pretending like this isn't a thing in football after last game?

You reckon that I won't be able to dig up a bunch of posts where Kaka ended up being wrong about a potensial signing? It like captaining someone else than Haaland on fantasy, and then go on about how other people were wrong when it works. I agree somewhat about people being overly negative sometimes. I actually didn't mind McTominay back then. But I won't defend every single potensial signing and then dig up negative posts when they just happen to do well for someone else.

Wrong use here.. Because it completely misses my point. Probably on purpose, though.

Bottom line, everyone is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Therefore, not much reason to play captain hindsight every time you're right? If DCL got injured before this run, which was a very real possibility, it would be very easy to dig up pro DCL posts and make fun of them..