Erikse

Honestly I don't really care about when he's back. He should never have been our backup RB this season. Miley looks better there, but you can bet that Trippier would still take his place if he came available now.

They were also missing Mbeumo, Diallo, Bruno and Mount second half.. There's not much goal threat left. Their CB pairing was also pretty bad. Heaven and a rusty Martinez.

4-1 against us.

I think he joined 1 year after we got Howe.

Wish we were this efficient..

How much power do we think Howe will get in future windows, with Wilson as DOF? Surely he will still play a big role in what players we try to sign?

They didn't even do that good of a job at it. We just missed passes, put some hopeless crosses in, and blasted our big chances. Another team would be even harder for us to create against than yesterday. We need Barnes on the left for those type of games imo.. That would atleast give us some kind of weapon against that. Wissa may also help when fit. Preferrably Wissa and Wolte together, but Howe doesn't seem to like that idea.

I truly hope he doesn't start against Burnley.

As I said in my post we won some away games before this run. Not sure what happened after that Villa 4-1 game.

It's actually 2 in 15 if we go back to the Villa loss last season. Won some away games before that. Beat USG and Everton since that.

I know this stat can be a bit flawed, but it's pretty wild to see us 4th and Villa 15th when it comes to xPts. We really need to be more efficient, which is another reason as to why I don't understand how Gordon is still starting over Barnes. We're also conceding from chances that we shouldn't be conceding from.

Okay, maybe we read his post differently. I didn't think that he meant that we would have achieved nothing. However the margins were small last season for instance, and without a world class striker we would probably be looking at a 7th finish (at best) without the cup trophy. Not taking anything away from Howe, it was still amazing that he achieved what he did with that team. It's just impossible to deny that Isaks form periods impacted the teams form by a massive amount, and therefore gave us lots of wins on his own. As you say it was very difficult to replace that, and now he have to find different ways of winning.

Then why is the fact that we lost him such a gigantic deal? If he didn't have a huge impact on our success?

Because you ridiculed a suggestion that we would've achieved less in the last seasons without him, with the reasoning that he has achieved nothing after leaving. And now you're talking about how hard he was so damn hard to replace, and how he was world class.

But yet we're still hurting from losing him, as an explanation for this season? Bit of a contradiction, if I understand the point right.

It's safer to sit deep when you know that the opponent doesn't have efficient players on the field. I'm talking about why the game state in the second half happened, which was the original point. You're talking about something else at this point. Sitting deep is a tactical decision that some teams sometimes choose when they are leading the game. In the end it gave them their second clean sheet of the season, with some key players missing.

Only 3 teams in the league has underperformed their xG more than us this season. It's a theme at this point. It was pretty obvious that they chose to sit deep. I don't blame them, most of their attacking threats were out with injury or had gone to AFCON.

We haven't gotten smashed like we occasionally did back then, but we literally have less points per game away from home this season than both full seasons with Bruce.

They let us dominate because they know that we lack creativity and efficiency. We also don't even pass the ball around well, and often just end up losing it.

I also noticed how wide our winger were when he got the ball. Sometimes we gave it to him and he had 0 passing options. We're basically using him with the traditional super wide wingers to focus mostly on crossing, and today that was easy to defend against.

Was mad. The thing we lacked today was efficiency and shooting ability. Exactly what Barnes on the left could have given us. Without him we're not going to be efficient with our chances.

Aye. Chalobahs rugby tackle on Gordon wasn't a pen, but Tonalis shoulder on Dorgu is a free kick.

Hasn't exactly set the world alight after his move from Villa. His attitude is a problem, and they got loads of money for him.

I think Semenyo is often a bit inefficient. He has his streaky periods, but then has long periods where he doesn't produce enough.

Savinho sucks, Doku is just ok, and injury prone. Bernardo Silva isn't as good anymore.