Erikse

When watching the game back I did notice how sloppy Tonali was with the ball. Not just the passing, but also letting them take the ball from him easily. Probably one of his worst games for us this season. I expect him to bounce back after the break.

I collected some moments worth noting. Watching it all back it's true that Wolte didn't get much to work with, Brentford were a lot better than us. Wolte didn't have a particularly bad game, but the chemistry isn't there yet, and as others have said it sometimes looks like there are some mismatch in the system with him as our only nr. 9. Physically he looks a bit slow and he's not the strongest either, but his passing is mint, and he does win the ball back for us sometimes aswell. Rewatching the game only reaffirms my belief that he's the perfect 10 (or false 9) behind someone like Wissa. https://streamable.com/64qjzz Maybe it's hindsight, but should he not have come closer here to make himself available? Maybe he would have, if Wissa was there to stay centrally and ready to make the run towards goal, if the winger went on a run with the ball? Pure speculation, might be overthinking. https://streamable.com/5bs46g This one is intereting. I think the first pass from Barnes is weak and a bit too far behind him, and Woltemade does very well to win it back. The pass from Tonali though, what happened there? Looks like Wolte stopped for a sec when Tonali expected him to keep moving. https://streamable.com/lsxvwg I posted this one on sunday. Should be sprinting there to get into the box, and I don't know why he hesitates. I actually think Barnes did well here, but we need players in the box. Sometimes the wingers has to expect it. Wolte probably wouldn't have been fast enough anyways given his pace, but should have atleast been sprinting there after releasing it to Bruno imo. https://streamable.com/wd6my3 Nice play to get Murphy through. Expects the pass out to him, but Murphy crosses it in front of goal. While Murphy should probably have turned and played it out to Wolte, this is a situation where if Wolte was a 10 or a midfielder was playing that pass instead, we could have had Wissa infront of goal for the tap in. Seems like we rarely have players right infront of goal for the crosses when Wolte is so active in the build up. That's a problem for us imo. The life as a winger is difficult when there are noone infront of goal. This is why I would love to see Wolte and Wissa together up top, and let Wolte be very active in the buildup as he is right now, but without the drawback.

Maybe he would in 2024. We were actually linked back then, no clue whether we actually tried to get him.

Chance creating also depends on the positioning and movements of the striker. It's not like the striker is free of responsibility.

In the future it will be that the team with the highest xG gets 3p. Mark my words.

The kitman ain't getting his yearly christmas present this year. The money gotta come from somewhere.

Withdrew from Sweden with a groin issue, probably forced to by Slot. Not that he cares about internationals anyways.

If I were you I'd probably have left out the Palace and Bournemouth comment from @The College Dropout, Bournemouth and Palace can be a pain for us.

Yeah, it felt extra good being the massive underdogs who hadn't been in CL for 20 years. It's also still our best league season under Howe. 5 points better than last season, and +14 better GD. We smashed several teams that season, even away from home.

We had a run around december-january where we won 7 out of 8 in the league, winning 4 away games. The rat scored 11 goals and had 3 assists in those 8 games. I think we beat every bottom 7 team away from home. Forest was the only win from the top 13 teams.

22/23 was better than both of those. 32 points from 19 games. +13 goal difference. We were absolutely ruthless.

Since march West Ham went 9 home league games in a row without a win, losing 6 of them, until they met us. Struggled against Burnley at home this weekend, a closer game than the one against us. That's one that you should expect to win, unless you're a team fighting relegation. I'm not into the notion that you can never expect to win any away game, that's just an excuse to me. If mid table teams can get their fair share of away wins, it shouldn't be that hard to win some.

Right now like 80% of the league games we play seems to be hard for us, yes.

As mentioned in my post above, in the first half of the season there are only like 5 fixtures that can be considered as "should win" if we count all the away games as tough games. The context being that some will go as far as claiming that Leeds away was also a tough one that we couldn't expect to win. I guess the ambition is to stay up at this point. Because then the home games against any "big six" aren't really "should win" games either.

The issue with our away form against "weaker" sides is that we play 5 of the "big 6" at home in the first half of the season, and those are also tough games, even at home. Bascially if we consider games like this a tough game to win, only 4 out of the first 18 can be considered as "should win" games. 5 if you include home to Spurs in that. 4-5 wins in 18 is near relegation form.

While I agree, Howe actually preferred to start Burn at LB over Livramento and Hall just 1,5 years ago. Livramento even did well that season when given the chance. I'm not sure if Howe actually see Burn at LB as a huge handicap like we do. It's not like Burn was noticeably quicker 1,5 years ago. I still believe he will move Burn away from LB though.

Bit concerned about that comment saying that he didn't want to sub a tall guy (Burn) as Joelinton was already out, due to set plays. So if Joelinton is out for a while now, then Burn will have to be our starting LB, because of set plays? Hall will start next game obviously as Burn is out, but after that. If he thinks we really need 4 tall guys then it will either be Burn LB or 5 at the back. Haven't been impressed by the latter option yet either.

Not only that, but when the striker is not in the box, the defenders can focus almost exclusively on stopping the wingers. As we know, we don't have the best dribblers out wide, so they want some space to work with.

I think he hit his thigh? Need to watch the replay again. I also think the first one would have been too soft, despite the contact.

Apparently he just starts throwing passive aggressive digs at everyone when they lose games.

Naturally the amount of money spent will increase the expectations, especially when the manager seems to have had a large influence on who we buy. In this PSR world it has a huge impact on the growth of the club, as in PSR terms we are paying a good chunk for these players every year, so it does impact what we can do going forward. Hopefully the club acknowledge that we might need to think a little differently in the windows. Or maybe Elanga and Ramsey eventually makes me eat my words, but I'm very sceptical of that.

I agree, I actually pointed out the lack of depth at fullback before the window, as I didn't trust Trippier to be a regular with just 1 injury there. Lots of signings was needed, but we really struggled to get players over the line for a while. Who knows who we were in for, but we never seemed interested in a fullback.

Yeah, he even said it after the game. It's hindsight, but as I said earlier I don't think having "only" 3 tall players for 30 min would be much of a risk.. Some teams play only 3 tall players for most minutes every game, and do just fine.

I agree, there are lots of questions around our attacks, I don't mean to say that Wolte is the biggest problem. I just can't understand why he's just jogging there and ends his run early. A faster player could have been in the position to score there, and maybe even Wolte had a small chance if he tried to sprint.

I agree, the fullbacks are a massive handicap. If benching Burn is the last thing he wants to do, and he doesn't want to change formation, then just bench Botman instead and play him at CB with Hall left back. I don't like benching Botman, but if that's what it takes to get Burn away from LB, then I hope it happens. Howe seems worried about having 1 less tall player for set plays, when we would still have one of the tallest lineups in the league.