Erikse

That's a meaningless argument. What if someone told you we would be behind Forest or Brentford, would you still bite their hand off?

We don't need to be packed with top quality to look better than a mid table side for more than a few games.

How many teams have a better squad than us? 6, maybe 7 at best.

So if we don't win, as allways it's because we played Tonali over Longstaff. Right?

We're been looking like just another Fulham for most of our games (apart from not getting smahed from time to time). In the Ashley area this season would have been acceptable so far, but our squad isn't a mid table one anymore, and we don't have Europe. No excuses for it. Hopefully second half will be way way different.

It's almost like do or die for Tonali, if it doesn't work out the doubters will be all over it, and he will probably be on the bench for the next few games at the very least.

As someone who doesn't own Pedro, I gotta say, I dodged a bullet today.

In this case I'd like to see Willock behind Isak with Joelinton to the left.

Sounds like us.

I think Gordon was also through on a 1v1, but the defender had dived, and ofcourse they got the free kick. Gordon would probably have missed that one aswell, mind. There were 2 penalty situations aswell. These three situations were all more clumsiness on their part, but that game was the most one sided refereeing I've seen in ages.

Nice to see that we get a weekly update on Wilson even after he's fit. We need that.

I wonder what that number would be without Gordon.

If he's not going to start on a regular basis this season, then yes, he's basically a flop. I'll give it a bit more time, but if he doesn't break into the team as a regular before the end of the season, then it has been a massive waste of money relative to our allowed spending power. Unfortunately that hurts 100x times more for us than what it would for any of the "big six". Maybe we would still get the fee back in that scenario (atleast close), but we are paying some hefty wages over here.

I thought he was crazy good at time in the last world cup. Atleast in terms of output, scoring 8 in a single World Cup and a hat trick in the final is wild. Ever since that I haven't really been all that impressed. Currently I'd rather have Haaland in my team, despite Mbappe being better in the build up. I wonder though, Mbappe himself has stated that he wants to play LW. Maybe he's just better there? Did he not play LW for France in that World Cup?

Miss the start of last season where both Gordon and Trippier was a huge threat offensively, one from each side..

I agree, I've noticed the same. We go for an early goal, and miss our chances. Leave ourselves exposed in the process, and the opponent scores theirs. Steve Bruce would call it "naive". (sorry, couldn't help myself) Tbh we've also conceded a lot of big chances that the opponents have missed. So it's probably just a case of being more exposed when pushing for that lead.

Isak is a streaky player, and as you say, several of the best strikers are. Those types of players that can win you a game on their own when they are in form. Haaland has had atleast 3 of these bad patches in the 2 and a half seasons he's been here. But when he's in form, he's breaking records.

Prior to this season Isak was on par with his xG for us, which is quite good relative to other strikers. This season he has underperformed his xG quite a bit more percentage wise. Not many strikes overperform xG by a meaningful margin, though. Even Wilson has underperformed his xG for us. Haaland has actually underperformed his xG by 6 goals in the last 2 seasons. A bit off topic, but I sometimes get surprised about how he misses some really big chances. He's just extremely good at being at the right place at the right time, and I think he overperforms xG when he plays in a more direct system like he did at Dortmund.

Atleast he's better than Gerrard.. Not the highest of bars though.

Here comes the usual Wilson and Isak injury swapping.

We need to stop making it difficult for ourselves in the first half. I'm tired of watching us chase a comeback in most games.

I think the real problem this season is that we very often concede the first goal. Statistics time. In 8 league games we've conceded first. We've scored first in 3 of them. One ended 0-0. We've been down by a goal at half time in 7 out of 12 (2 down vs Fulham). We've been in the lead 3 times (won all 3 by 1 goal). Historically under Howe our gameplan has worked best when we've taken the lead in the first half, and then punish the opponent when they push for an equalizer. We've had none of the bigger wins that we used to have. I think part of it is missing chances in the first half, then conceding simple goals, and the rest of the game gets really affected by that. Whereas if we score early it's a different game. In a way this season is a bit different in that we've keept the lead by not conceding more rather than scoring lots of goals. Also we've actually bounced back from a losing in the second half in 4 out of 7 games (taking 8 points from those).

Indeed, but I doubt we'll hear footballers calling them tourist club after the game, even if it's true haha.