Erikse

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.

They could just bring in those speakers Arteta used to play You'll never walk alone in training.

Honestly, I need to check it. Can't trust twitter haha. Not sure he would say "tourist club", that would be wild. Yeah, seems like it didn't happen.

Edit: Was fake quotes

I remember a quote from last summer, which I just found now. It was from Eales after we had signed Livra, Tonali and Barnes. “We can be creative, and will always be opportunistic — if the right deal comes up at the right price we will always be open for business. I understand that’s what fans want to know." I wonder if the Barnes deal was something they saw as opportunistic, meaning they thought the player for that price was a good deal, instead of focusing mostly what position we needed to strengthen the most. I mean, in hindsight this theory sounds a bit silly, but we did after all put our money on Barnes instead of a right winger. The real reason was probably just squad depth, as we still saw big Joe as a CM and therefore thought that we had just 1 pure LW after selling Maxi. But we could have signed an RW who can cover left, and clearly Big Joe is pretty decent out wide anyways.

Personally want to be a little more patient here, I'm sceptical as usual, but overall our form has been good the past couple of weeks. Lets say we take 10 point from our next 5 (should be doable with the fixtures), that will give us a lot of confidence going into the next ones. If we see more of that performance against West Ham (or just more of those results), I think many will start to lose patience. It will probably be something in between, and then we will have the same discussions over again.

I agree that the crisis wasn't necessarily self inflicted, but when several of our players comes back for a week or two only for the same injury to reoccur (some of them twice or more), then I think Howes words means something when he talks about learning from the past on the topic of with being patient with players returning from injuries.

No, but the timing of the appointment and his purpose wasn't a coincidence either. It was definetly a response to what happened last season.

They appointed Bunce for a reason, and Howe talks about learning from the past when it comes to managing returning players. If Botman was the only mess up, why would they think that measures needed to be taken, and that lessons were there to be learned?

We saw it with Hall. Shaky start to the season, but became increasingly more condident through trust and building momentum. You also don't build relationships with teammates by sitting on the bench.

Basically the amount of key players they rely on have gotten less and less. They use to have like 9 or even 10 key players. With Rodri out they have like 3 or 4, maybe? Even Kyle Walker is looking awful and has done so for a while, and Lewis doesn't seem ready to yet. Atleast not ready to play in a struggling side.

Missed that, but not sure whether he will start atleast.

Yeah, well he came on for the last 20 (they also scored in that time), but probably didn't have a big impact.

The fairness of the financial play is through the roof.

This will probably have the effect of replacing more locals with tourists? Potensially hurting the atmosphere.

Just saw that Kovacic will be out for atleast another month, so their midfield is screwed for another 4 league games + the CL game vs Juve.

They're without Eze, Olise, Wharton and Anderson from those who played against us last time when we faced them. Should be a different game this time around..

Oh my, I completely forgot about that. I just remember that they were much better before that Arsenal game, and they seemed like their usual self until that game. That difference obviously didn't have anything to do with Rodri then.

Bringing in value was a pretty small point, but I think some of our fanbase tends to underrate our team of players a little. I think it's more than reasonable to expect atleast 7th without Europe. Finishing behind Villa with all their added games would be underperforming imo. I don't think that their squad is really that much better than ours, if it's even better in the first place. Personally I think our depth is decent aswell, it just seemed worse than what it really is last season. Most of our backups are ageing at this point, though.

And then he appoints Howe as his assistant. I think that might be the soltion.

I can just imagine the lack of atmosphere aswell, though (didn't watch today). Them being next level worse is probably a mix several smaller factors piling up on top of the existing ones, so I get your point.

They were fine before his injury. Winning every game, some of them by a margin. Beating Chelsea 0-2 away from home. A draw against Inter, but they dominated them, and Inter is currently nr. 1. After his injury they haven't had a single good game, apart from smashing Sparta Prague. Huge difference before vs after. Obviously the first few losses also leads to a loss in motivation. Their team just isn't that great without Rodri, key players are ageing.