Checko

The fact Dan Burn wins a far lower % of his aerial duals than Granit Xhaka is food for thought.

Voted no but only because Mourinho's not available.

He still hasn't proven himself at premier league level yet. Sticking at Burnley this year might have been a good idea for him tbh.

Four years of consistent overachieving and a few bad performances and people have their knives out. Tough being a manager. Any team can go through a bad patch. Give it time.

Fuck me, if we'd won that last game convincingly everything would be fine. We're definitely not playing well. That can happen. Didn't Man City under Pep lose 6 in a row last year or something. We've never been good as posession football under Howe when a team puts us under any kind of pressure. That's basically the only thing he hasn't managed to do. He needs to sort that out and come up with some kind of plan cause most teams can cope with our press now and without that forcing turnovers and pressure we struggle. The whole's team's kind of lacking in swagger a bit as well. Do wonder if we're trying to be a bit too cerebral sometimes and just need to worry a bit more about kicking some fucking arse. The wanky kick to the corner from the kick-off needs to go too. I understand why they do it and I'm surprised teams don't do it more in general play - it's hard to clear a deep throw in securely - but from a kick off it's basically sending the message that we're shit in posession so we need to boot it into your half.

I unironically think media studies is going to be one of the most important subjects kids should learn at school.

Dreadful game to watch like. We haven't really looked threatened apart from set pieces and all the endless long throws is quite tedious. We haven't threatened either tbh. When we get on the ball in their half we've looked alright but that's only happened about 3 times We seem to have given up on trying to pass out from the back and have settled to just booting it back to them from the goalie. We're relying on a turnover for anything to happen. Think Bruno's been good and trying to take the game on. Thiaw's been good again with a couple of nice passes. Tonali's passing was way off this half and Burn's struggling to give the ball to anyone on his own team. As manfully as he's covered at LB we desperately need someone who can use the ball there. Overall defensively pretty solid, offensively pretty flaccid. As per this year.

I am loyal...to good football.

Petition for Now tv to show Villa Bournmeouth instead of our sorry bunch of miscontrollers.

Make me a mod and I'll do it!

Seems to have become Milan's starter age 16 (2015/16 season) so the guy's been playing for top teams for a decade already!

Yeah I see Miley probably in that deeper contolling role in years to come.

Yeah, he's a big unit and always puts a lot of effort in. He's had some injuries the last couple of years that haven't helped either. We've got 6 midfielders that could play now and 2 that are clearly above the others and should start the vast majority of the time. No reason not to rotate more.

He has been very good in previous years. Joe's also one of the defensive leaders, understands the press and who to cover really well, wins a bunch of defensive headers from set pieces. Eg. vs Athletico at one point Hall went forward but we got turned over & they tried to attack the space he'd left but Joe had dropped back to cover and snuffed out the danger. You could see the defenders giving him massive applause. He's very good at that sort of stuff, which isn't as flashy but matters. Don't get me wrong I'd live to see Miley play more, and Joe get rested more to keep him fresher (though probably don't need to rest before a break). He tends to play a more tactically disciplined role now rather than just being a rampaging behemoth that he was at his best.

Out of curiosity why did you sell Ederson? He's only 32, didn't sound like he wanted to leave and I was under the impression he was meant to be really good.

Thought Joelinton had a good game last time and Burn scored, Not surprised they weren't dropped, partuclarly with Hall coming back from injury. A nice convincing PL win here would be just the ticket. Mind you I've been thinking that all seaon!

Yeah Mbeumo would have been great for us. Very good signing for them.

Happy anniversary!

To think Trafford could have been warming our bench instead.

I like it. We always seem to want to go with black and white stripes every bloody year so might as well make them interesting for once. Still hate the shade of blue on the badge.

Spinning it out till after the international break to get his wages covered for longer basically.

Yeah he's often trying to do it all by himself on the left at the moment which is hard. Yesterday was probably the worst performance I can remember from him mind, just gave the ball away relentlessly. Hopefully just a one-off shocker. I get the feeling the issue with how he plays is he always wants to do everything at top speed. Top players tend to look relaxed, like they have time on the ball and aren't in a rush. Because he's so quick he tends to try and do everything fast, fast, fast. Think he just needs to slow down a bit as his default and then he's got those gears to go up to if and when he needs them. Think Elanga has the same issue.

For me that's why Botman's so good. You don't tend to notice the best defenders that much cause they just snuff stuff out calmly before it happens. Burn's a great defender, but everything he does looks like he's at his max effort to do it. Botman does the same stuff with far less fuss, plus he's far better on the ball at CB. They're both great mind so no harm preferring either.

He is very good at centre backing. Hope Botman's over his injuries and signs a new contract cause they could be a great partnership for years.

He takes a few risks but he's fun to watch and he'll make things happen.