Checko

Dear God imagine the medical bills though

Rent them out to kids parties to beat PSR.

Let's face it, whether you rate him as a player or not, everyone loves Jacob Murphy. When he retires we should hire him to the important backroom position of Head of Being Jacob Murphy.

Had a look at points for 5th place in the last 10 years, from most recent to 10 years ago it's: 66, 67, 69, 66, 62, 70, 70, 75, 66, 64 So I'd say 66-70 points would be pretty typical.

I think the thing that really counted against him was that he was nowhere near the ball, so clearly a deliberate foul, but he got him with the studs. That said it looks like he was just trying to do an initial trip and then his foot got dragged onto the top of the Wolves player's foot. I agree I think a red's harsh there.

Puts Burnley's efforts to shame.

I gues the key thing would be is he reckless or using excessive force? "Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off" - https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct

Yeah I feel the overall standard of the league, particularly the midtable teams, is getting better and better.

We had a 2v2 tbf but when Burn went to ground and didn't win it Hall had to fully commit to him. At the end of the day it's very difficult to completely stop people putting crosses into the box from deep and it was a good cross to a totally unmarked player in the middle of the 6 yard box. The lack of marking was the main issue to me. I think Gordon staying higher up is tactical personally, we do that quite a lot with him.

Also I should say I really rate Tino and every defender's going to have moments like this, but I think those were a couple of moments to learn from.

I'd say for defending you get goalside, you don't stand behind the attacker and give him a free run at the ball, particularly one in the middle of the six yard box. For the offside, I agree he played offside well. But he was following the guy's run and then slowed for a moment to wave for offside and let the guy get away. Absolutely no reason to stop there, VAR will check offside anyway, he should just follow the run as he has the recovery pace to get back. If he misjudges it in future which is easy to do that could cost. Not a good habit there IMO.

Yeah, looked to me that because Burn was out of play Schar went across to take his man at the near post but neither Tino or Murphy moved across one so left him completely unmarked. Whether he could have won against a big fuckoff centre back is another thing, but he could have meade the header harder. We had a marker for each of their guys, Tino and Murphy just didn't get goalside. For their offside goal as well, Tino played him offside fine, but he slows down to wave for offside for a second, he shouldn't be doing that, just letting the guy go clear he has the pace to keep up with anyone.

Bear in mind we then need to spend money to replace him though and it leaves us with only one CB in their 20s.

Ice baths in wheelie bins deserves to be publicly mocked tbf.

Yeah he played on the left of a 3 for Atlanta in MLS, then for us under Rafa with Rondon CF and Perez right. Then Maxi joined in the Summer and he took the LW spot IIRC. I agree, I always thought he was better on the left where he can shoot and cross. Then he had his hot run on the right so I thought maybe not. But overall I would prefer him on the left I think. Certainly against a low block where his main give and go game really doesn't have the space to work.

Hopefully the Bournemouth game was our Villa game from a couple of years ago where everyone was just crap on the same day. This is a game where we need to do them. Over and over again.

Fuck me absolutely dreadful performance. Kept giving it away at every opportunity. Still can't pass out from the back and no out ball if we need to go direct. Everything rushed and lacking in composure. They were excellent to be fair: physical, pressed hard and fouled and shithoused their way when they needed to plenty of pace and movement on the ball. We've been getting the run of the green recently, hopefully today's just a blip, but hard to take any positives from that.

Has to be said, we are so, so shit at passing out of a press from the back. Howe needs to work out how to get us to do that because he's never managed it so far. Plus generally a lot of individual sloppiness (partly from their pressure to be fair). Lot of people just haven't played well.

OMG double pivot to play out from the back against a press! Finally!

Always thought Kluivert's looked dangerous when I've seen him too. If we lose they're only actually a point behind us, they're doing really well right now!

Can definitely see Howe hanging out in a hot tub with Stormzy, and wouldn't surprise me in the least if Pardew turned up and decided to join them uninvited.

He's also been unsustainably clinical this year. 10 non-penalty goals from 4.2 non penalty xG! Previous years he's underperformed so there's no consistent trend of him being super clinical. Looks like Brentford fans say he used to be a bit wasteful in front of goal and has got more clinical, which is consistent with the stats. Question is will he continue to be clinical going forward? He seems to consistently get about 9.5 range for expected goals (including penalties) and 8.5 for expected assists. That's pretty productive, especially for a team like Brentford. Brentford fans love him though, from their forum they seem to be resigned to him leaving this summer with a lot saying he's their favourite ever player for them. He's apparently a top person as well. My guess is you'd be looking at a fee closer to 60 million than 50 so who knows if we could even afford him should be want to go for him.

When I've seen him (which admittedly is not much) he's struck me as a very good player, but not necessarily a really elite player, I haven't seen that Olise/Guler level of classiness in his game for example. Yet Brentford would quite rightly charge elite player money for him. That's my issue really. He's clearly effective, PL proven, good injury record, can cover LW and striker if needed. I'm sure he'd be a good to very good, low-risk signing and we really can't afford to flop on buys. But it would be a big chunk of cash though and the main issue would be could we invest that big chunk of cash elsewhere and get more for it? Ultimately though he looks like a kickass pirate so I'd be all in.

Should do tbf, would be a bit of a mad system to not take into account whether there's a goalkeeper in front of the striker or not: "Opta’s xG model [...] The model uses several variables from before, and up to, the exact moment the shot was taken. It evaluates how over 20 variables affect the likelihood of a goal being scored. Some of the most important factors are listed below: Distance to the goal. Angle to the goal. Goalkeeper position, giving us information on the likelihood that they’re able to make a save. [...]" https://theanalyst.com/2023/08/what-is-expected-goals-xg xG is meant to measure how many goals were likely to be scored from the shots that were taken, as far as I understand it. It doesn't say who played better [though it can imply it] because you could be crap and get gifted a couple of gilt edge chances with a poor back pass, dumb penalty etc that boosts the xG. Similarly you can carve a team open 5 times and each time the striker's a trimmed toenail short of putting a cross in a empty net, but no xG as no shot. xG is useful, but it has its limitations. I think it's most useful for evaluating how clinical players are over a long period of time. It's overly obessing with xG & thinking it's the be all and end all that's for nonces.

Karius just played one league game didn't he? Plus the cup final, but this was just PL.