NewportHatter

Yeah, noticed that within about 2 minutes of the start. I know we have been much more aggressive away from home in recent weeks (certainly in comparison with games like Chelsea and Villa, early on in the season). But even so, having our back three of Bell, Osho and Mengi, not only go 1v1 on Murphy, Gordon and Almiron, but to back ourselves to do so, a good 10-15 yards inside your half most of the time, is a crazy decision that I was remarking at the time (not crazy as in bad but just crazy as in madcap genius that could go either way). I think several things hurt that in the last 30 mins. We were absolutely out on our feet trying to play that way on the back of doing twice earlier in the week v Brighton & against Everton in the Cup, because we literally don't have the squad depth to rest in the Cup. That lack of squad depth meant it made it difficult to maintain that with the changes. As much as we love Pelly and Woodrow, there is a huge drop-off when they come on. The other thing is that there has been only 2 times this season that a striker has actually caused our back three (no matter who the personnel) problems as a physical presence. They are Callum Wilson...and Callum Wilson (as a caveat, Haaland was injured when we played them). Him doing that again on a couple of occasions gradually forced that defensive line back. Also, thinking about why Howe went for Burn for you guys. I'll be honest, I was shocked as well seeing as Chieo Ogbene is one of, if not the quickest player in the league (Van der Ven went quicker than him at the weekend but he was the record holder before that). However, if he'd seen the Brighton game back, Estupinan got roasted so badly by Ogbene that De Zerbi yanked him at half-time only for Tariq Lamptey to get an equally horrid time. Also, take into consideration that (relative to our open-play output) we are one of the best attacking set-piece teams in the division. Therefore, I wondered if he figured that if neither Burn nor Livramento could live with Ogbene for pace, then it'd be better to play Burn to try and help counteract our set-piece threat. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened this season as Arsenal dropped Zinchenko to play Jakub Kiwior at LB. (I know Burn has been a regular starter for you but it would certainly come into the equation if he thought about bringing Tino in to deal with Ogbene). Not saying it was the right call (although Tino was MIA when Ogbene almost scored late on), but without hindsight, certainly an understandable one from that POV. The bigger issue was, as highlighted on MoTD that if you were going to play Burn, he needed more protection than he got.