JEToon

When you start to be gutted about how excited fans get when a player plays well because you want to win arguments on the Internet you need to get out and about and touch grass.

He’s just a big massive loveable problem solver. He will sit on and box out a teams creative player, he will help in the press, he will sit next to a team mate in trouble and solve that The sort of “left” thing he does as it isn’t “wing” work is where he excels, going and fixing things. I’d rather he wasn’t the first body in the minefield of relying on your touch and pass in midfield ala Bruno, but when he’s second man in picking up on the scraps of that, that’s fine That big doing a shift on the left thing though, that’s his place, that’s where he excels

I had expected us to look high energy this season, to have a bit more yards and legs than other top teams in the league given we don’t have Europe. A bit like a Rodgers lite version of the Liverpool side who made a big title push, when yes, they had a really World Class player in Suarez but also ran the arse off leggy looking sides, we haven’t looked that a lot to me and that’s disappointed me, I haven’t enjoyed a lot of our start to the season. The energy hasn’t looked swung in our favour as much as I’d hoped. We have looked a lot more high energy this week, we’ve altered bits, rotated well, game managed well and looked to have lot more purpose, that’s great, so much credit to Eddie. A few more fit is helping, the ability to alter and change game to game, inject the right pace, legs, ball winners, ball players will be big for us, Eddie nailed the relevant selection for each game this week.

He’s a great squad player with a tactical purpose in certain games. In games when we likely have less of the ball or require an agressive press like the last two, he’s got “something” he’s fine to live at this level. In games when we dominate the ball, yes we likely need a better “football” player but he has a purpose he’s a squad player who the manager generally knows how to use and when. I was annoyed when I read Longstaff was starting over Sandro, Eddie nailed it though, fair play to him.

Gave away blatantly tactical fouls about 26 times just dragging and grabbing all over the place, a couple of fouls in absurdly quick succession without a yellow…and what GeordieDazzler said

He done so much well but he is a gnarly wee sod as well I had slight concerns early when Arsenal looked like they’d channel a lot in the air on him for Havertz to go and play on him given the height advantage but he quickly made them reconsider that.

So much of it was just wrong but the Sandro yellow was absurd. He had barely even been on the pitch, there was no context to his yellow v his multiple points at fouls Partey had made.

A really fantastic performance does anyone happen to know why a group was kicked out the Millburn, looked to be Arsenal fans, only saw them being taken out rather than what kicked it all off

mention of his recovery pace not being there is pretty odd to me, he is a fantastic athlete.

Still in a rut Still don't have one of the best managers in the league and still have issues with their squad, he will be chasing his tail for a while and likely fall shot of expectations for a while.

"Callum is doing okay, he’s building his load again. There was no real injury but just a feeling in his body that he couldn’t push as hard as he wanted. We’ll see how he is but probably with the two-week gap it's best to leave it." It must be torture that. I am aware the default of some will be to say it is cowardice from him but I don't buy that from his personality personally, I think he has always seemed like someone who enjoys playing for the club and will know how massive playing is for his next contract and value, it's a shame how his time with us is playing out.

‘Yes, it’s good news on Gabriel,’ Arteta said at his pre-match press conference on Friday morning. ‘We have a training session today. If he’s able to do that he’ll be in the squad. ‘Riccy [Calafiori] and Martin [Odegaard] are out, definitely. With Ben [White] we don’t know yet. He could not train so let’s see what happens.’ I think with Gabriel playing you have to start Burn

Calvert Lewin feels like he is a direct replacement for parts of Wilson that have been a hand break to us rather than the good bits I would expect, and hope, interest from us in him has massively changed as the evidence of his career has changed.

The absolute boat load of money he makes likely helps him get over it but Adarabioyo, could have been a really big player, regular starter and a known name to his fan base, instead he is just one of about 345 players and a lad half his fan base likely barely even know. There has to be moments he regrets that

35 million well spent

Were the cabins around the stadium still open last night? I plan on getting the lad a hat on Saturday and can't be arsed with the shop

Even if Odegaard does play, and I would say it is still very much open to question if he does, it is tough to see him being given 90 and more likely a last 30 minutes. One of the, loads of, positives of yesterday is that a few will be coming off the bench with confidence, be it Longstaff or Willock chucked at the game late, or if a non-starter Barnes, a form impact from the bench should be there for us.

I would expect, given how lethal they are from set plays it is pretty inevitable Burn starts.

This isn’t just Eddie exclusive, more to do with the general excuse making being made. I would like us to have a manager who can coach, manage and adapt to what is in the here and now rather than waiting on transfer windows, because to me, that’s not sustainable, and I think Eddie does do a lot of that, he is a good coach, but this constant return to a rigid style which isn't really working, I am not sold on that part. The best coaches do evolve, Pep for instance, while having excellent players, and that is important, has also often lost some of those excellent players during the course of the season and adapted and evolved his tactical approach to account for that, it hasn’t stayed rigid. He has had to change to account for what he has, and then get the best from that, that is tactical evolution. City could in theory have just flogged their side into the ground in recent years and whinged till the next window, but they have changed approach and got the best out of what has always been a quite small in numbers squad I think it is a far point to say Eddie hasn’t really made much effort to alter much tactically or evolve from a quite rigid system RW for instance, is a problem, yet the alterations and amendments made to account for that have always seemed pretty minimal. The midfield hasn’t really functioned well for a while, yet little appears to have been done to adapt to and evolve that If we sign a RW in January and they struggle, don’t settle well etc I don’t think, well wait till next summer and sign another is really going to work, a manager does need to adapt and evolve and account for what they have.

Burn has already more than washed the face of his fee in all honesty, he was brought in to help us stay stable and stay in the league and since been a key part of a side who made the CL, more than solid business in the context of fees that kick about in the league these days, we can't just have a squad packed with young sellable players, the squad needs a bit of profile and identity.

I can’t imagine either Burn or Longstaff are on absurdly massive wage relative to their use/the league. They likely help us slightly when it comes to the wage bill being steady, reliable, home grown players who are of use rather than us having to overspend on HG players for the sake of the squad.

surely by default nigh on every team has to be coached to be possession based to some level, otherwise you end up with the Brighton game when you have a load of the ball, but look like you don't really know what to do with it. it's a bit deluded to think you can just get to press all the time, during games you are going to end up playing teams who don't actually want to be pressed or care if they are being pressed, you do need a form of quality when you have the ball, and that has been one of our biggest issues this season, and the idea that is solely down to the players isn't an idea I personally agree with, we have a lot of good football players there is a lot of copy cat coaching in the league, if teams find out a flaw in a team others will typically copy it and expose it

I had expected us to look a lot more drilled and more energetic given our schedule this season. I could understand an element of getting by last season, a lot of the work load was new to Howe and something different to deal with, but this season we are back to a schedule of play he is used to.

If that’s the solution to making an Eddie Howe style of play work, Howe is a problem.

One of the wins of missing out on Europe was going to be a fresher, more rested, more tactically drilled side who would have a slight edge in games and be invested in Cups. Any end of season assessment of Eddie will include cups, this is a really big game to us.