Squad & tactics (2025/26)

[Myleftboot]

I quite like Ramsey and willock in the midfield 3. Gives us legs.

[kenlau88210]

It is great to have good squad depth if we want to play in Europe year in year out. We can pick players based on their form 

[stozo]

12 hours ago, 54 said:

With Ramsey coming into his own and performing really well of late, and how good Miley has been when he's on the pitch, when everyone is fit, what would people say is our starting midfield three? Bruno - Tonali - Joelinton still? Ramsey - Bruno - Joelinton? Bruno - Tonali - Ramsey?

 

I don't think Miley gets into the three just yet, but i'd have no qualms when he does play. I think you need to play Joelinton personally, he's the battering ram that keeps everything together, Bruno is Bruno, so its between Tonali and Ramsey, and i'm undecided about which way i'd go.

I think the beauty of the midfield options are you can play a different three for different types of games. Against a Big 6 team, Joelinton is absolutely in the team. At home against a Bournemouth I'd be starting Bruno-Tonali-Miley or Bruno-Tonali-Ramsey as I think that gives you a more technical midfield arguably more adept at cutting through teams. I actually think the bigger problem is we need to find left/right balance in our midfield. Bruno, Miley, Ramsey and Willock all look better on the right. Joelinton is still the only one who looks best in the left midfield position. 

Edit: I suspect the above (along with general quality issues) is why Willock will be sold in the summer, allowing us to buy a CM who favours the left hand side.

 

 

Edited March 15 by stozo

[kingxlnc]

1 hour ago, stozo said:

I think the beauty of the midfield options are you can play a different three for different types of games. Against a Big 6 team, Joelinton is absolutely in the team. At home against a Bournemouth I'd be starting Bruno-Tonali-Miley or Bruno-Tonali-Ramsey as I think that gives you a more technical midfield arguably more adept at cutting through teams. I actually think the bigger problem is we need to find left/right balance in our midfield. Bruno, Miley, Ramsey and Willock all look better on the right. Joelinton is still the only one who looks best in the left midfield position. 

Edit: I suspect the above (along with general quality issues) is why Willock will be sold in the summer, allowing us to buy a CM who favours the left hand side.

 

 

 

Is that lamine camera a pure DM? That would be interesting with him at 6 and then Bruno Tonali Miley Ramsey or Joelinton as the 8’s 

[robbo_11]

With the constant speculation about player departures is this other clubs/media trying to destabilise us, clubs sensing blood with us looking likely to miss out on the UCL or are people going down the no smoke with fire route?

 

Personally I could see Livramento and Tonali going for relatively serious money, but the Bruno G news around Man United seems a bit far fetched. I do think there is a bit of triggering related to last summer and the Isak situation as can feel myself getting frustrated with the constant news leaking with half of our first XI out the door in the eyes of the media. However even when we had UCL lined up I don't think the calibre of our targets really made a difference as you saw with the players we missed out on moving to a Big 6 side and the financial package this enabled. 

 

The reality is I couldn't see them sanctioning Tino, Thiaw, Hall, Tonali, Bruno G and Gordon leaving in the window as we need to do some work anyway with expected departures of Ramsdale, Krafth, Trippier, Schar and Willock. Whatever happens it feels like a potential sliding doors moment this summer and that 0-1 defeat against Everton whilst still securing the UCL a life time ago!

[The Prophet]

In terms of first teamers, could see Tino and Tonali going. Think everybody else stays for the time being.

[Myleftboot]

3 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

In terms of first teamers, could see Tino and Tonali going. Think everybody else stays for the time being.

Not so sure about Bruno. 🤔 he’s not getting any younger and I’m sure he’s the type of person that wants to win things at the highest level.

[The Prophet]

3 minutes ago, Myleftboot said:

Not so sure about Bruno. 🤔 he’s not getting any younger and I’m sure he’s the type of person that wants to win things at the highest level.

 

If Tonali leaves then he can't really.  He doesn't strike me as the kind to do an Isak either, I think he genuinely loves the club.

[Deuce]

See we’re doing that obnoxious thing again where every one of our players is suddenly “shite,” rather than considering them in the context of the team playing poorly as a whole.

 

As long as the team itself continues to struggle, I’ll mostly be judging our guys by attitude and effort.

[Antipode23]

Just now, Deuce said:

See we’re doing that obnoxious thing again where every one of our players is suddenly “shite,” rather than considering them in the context of the team playing poorly as a whole.

 

As long as the team itself continues to struggle, I’ll mostly be judging our guys by attitude and effort.

 

Agree completely. I'm getting called out for having nothing positive to say around here, but even I think the way people start piling in on individual players when the whole team is in crisis is pretty unfair and unreasonable.

[Beren]

16 minutes ago, Deuce said:

See we’re doing that obnoxious thing again where every one of our players is suddenly “shite,” rather than considering them in the context of the team playing poorly as a whole.

 

As long as the team itself continues to struggle, I’ll mostly be judging our guys by attitude and effort.

 

Definitely this. I think you and me are in lockstep Deuce, but I do think best case scenario we're probably in for a bit of a rebuild personnel wise next year or two.

[stozo]

Can we just please draw a game? Five league games in the past 2 months (Everton, Brentford, Sunderland, Palace and today) where we've gone all in for a winner and ended up losing the game. I just feel like we're chasing something that isn't there in these games and end up leaving ourselves exposed. After all the pressure Howe has been under, I'd have bitten your hand off for 1-1 today - but the minute we equalised the only thing any player seemed to think about was how we could get a winner. And because we don't have much craft, that chasing the winner ends up just being us being overly aggressive in the press, playing too high up the pitch and making risky decisions with the ball. It's a mentality that has delivered some great stuff for us in recent years, by my god it's killing us at the moment. 

[Guillaume]

On 01/02/2026 at 01:30, Guillaume said:

Can't help but think this season is showing how many players short of a top team we are, perhaps a top striker would have papered over the cracks (again).

 

Pope & Ramsdale - not sure either is good enough, feels like we need a upgrade in goal

 

Trippier - great servant but legs getting older

Tino - fantastic but rarely fit

 

Schar, Botman, Thiaw, Burn - individually hard to knock them tbf, but we are conceding far more goals than you feel we should. 

Burn and Schar are also on the old side.

 

Hall fantastic, no backup option though

 

Midfielders have been full of underwhelming performances, I thought Tonali would be the best MF in the league this season. 

 

Gordon, Barnes, Elanga, Murphy - Barnes the most dangerous, Murphy looks the best on the right and we all expected him to be the backup. Elanga looking a waste of money, Gordon underwhelms more than me impresses.

 

Walt, Wissa - are either going to be what we need?

 

Think most people hoped 4 or 5 top signings in the summer would push us on, they didn't happen in hindsight and now we go from superb performances to the worst we've seen in 5 years.

 

Looks again like we need 5 or 6 top signings to keep progressing.

 

 

 

Looks like it's possibly worse than this now 🤦🏻

[Deuce]

It’s odd that we don’t really draw matches. 6 draws each of the last 3 seasons (so far), good enough for bottom or near to it.

 

Obviously we’ve done well to convert 1 point into 3 at times, but we also just lose a lot of matches.

[Ronson333]

For the rest of the season I hope Eddie changes it up. No more flat midfield 3, play Bruno and Tonali together with big Nick as number 10.

[HawK]

He's never changing the system, has said as much previously in interviews.

 

If he remains for next season we'll probably be fine because his system works when we're not in Europe.

 

The decision is, are you happy with being a European yo-yo club. It's tough because we always want to be better than we are, but being a club that every other season makes Europe is a world away from we are as a club normally in the PL.

[The Prophet]

I'm going to sound like a dick here, but do folk honestly believe the tactics are as simple as the formation that Sky stick up before the game? It's often spoken about like they do.

[Geordie Ahmed]

1 hour ago, HawK said:

He's never changing the system, has said as much previously in interviews.

 

If he remains for next season we'll probably be fine because his system works when we're not in Europe.

 

The decision is, are you happy with being a European yo-yo club. It's tough because we always want to be better than we are, but being a club that every other season makes Europe is a world away from we are as a club normally in the PL.

 

If by system you mean formation then I don't believe he has said that

 

This whole plan A that he talks about sticking to (which btw Pep and Klopp have said similar before) is about the principles and how he generally wants his team to approach it, which is why he gave the example of not wanting possession for the sake of it nor just wanting to sit back and defend

 

He can maintain that principle but change the formation, which he has done before, whether that is with going 5 at the back or with trying Woltemade in the 10 and also having Ramsey LW instead of a more typical winger 

[TRon]

Would love to see someone who could carry the ball through the middle instead of us just funnelling everything out wide and winging crosses in.

 

Ramsey threatened to do it in a couple of games, but he looks like he doesn't really believe in his own ability. 

 

Bruno is probably as close as we've got at the moment. 

[Mikky]

2 minutes ago, TRon said:

Would love to see someone who could carry the ball through the middle instead of us just funnelling everything out wide and winging crosses in.

 

Ramsey threatened to do it in a couple of games, but he looks like he doesn't really believe in his own ability. 

 

Bruno is probably as close as we've got at the moment. 

This is very true - you also need 2 inverted wingers and full backs that can overlap of offer an attacking threat 

 

Our approach is literally side to side - the 2 LWs come inside and shoot - the 2 on the right go to the touchline - it’s so obvious a tactic - rinse and repeat - there’s literally no connection between midfield and forwards - everyone is doing their own stuff 

[Geordie_once_removed]

At the moment I'd be happy for us to at least try to get Woltemade on the pitch somewhere in the final 3rd and to never see us kick it to touch from a kick off ever again.

[1881]

On 18/04/2026 at 23:00, stozo said:

Can we just please draw a game? Five league games in the past 2 months (Everton, Brentford, Sunderland, Palace and today) where we've gone all in for a winner and ended up losing the game. I just feel like we're chasing something that isn't there in these games and end up leaving ourselves exposed. After all the pressure Howe has been under, I'd have bitten your hand off for 1-1 today - but the minute we equalised the only thing any player seemed to think about was how we could get a winner. And because we don't have much craft, that chasing the winner ends up just being us being overly aggressive in the press, playing too high up the pitch and making risky decisions with the ball. It's a mentality that has delivered some great stuff for us in recent years, by my god it's killing us at the moment. 

think this has been a huge factor this season and, particularly now we need to concentrate on avoiding defeat rather than chasing wins

[Ilovetoon8788]

On 20/03/2026 at 05:48, The Prophet said:

 

If Tonali leaves then he can't really.  He doesn't strike me as the kind to do an Isak either, I think he genuinely loves the club.

i doubt so though. he's probably already spoken to agent to get him a new club if rumors are true.

 

but other than bruno & joelinton, everybody else can go. can't be arsed. alot of them are athletes and heart the size of pea.

[andycap]

So who do we think will be on the way out in the summer?

ramsdale

Trippier

Krafth

Tino

Targett

Gordon

Willock

Tonali

Wissa

Murphy

That's ten replacements gonna be a busy summer. 😂

Hopefully we have adapted and can do more than one deal at a time. 

[Lush Vlad]

If Howe stays. Surely the club will be looking to replace the utterly useless set piece coach and perhaps also look to freshen up the coaching staff in general?