Eddie Howe

[The College Dropout]

1 hour ago, KDT said:

Our central midfield options apart from Bruno all lack the ability to put their foot on the ball. Miley looks the best of the others in that area but obviously a massive ask for a 17 year old to do that in their first league start. It will be interesting to see if Eddie looks at the option of playing both Bruno & Miley at some point.

Our whole team really. If not Bruno, we start looking at our RB or CB, which is not a good sign.

 

I was banging on about a Maddison-type player for ages. I'll switch it up a littleand call for a Cole Palmer-type player instead. Different player but same function. Get a foot on it and play it into areas we can attack/score from.

[The College Dropout]

14 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

I mentioned this in the match thread, but one thing that I've noticed about Liverpool in the recent years is just how many games most of their key players have been able to play in all tournaments without getting burnt out or getting injured. Their key players (Fabinho, Hendo, Mane, Trent, Salah, van Dijk, Robertson etc) consistenly played around 3000 minutes per season in the league while also going deep in the cup and Champions League. Salah played more than 4200 minutes last season in all competitions for Liverpool, and he was still performing at a high level towards the end.

 

They had this one season where their 3 best central defenders were our injured at the same time, but other than that they just never really had this problem. If you look at their bench from 2-3 years back, it was nothing like the bench of Man City for example, so the didn't actually rotate that much. My point is, how can we have so much trouble with fatigue and injuries when Liverpool have been able to play all their key players in so many games for years, and they also had an intensive style? Added games matters, but we can't just blame it on the added games as if this was bound to happen. I wonder if it's just bad luck or if something else is at play. Probably a mix of bad luck and some other things.

 

 

 

Great post. How did Liverpool's possession stats compare to ours?

 

I remember when they beat us at SJP when they were going for the quadruple. They were so much more athletic than us that day despite playing a ton of must-win matches and us being in good form. They could've won 3 or 4 nil. Everyone was talking about inhalers because it absolutely didn't make sense to me. 

 

Mo Salah is built different. He must still be on the inhalers.

[The Prophet]

35 minutes ago, 80 said:

Questions are certainly fair. Always knew this season was going to be a big ask and, presumably, a learning process for Eddie as well as the players.

 

One of the big questions is whether we should, or even can, continue with our all action pressing approach for every single match. The advantage that certain other teams over us when taking this approach i.e. Liverpool is they have much greater quality in their depth - not only in terms of their B team, but their academy when shit really hits the fan as it has here. Being able to call up a player who A) is probably going to be Premier League quality eventually and B) has been schooled in your mentality since they were 8 is a big advantage over one who joined Mike Ashley's academy because he wasn't good enough for Sunderland and B) will probably finish his career at South Shields. Once we get ours up to speed, which will take years, that will help us be more adventurous.

 

You have a number of quality teams who successfully press with intensity without loads of rotation.

 

Our problems were initially brought about by bad luck. Tonali banned for gambling, Barnes breaks his foot accelerating, Anderson (and later Burn) hurts his back falling, Murphy dislocated his shoulder, Botman has a knee problem that's proving difficult to diagnose, Targett rips his hamstring jumping for a ball.

 

The problem is that as the pool of players has reduced, the tiredness and fatigue-related injuries start to set in as you have to play the same half-fit players three times a week.

 

We were fortunate with injuries last season and we've been incredibly unfortunate with them this term.  It happens.

[The College Dropout]

We are high-press + relatively low possession. That's a massive difference to us and other teams.

[huss9]

we're a work in progress, man.

gonna take a few more trnsfer windows now that everyone's changed the rules.

 

[Erikse]

10 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

We are high-press + relatively low possession. That's a massive difference to us and other teams.

 

Our possession this season hasn't been amazing, but also not really that bad in the league.

 

 

Not that it really proves anything, because there can be different reasons for that. For example facing low blocks. I think our possession was worse last season. Edit: last season we were 5th at 52%.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Erikse

[Kanji]

53% v the teams we played this season is pretty wild.  

[AyeDubbleYoo]

14 minutes ago, huss9 said:

we're a work in progress, man.

gonna take a few more trnsfer windows now that everyone's changed the rules.

 

You only have to look at our personnel to see why we can’t play more possession. We just don’t have the people to do it, especially with the injuries. 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by AyeDubbleYoo

[TwoForJoy]

43 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

I mentioned this in the match thread, but one thing that I've noticed about Liverpool in the recent years is just how many games most of their key players have been able to play in all tournaments without getting burnt out or getting injured. Their key players (Fabinho, Hendo, Mane, Trent, Salah, van Dijk, Robertson etc) consistenly played around 3000 minutes per season in the league while also going deep in the cup and Champions League. Salah played more than 4200 minutes last season in all competitions for Liverpool, and he was still performing at a high level towards the end.

 

They had this one season where their 3 best central defenders were our injured at the same time, but other than that they just never really had this problem. If you look at their bench from 2-3 years back, it was nothing like the bench of Man City for example, so the didn't actually rotate that much. My point is, how can we have so much trouble with fatigue and injuries when Liverpool have been able to play all their key players in so many games for years, and they also had an intensive style? Added games matters, but we can't just blame it on the added games as if this was bound to happen. I wonder if it's just bad luck or if something else is at play. Probably a mix of bad luck and some other things.

 

 

 

Didn't Klopp have them all on Salbutamol to enhance endurance?

[The College Dropout]

7 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Our possession this season hasn't been amazing, but also not really that bad in the league.

 

 

Not that it really proves anything, because there can be different reasons for that. For example facing low blocks. I think our possession was worse last season. Edit: last season we were 5th at 52%.

 

 

 

Interesting.

 

Villa & Liverpool have deeper squads and less intense European campaigns. Ignoring Man U because they've been bad. They've also suffered from playing in the CL.

[Jaqen]

Whilst a lot was made of our 'time wasting' last year we mainly used the stoppages to get a bit of a breather and recharge rather than run the clock down. Sides like City, Liverpool etc can press like mad but then comfortably hold the ball for long periods of time to get a similar result. 

 

We have a couple too many players who just aren't great in possession. Purely on eye test we give the ball away way more cheaply compared to any of the other top 6 sides. I think that's a big reason we spent big on Tonali, he has the physicality and engine to press well but with a lot more quality on the ball than our other CMs bar Bruno. I think give it a few more windows and we'll have a similar quality and profile of player all over the pitch. 

[Mahoneys Tache]

We’ve had problems with injuries for as long as I can remember. Not that I paid much attention to it in the 70’s and 80’s but I recall theories about the climate and the state of training pitches being bandied about 20 years ago as explanations for the amount of soft tissue injuries we were getting. 

[Maineblue]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

Our whole team really. If not Bruno, we start looking at our RB or CB, which is not a good sign.

 

I was banging on about a Maddison-type player for ages. I'll switch it up a littleand call for a Cole Palmer-type player instead. Different player but same function. Get a foot on it and play it into areas we can attack/score from.

Wow you rate Cole Palmer that highly, I think City got £30m pounds too much for him myself.

[The College Dropout]

1 minute ago, Maineblue said:

Wow you rate Cole Palmer that highly, I think City got £30m pounds too much for him myself.

You sold him for £40m. You think he's worth £10m?

 

He looks a great playmaker to me. Small sample size but:

 

 

Just keeps play going forward. Gets on the ball loads, passes it forward loads, carries it forward loads, creates for others.

[andyc35i]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

You sold him for £40m. You think he's worth £10m?

 

He looks a great playmaker to me. Small sample size but:

 

 

Just keeps play going forward. Gets on the ball loads, passes it forward loads, carries it forward loads, creates for others.

Yeah I would have had here in an instant. I think he’s proving to be really good value right now 

[Maineblue]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

You sold him for £40m. You think he's worth £10m?

 

He looks a great playmaker to me. Small sample size but:

 

 

Just keeps play going forward. Gets on the ball loads, passes it forward loads, carries it forward loads, creates for others.

He hardly got game time at City, no way was he worth £45m for which we sold him for, I’d put him in the £15m price category, yes he played ok yesterday but one swallow doesn’t make a summer.

[Troll]

7 minutes ago, Maineblue said:

He hardly got game time at City, no way was he worth £45m for which we sold him for, I’d put him in the £15m price category, yes he played ok yesterday but one swallow doesn’t make a summer.

 

 

Not getting a game at City doesn't mean much.    Have you seen the rest of your team?  

[Menace]

Coincidentally I think Palmer's been one of Chelsea's better players 

[Maineblue]

4 minutes ago, Troll said:

 

 

Not getting a game at City doesn't mean much.    Have you seen the rest of your team?  

If other clubs want to pay £40 or £50m for our academy prospects form a queue, all I’m saying is City wasn’t going to turn down that fee whatever’s been spoken today by people in the media and rival fans.

[Wullie]

£15m doesn't even buy you a reserve full back now man.

[Troll]

Reminder that Chris Wood cost £25m.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

Cole Palmer was easy worth 40m. Think Chelsea got a bargain, personally. I'd have spunked that to have him here in a heartbeat.

[Upthemags]

Tbf if you throw a billion at transfers you'd expect one of them to end up being really good

[The College Dropout]

Maine blue seems to dislike the lad.  
 

Watched last nights game and highlights of a few other Chelsea games. The lad looks class.  
 

The best academys sell youngsters that can’t get minutes for a lot of money all the time. We are going to spend Palmer money on Lewis Hall. I’m a bit annoyed we got Hall instead of Palmer. 

[Wullie]

Hall is over 2 years younger than Palmer like.