verlaine1979

For several seasons now I've had the feeling when we try to pass and move that we're playing at the very limits of our capabilities. I can't remember the last time I saw us move the ball with the simple fluidity that Brighton were able to summon against us - maybe that Newcastle win immediately after the pandemic restart? Everything is so frantic with us. But maybe it's just the case that our limitations are well known. Clubs understand that we have no capacity to move the ball through the middle, so we'll always look to the fullbacks on the touchline as soon as we can, where there is much less space and less margin for error.

All of which means "we spent the past two years desperately seeking an investor to buy this rapidly depreciating asset off the Chinese national that bought it, but that's been incredibly hard as other investment opportunities have massively outperformed sport during the pandemic. Now the owner has accepted he has to take a 100m haircut on his investment, and Serbia's only billionaire has decided to take a punt on it." The idea that Semmens was fending off the wrong kind of billionaires for two years until he found one that would do his bidding is just fantasy.

Seen a few people saying Semmens is responsible for SR and hand-picked them. This is clearly a nonsense. As with when Gao came along, it's an almost total certainty that SR were the top bidder from a very, very short list of interested parties. In both cases, I wouldn't be surprised if they were the only candidates to make a solid offer. Semmens is an employee, not a king-maker.

Yeah, I should've said, some of the kids we recruited this summer have a few of those qualities. But they should be garlanding a solid squad,not our last hope to stay up. My mind goes back to our attempts to recruit Sangare. He's an absolute unit in midfield, with pace and power from what I've seen. How did Diallo end up as our back up after that transfer fell through? Did we suddenly decide we didn't need presence in the middle any more?

Though on a related note, it's criminal how little athleticism, pace and power we've added to the squad over the past few years. This must be the weakest, smallest, slowest squad in the league. And it's not like any of them have great technique to compensate. Look at Elyounoussi - he's just mediocre across every characteristic.

It took Poch two games to give us an identity distinct from how we'd played under Adkins. That's what's so weird about the Jones appointment. His only reputation was for scrappy over-performance with the tools at hand. Not a sniff about him being a tactical innovator or someone with a particular footballing vision and intelligence. And that's what this squad needs. Someone to literally re- teach them the basics of movement and passing, as they seem to have forgotten them completely. We play like statues waiting for the pass. Brighton on the other hand were constantly in motion, buzzing around making space for what were relatively simple passes.

Doesn't it actually suggest that we concede a lot more goals than we should? The chart isn't very clear, but looks like our expected goals for is about 1 per game and our expected goals against is about 1.35. That would equate to 15 for and about 20 against, when the reality is we've scored 13 but let in 27.

He's definitely hit a few good through balls in his time here. But aside from that freak game against Chelsea, his hold up play this season hasn't been great. If the ball isn't right for him to control it on his chest, he's not winning it any other way. And his finishing is dire. Pointless, but I do wish we weren't a club reduced to strategizing how to get the best out of Che Adams.

Sadlly think we missed the boat on selling JWP. I'd guess his value is back down to about 30m tops now. Just not quick or strong enough to run a game from defensive midfield, and spending so long in a highly conservative position has pretty much robbed him of any desire to move the ball between the lines.

Lucky not to be 2 down.

Hah until I saw the team sheet, I'd forgotten just how sick I am of this squad.

A new manager making a big step up into a difficult position will often lean on the club's senior players, assuming that nobody ever got sacked for picking the old pros. If Jones brings that kind of conservatism it isn't likely to end well, since we know exactly what our senior players are capable of and it isn't enough. He needs to turn the full backs, Edozie, Aribo, Mara + A.N. Other into a dynamic attack full of movement and creativity. Good luck with that.

One of the best things about the US coverage has been that the commentators don't feel the need to fill every second with chat. If nothing much is happening, they just let you watch that bit in silence.

Since when do buying clubs agree terms with players before agreeing terms with the selling club? Isn't it contractually the other way around?

What's Welsh for "we're not still here"?

As soon as move breaks down, the midfield play the safe square ball every time, even when Foden is in space on the wing. They just don't trust themselves to play a pass that beats the defender. That mini break by Rashford just now was a great example - Rice could've easily bent a pass in to Foden, but chose just to lay it off to Henderson who then waited for Walker to catch up and it broke down with the Welsh defense reset.

It seems pretty obvious Gakpo wasn't convinced about signing for us or Leeds. Didn't Van Gaal tell him to aim higher? Seems he was right. He's going to wind up a starter for United or a similar club come January.

Group stage of tournament football, innit.

If I'm still here in 2026 one of the venues is less than 30 mins away - would be good to finally get to a WC game in person.

I live in California. You can tell how little interest there is by how few major brands have any sort of advertising tie in on TV. It's mostly seen as a sport for teenage girls and immigrants.

France seem very strong from front to back, and Mbappe looks a cut above anyone else I've seen so far. His acceleration from standing over 5-10 yards is just phenomenal. He can make space against pretty much anyone.

I did a double take at that too. Finishing was always Walcott's weakness. It's the reason Wenger never trusted him to take over from Henry. You always got the feeling that he found the corner by accident rather than placement.

100% signing players with a proven track record of top-level mediocrity s what got us into this mess. That said, whether our scouting network is up to the task of finding low experience, high quality is another matter.

Olise and Eze are comfortably better than anything we've got. As for Zaha, we haven't got anyone fit to lace his boots. The gulf in attacking quality is absolutely stark.

100%. Can't be many who expected us to be second bottom, second worst goal difference and averaging less than a goal a game at this point in the season. Alarming, and we will have to absolutely transform as a team relative to our fellow strugglers to have a chance to get out of it. At the moment we genuinely look like the second worst team in the league.