verlaine1979

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.

We definitely look like one of the three worst teams in the league on the basis of having watched the likes of Fulham, Villa and Leeds recently.

Has anyone ever tried to play long ball to a 5'9 target man who can only win and control the ball with his chest?

When clubs in the mix around us are hiring managers with UEFA cup winning pedigree and we're about to gamble on someone who got Luton to 8th in the Championship by lumping it up to the big man, you do have to wonder if it's time for cool heads to prevail and have a quick rethink.

It's heartening to know that the club have been looking at him closely (apparently) but I'm curious how much they can have learned when his Luton side apparently play type of football so dissimilar to ours (and that of any other team to be recently successful in the PL now that Burnley finally dropped). His league position to budget ratio must be amazing, but that doesn't strike me as a metric likely to transfer accurately at the elite level of the game.