verlaine1979

Really enjoying all his driving runs tonight too.

Someone else was suggesting a similar formation (only their reference point was Barcelona rather than Liverpool). Think we have the front three to play this kind of formation, but not the midfield. You need at least one or preferably two in the midfield three who are comfortable bringing the ball to the edge of the box, otherwise the front three spend the game complete isolated, or end up falling back so deep that they have to beat several defenders to get back into goal scoring positions.

Did we really switch to 4-2-3-1 on Sunday? Mostly it looked like we were still trying to play 4-3-3, but whoever was meant to be playing as the right hand of the front three (Boufal while he was on, presumably) just decided to spend more time in the middle than out wide.

Neither of them make a lot of runs on the ball - according to WhoScored, Romeu makes twice as many dribbles as either Davis or JWP, and based on watching them all, I'm surprised the delta isn't higher. Davis will run into space on the break when it's clearly open ahead of him, but he rarely looks to take on opponents and surge past people into the space beyond them.

Boufal pinging in a world class strike and Boro missing an open goal don't really paper over the cracks in our attacking play that much. That said, when Boufal popped up in the middle second half, it was hard not to imagine how good we could look with a front four of Tadic, Boufal, Redmond - JRod playing in our old 4-2-3-1.

Wasn't Fischer regarded as the new Eriksen at one point? Presumably taking over as #10 from Gaston today.

4 for Morgan, 2 for Cork, 3 for Wanyama in the league in Koeman's first season. Our central midfielders haven't been especially prolific at any point since we've returned. Taking the position as a whole, it usually accounts for around 8 goals over the course of a season. This season, our central midfield has contributed a single league goal so far, suggesting that if we're lucky and round up, we might see a total of 3 by the end of the season.

I'm not talking about formations, but I'm pretty sure I've been complaining about our midfield playing high possession, low-threat football since Poch's last season in charge. We haven't really had any goals from the middle since Morgan left, while for better or worse, Davis is as central to the midfield as he's ever been, with all the hard work and caution that entails. Last night we created almost nothing until we started playing with both CBs joining in up front, and we've hardly been creating boatloads of gilt-edged chances over the course of the last ten games or so. I'm not sure I see a whole lot different between this season and last in terms of midfield play, but our play in the final third is very different without Mane's unpredictability and Pelle's physical presence (even though his flicks rarely came off).

Oh, please.

Teams with this few goals in them are never safe.

Once again, no movement, no one carrying the ball through midfield, and no real chances. Is getting Cedric to boom one in from the wing really our only idea in attack?

True, though we won't have Mane this year to basically win the second half of the season for us by himself

I've thought for a couple of seasons that we're weak in transition. Romeu is more likely to drive forward from midfield than any of our other midfielders (Hoj does sometimes, though I suspect VVD makes more runs towards the opposition penalty area than most of our midfield in the course of a game). Because our midfield prefer to pass rather than run, their movement also suffers - for a team that passes an awful lot, we play very few one-twos, because its not in most of our midfield's nature to keep running forward after laying off, but rather than retreat back to space in order to guarantee the high percentage retention pass. No movement & no midfielders backing up the striker in the box = no (or very few) goals.

Problem is, all our midfielders play safety first football. I'd say in at least 3/4 of the games he starts, Romeu is actually the most progressive of our midfielders in his passing and running, despite also being the player with the most defensive responsibility.

We're on target to score 35 league goals this season if we maintain current form (and since we haven't looked like spanking anyone since the WH and Burnley games, there's no guarantee our scoring rate wont actually get worse instead of getting better.) We created three decent chances today and took none of them, but failed to lay a glove on either Liverpool or Chelsea, and only sneaked one against City with a gift. Likewise we struggled to create against Hull and failed to press our advantage against Everton. Some will say we just need a clinical striker, while I think the problem lies in the speed and bravery of our build up, but surely either way, nobody can look at 35 goals and feel confident that there's no chance we'll get sucked into a scrap at the bottom end of the table?

Not scoring mid-table numbers of goals though. 13 goals in 14 games equates to 35 over the course of the season. That has a distinctly dicey feel to it, particularly as we haven't looked remotely like putting three past anyone since those West Ham and Burnley games.

We've managed a solitary shot on target against a defence that has been shambolic over the past month or two. You don't think there's anything wrong with this performance aside from a mistake from Forster?

Our build up is so slow the fullback (who almost always ends up with the ball) is rarely overlapping as they arrived in position about five passes ago and are standing waiting for the ball to be popped out to them for a cross. When they do cross there's really only Austin to aim at, and even slow lumbering CBs are happy to deal with that all day. Boufal the only player who shows any bravery on the ball, but as Palace seem to have figured this out, he's quickly surrounded.

Agree, surely Hojbjerg's best game (skying a few shots aside) - drove forward from central midfield in a way that neither Davis nor Clasie have done over the past few league games. Even JWP looked forward a bit more than usual, and can blame one of his misses on a world class save this time to go with the standard-issue woeful finish that accounted for the other chance. Sims was quick and fearless, and played a few nicely angled passes in addition to the out and out wing play that will probably get most of the attention. Austin did well, but should've been subbed a good ten minutes before he was, as we had no out ball for most of the latter stages. Redmond the only real negative - I like him and think he has good technique, but his decision making is generally quite poor, as if he feels a bit weighed down by the role he's being asked to play.

Indeed - the key pass stat ignores whether the subsequent shot speculatively ballooned over from 35 yards, or immediately crashed into a wall of defenders as it was always doomed to. Chances, Key Passes and related stats have proven particularly unhelpful in assessing our performances this year. Ostensibly we're among the most attacking sides in the league in terms of shots & chances, but aside from Burnley, we haven't squandered a huge number of gilt-edged scoring opportunities in any game. We've taken a lot of shots this season, but a lot of them have been in frustration against defenses well set up to block them (i.e. not really a 'chance' at all). Without any indication of chance quality, you get absurd situations where Redmond appears to be operating at approximately the same level as the league's most dangerous attacker.

At the moment it feels more pertinent to wonder which of the four we'll score in.

Huh? According to Swiss Ramble's most recent article about our accounts, the Vibrac loan was for about £14m. Total debt in the club is much higher, but the vast majority is owed directly to the owner.

I'm not trolling. I'd genuinely like to see our two most creative/skillful players on the field at the same time. That said, I agree that a switch to 4-2-3-1 would seem work better with both in the team rather than 4-4-2 diamond. If you really want to keep Davis in the side, feel free to swap him with Hojbjerg, but I think Hoj moves with the ball better and is physically better suited to partnering Romeu in the middle.

Additional commercial and transfer revenue was just under £30m (£20.8m transfer profit, +£5m extra from Virgin Media, £4m extra from Under Armour) + £4m of allowed increases, plus whatever wages we freed up when Pelle, Mane & Ramirez left (conservatively another £5m per season). So that's a hypothetical £750k per week that could be distributed in new wages. Obviously some of that money will have been spent elsewhere improving other aspects of the club, but I doubt we got anywhere near that kind of weekly wage increase, so it seems unlikely that FFP wage rules held us back on recruitment.

Play Boufal instead of Davis as the right hand central midfielder. More likely to run, pick a pass and shoot than SD, and on the evidence of his tracking back and tackling against Liverpool, not sure we'd lose anything in terms of defensive harrying.