verlaine1979

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.

http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/financial-fair-play-explained.php suggests that for clubs with a wage bill of £60m or more, an increase of £4m + any additional commercial revenue + player trading profit is permitted. Over the last few seasons we've had consistently large profits in our player trading, and over the summer we saw probably the biggest single leap in commercial revenue in our history through the new kit and sponsorship deals. That suggests we could've increased our wage bill quite substantially if we'd wanted to.

He wont end up at Liverpool if the media love-in continues. Liverpool have taken players from us who were well thought of, but not considered among the best in the league at the time of the purchase - hidden gems rather than the crown jewels. He'd either have to drop off in form considerably (which would increase our chances of holding on to him) or Liverpool would have to break their record signing by lot more than their owners seem comfortable with.

If he spends all season getting mentions on MOTD and articles in the press, no one will blink about paying a Stones-esque amount for him, as he'll have been anointed as officially worth-the-money.

Austin, Redmond, Tadic, Davis has been the starting attacking four (not that Davis's role is strictly attacking in this formation) in 8 out of 12 PL games this season. In most of the others there's only been one player difference (Long or Jrod subbing in for Tadic or Austin mostly).

We looked scared in possession and can't have kept the ball for more than a string of five passes many times during the match. I didn't expect us to go toe to toe with Liverpool, but you could almost count on one hand the number of times we managed to move the ball out of our own half (clearances aside), let alone the number of times we actually reached the final third.

Our decision making on the break is a joke sometimes.

Settle, petal - it was (mostly) a joke.

Anyone who isn't Northern Irish.