gecko

I'm looking forward to a repeat of the Leeds game... everyone a bit nervous beforehand over their apparent threat. Quickly calmed by an absolute domination in the first half. It's about time we had a nice comfortable win, where we actually score some of our half-chances like everyone else has done against us so far this season. Holgate gives me the jitters though - here's hoping that he and THB have been working/training together all week given we already knew Bedders would be out.

Sorry to resurrect a post on this clown, but spotted his Masterclass on that freak City result we had - can't say I'm going to waste 25minutes of my time on it, but if anyone else wants to hear how he got us playing with so much front-footedness, then here you go.

I think everyone enjoys winning more than they lose. So yeah, this season's been more enjoyable (so far) than the last few in the prem. Getting our arse handed to us every week sucked. It was great being there when we actually competed well (Poch, Koeman, Puel, the beginning of Hassenhuttl) and the club as a whole seemed to have generally good plan for the future; and before we sold all our best players, and replaced them with garbage. VAR I don't miss even slightly - it's been a breath of fresh air to simply complain about a referee's decision and that be the end of it. I absolutely don't miss arguing millimetres on an offside, or whether something is "clear and obvious", or whether 4 professionals watching on 8 different screens have still somehow ballsed up an offside decision after waiting for 5 minutes make it. I'll be glad if we go back up, as that would implicitly mean that RM has these lads playing well and we may have a chance to push on with some extra finances. (jury's out for now)

It is comparable though. The audio released suggests that this was also a mistake made in good faith. At no point is there any hint that it was biased towards one team over another - nothing about the outcome is any different to a human error on the pitch; except perhaps that 4 people all made the same ballsup. Even if they weren't comparable. What's the solution? Pander to Klopp and replay it, which sets an irreversible precedent? or, do we allow VAR some grace period in-game to bring a restarted game back to rectify a mistake? Or, like all other mistakes that happen in the game, can Klopp just suck it up and put his big boy pants on like everyone else has to?

This has to be a wind-up. I could possibly see an argument for it being a "coming together" - stoke lad runs across Bedders' path, both seemingly with an eye for the ball. But the arms around his waist seem to me like it's Bedders trying to make it look that way whilst also taking the man out. If that happened to one of our strikers we'd definitely be calling that a penalty. Anyway, these bad calls tend to even themselves out over the season, so I'm sure we'll pay for it in a later match.

Yup. This is my biggest gripe with VAR + Offside. The slightest body part being offside isn't offside in my eyes, and not what the rule was originally brought in to stop. I get why the VAR system has to be so black/white about it though, but I'm getting to the point where I now think it's more enjoyable to not have it, and suffer the mistakes instead of seeing a good goal chalked off for a toe being over a line. I think the majority of people would prefer to hear the reasoning behind the decision than not hear it. At least with the audio fans might actually know why a goal was disallowed, which will lessen the anger for some, or will at least provide reasons to their arguments. Rather than no-one knowing why a seemingly good goal was chalked off and just hurling abuse at the officials. People understand that hearing it wont undo a mistake/decision against their team, but it's much easier to accept it and move on if you know the reasons why it was disallowed.

I don't know what you're all moaning about; we're top of the table, baby! https://footystats.org/england/championship/xg Basically our strikers can't finish, and keeper couldn't catch a cold. We've just been really unlucky with the results. (and this post is coming from someone who doesn't think that xG is absolute hogwash)

If only it had worked like that last season. I expected us to lose every game under NJ...

I'm absolutely confident that there is no way this RM team would have only let in 8 goals.

It was blatantly obvious from Friday night that Charles is not a CB (not a good one at any rate). If I ever see him starting there again with a fit CB sat on the bench, then Martin's completely lost my support. I reckon the majority of fans could get on board with all the keep-ball and slow build up, even if it led to regular mistakes.... as long as, it actually led to some end product for us. I'm more than happy to ship a few stupid goals if it meant we were much more capable of scoring more than the opposition. That simply isn't the case the last few games.

If you watch the way that Brighton et al manage this, it's not necessarily about the player with the ball being able to "evade" an oncoming press. But more about another team member always being available to receive the out-ball, which more often than not is a reasonably short pass. In the clip of Brighton someone shared earlier, it's pretty rare that any player actually has to skip past an opponent whilst carrying the ball. We did this really poorly against Leicester; the whole back line and the midfield were equally guilty imo. I think it's a little unfair to suggest our back line are so devoid of technical quality. We've just bought THB, someone whose just been groomed in the Pep school of passing so obviously shouldn't be complete toilet at what we're asking him to do. Similarly, Janny B/Jack Stephens who, despite everyone's historical slagging off, aren't the worst players on the ball ever. Yes, they're not the best, but are more than capable of making the short passes required as was evidenced by the passing stats that came out earlier on in the season. KWP is more than capable of receiving a ball and skipping past his man when required. Manning is the biggest question mark for me as I've not seen enough of him yet. My biggest concerns from the weekend are the first two chances in the youtube highlights. 1. For the first goal, Baz passes it to Charles, who already has no-one to distribute it to. Charles is too wide to be able to go back across the box to THB, KWP is in-field for no reason, and Smallbone is marked out of the game already slightly further up the wing. For me, the setup there is totally wrong from the start; we were already screwed after the first pass 2. For the next big chance/cock-up at the back. Charles is way off in the RB position (why?!), and eventually running back to provide an out-ball; was he out of position? if so, why did we start playing already?! Eventually though, it's the wrong pass that's chosen. Baz was free to receive, and a safer ball to Charles was still available. The distance to KWP in the centre, with two Leicester players was just stupid and caused by putting ourselves in that situation unnecessarily. 3. Loads have already mentioned it, but the over-commitment at our corners is just mad. For a team that's not exactly blessed with pace, this is going to bite us in the ass a lot if we carry on. In any event, it's up to RM to figure out what's not working and he needs to do it quickly. Another 4/5 goal drubbing and he'll have completely lost the fanbase I reckon.

I'd wager even we'd be able to break a press that glacial. Ten Haag must've been absolutely fuming at the apathy shown in that clip. The theory of drawing the press is fine by me, it should leave bigger spaces in the rest of the field to exploit. However, something really hasn't clicked yet, as I've not seen us actually exploit space like that in any of the games so far. And the whole inverted-fullback stuff seems to be doing nothing but leaving gaping holes in the defence that every other team seems more than capable of exploiting at pace. RM really does need to earn his dollar-bucks right now

There's always been a pretty good one here - albeit for the Prem: https://understat.com/league/EPL/2022 Sort it by xPTS and we would have been expected to survive. Statistically, last year we let in 10 more goals than we'd have been expected to (against the chances created, on average) - either everyone got consistently lucky (possible) or our defence + keeper are trash (probable) I personally think that everyone's overreacting for now, mostly because 5-0 sounds so bad. In reality, two of their strikes came from outside the box (one heavily deflected). Don't get me wrong the performance was still shocking, and Martin has some defending to work on for sure, as at the moment we're not really doing any. This is still a new team with massive wholesale changes and completely new playing style to boot. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while longer

Quite impressed with how flame-retardant footy shirts are these days

NY Mets are Baseball... Anyway, whether he's been given a proper chance or not, he's clearly not in the managers plans. So get him out the door asap, in the most profitable way for the club possible.

What an excellent announcement to start the day. Just need to get that striker in first, then we can just shut all our windows, right?

I don't recall anyone being particularly excited by Paintsil. Probably still reeling from the last mistake we'd bought from them... tbf though, Championship could be Onuachu's level in the English pyramid. We've not seen him yet so hard to say. I suppose we can infer from RM's decision to not play him, that he's probably still not be good enough. On the striker front, I reckon we'll see a better contribution from the attacking midfield this season anyway. Both Armstrong's, Alcaraz and Tella (and to a lesser extent Edozie) haven't exactly been shot-shy from outside the box or just inside. And we currently seem very capable of working ourselves up to that part of the pitch in the current system. Often requires a bit of good fortune for them to go in, but it feels to me like there'll be a few games this season where we'll get two/three from outside the box and others where we'll get none.

I still reckon there's a chance the Mara could come good in the future The rest of that lot can do one though, along with Lyanco of coure. 10/10 Insane window if that all happened though

I'm just glad we finally have a manager that is enacting some holistic, bluesky thinking it's actually something i quite liked about Stephens - he was one of the only CBs we have that would actually dare carry the ball up to/past the half way line dragging opposing strikers with him at times. Agreed that beating the man opens up a lot more attacking opportunities. It's usually fine as a fullback or AM given their position on the pitch, but as a CB I still think Wood's highlights suggest that he'll be prone to being caught out of position. If the rest of the "system" can compensate for that, then I'm all for it. Otherwise I suspect we'd see a lot of silly/unnecessary concessions

My thoughts on this "highlights" video though... he seems to love taking players on, running out from the back, and there were more than a few occasions where he seemed to collect the ball miles out of the position I'd expect a CB to be. All of which are pretty risky, which probably explains why the Swans shipped an enormous amount of goals last season. I suppose time will tell if he's the right one for us. Obvious perks of being known by the manager, and quick onboarding to the playing style. I can't say I know anything about him though.

oh i don't disagree; i remember him doing very little for us in his short time here so far. But somewhere along the line, prima-donna footballers got it into their heads that the contracts they've signed aren't worth the paper they're written on. Assuming he actually has downed tools, the alternative is that we keep hold of him and he may become a Gnonto @ Leeds. Is it worth sticking a 25m player in the reserves to rot on principle.... probably not imo, even if we had the financial luxury

Agreed. if those pointless arguments can find their way onto another thread somewhere, I'm sure it'll be most appreciated Anyway, on Sulemana, if he's downed tools and the 25m is legitimate. I'd say let him go. We near enough break even, and can bring in someone who actually wants to be here. Shame, as many people probably agree, he could have been awesome... maybe sneak a sell-on clause in to satisfy some on here ;-)

Sky's Transfer centre saying it's 32 upfront, but add-ons meeting the 40m valuation. I guess we'll never know the actual net value we get, especially given the Chelsea profit contract part Still, as others have said, seems pretty good business for a player who we're not certain will return to his pre-injury form especially as it's one of the few areas we're ok in, now that Manning has come in.

Pretty difficult to say that with confidence. We've not actually played any pre-season games against this year's level. Benfica were domestic champs and Champions League QF AZ Alkmaar were Europa League SF Bournemouth are PL Reading are in an absolute mess; they may have technically been Championship last year but their team this year with all the embargoes will struggle in L1 And if they're all doing preseason correctly, like we are, then the teams rotate a lot. I can't have been the only one who thought "WTF" to the starting lineup vs Bournemouth; no way does that lineup start in a competitive match. We're also a club that's had a month to adapt to a complete overhaul of system. On the whole I think we already look better than the dross we saw last year.

I think Stephens has always felt like he's got a serious mistake in him whenever he plays. I don't really like this as an argument against him... all of our CBs had the same issue. He also felt like he had a regular purple-patch in him too; he seemed to be well liked on his stint at bournemouth. What I liked about Stephens is he is the only one of our CBs that I've ever seen carry the ball to/past the half way line, and looking pretty comfortable on the ball, allowing a different distribution further forward.