Folders I think some needed a little release.. it's over now. The enemy has breathed a sigh of relief. We all know this is the beginning...he who laughs last gentleman.
Anyway I've tried to cheer people up for a change..... just be happy, be proud and be excited for what's to come...... most fans would love to be in our position as a club.
No we didn’t. We lost by the same shoreline. Despite the promise, we are not further on than we were 20+ years ago:
It would appear some of us were lieing when they said all they wanted was a club that tries. We've got a club that's going to try and everything that can be won.
IMO we did and that is based on having watched all those games either being present or live on television. The score line is irrelevant to how we performed. In the 1990’s Finals the team was on a downward trend. This Final the team is on an upward trajectory. That is obvious. Given time to impact the Club at all levels the Owners have shown they want to win and we will sooner rather than later.
ASM is actually like a headless chicken aswell. He doesn’t have a footballing brain. He generally is just a player who looks good running with the ball. But has no end product. Wilson is finished. Offers nothing. Miggy has also hit a wall. I thought Karius did ok.
Miggy did improve though during the game. ASM started brightly during the first 10 minutes then he evaporated. Wilson brought nothing. Bruno had little impact other than being overly aggressive and can’t control himself leading to goals Schar should have been taken off. Clearly affected by the facial injury. Burn - bless him. Trippier did nothing but slowed the game down. Joelinton was colossal! We saw the difference with Isak coming on what a decent striker can do but a bit like ASM he seemed a bit headless - either that or our other players were not up to speed.
ASM needs support from the left back.. someone with pace on the overlap (look at how well Miggy and Tripps have done this year). I'd be tempted to try Targett and Isak together though too. Wilson is done. We should go all out to replace him with Toney now. £50m should get him. Perhaps Brentford will take some of our cast offs too. If I were Eddie I'd use the rest of the season to try out some of the players and formations of the future.
Isak coming on definitely saw an improvement but was that dien to the player or change in formation? We seem to have looked much better in 4-2-3-1 recently which happened when Isak came on. You can slot Gordon into this quite easily too
Having slept on it, still deeply disappointed. Casemiro wasn't offside, Wilson - on top of being a steaming pile of **** all game - played him onside. Karius - 6. Should've saved the deflection, of course, but given his lack of game time did produce a few decent saves. Couldn't do anything for the 2nd. Trippier - 3. Awful, all match, has been like this for months. Constantly pushing too high on Rashford, awful set pieces. Schar - 6. Should have gone off. Botman - 6. Did reasonably well. Burn - 6. Antony didn't get anything, but Burn was hopeless further forward and missed an absolute sitter. Never seen a player so big be so bad in the air. Bruno - 7. Some quality play but tried to do too much. Joelinton - 7. Usual. Longstaff - 4. Hopeless. ASM - 5. The air kick will live long in the memory. Almiron - 4. Useless. Wilson - 2. Should never start again. Isak - 7. Possibly the best player by the end. Murphy - 6. Unlucky with a great shot. Willock - 5. Didn't do much. Howe - 3. Had a reaction from the Liverpool debacle but the scoreline was the same and we ended with 61% possession and just TWO shots on target - both from the same attack. We're so 1 dimensional. Man U tweaked and evolved through the match, we were constantly looking for the one-two in the channel and I can only assume he doesn't believe in set pieces, because we are frighteningly bad at both defending and attacking them. Didn't threaten enough, and where Man U play two midfielders in a 4-2-3-1 we had no players.
Isak was direct, pacey and was able to glide past players like they were not there. He was a catalyst however the clinical edge was still missing. That was the only thing missing from our game, as it has been for a while. A change in formation is required. We need to stop relying on Almiron too. His purple streak has ended and it has become a dead end. Especially when you take into account Trippiers crossing at the moment
I'm 100% with you on this. 4-2-3-1 is still the strongest formation, unless you truly have the quality to play 4-3-3 properly. We surprised teams in the first half of the season, but we've been worked out so need to change. I actually think Isak could be better deeper, his dribbling and awareness is another level. Joelinton/Bruno holding, Gordon and maybe Willock wide.
I don't want to jump on Howe but he does not seem to have any plan rather than just tippy tap it on the right and hope a cross comes off. It worked when Almiron was having his purple patch but now it has been nullified. He needs a new way of playing. This could be down to the personnel available to him but he seems rather inflexible and his usual substitution change at 70mins and not before (save for Isak yesterday!) needs to change. ETH was able to manage the game so much better and whilst he had better players at his disposal, I do not see Howe making the same decisions he made
Agreed - Howe has to do something else and thought it was strange to leave it until the 75th/80th min to start trying to make changes but he doesn't have much on the bench bar Willock and Isak, Willock may not have been fit enough for more than 15 mins at the end of the game. Him and Isak were the only ones on the bench who you'd expect to come on and make a difference. Gordon will be an option going forwards but you've also got to look at the recruitment - letting Shelvey go without replacing him, leaving Willock - injured, Bruno - suspended, leaving Longstaff and Joelinton as the only CM's we've had recently.
Honestly, the amount of times we desperately try to do this 'move' is nuts. It's become too easy to defend against - Almiron's like Antony, just keep him on his right foot and nothing happens. And then we have nothing else. In the match, couple of times Wilson was on the ball wide and their box had SIX Man U players and NO Newcastle players!!
And as many have also said, Wood out and Gordon in - when we knew the latter was cup tied - also very, very strange. For me, Howe and the recruitment team both need to improve but it's actually the latter that's the real problem. I like Isak a lot, and Gordon's decent, but we need to be doing what Brighton do and getting 5 x £20m players rather than 2 x £50m players.
No. We don’t. Brighton is a different scale of project to what we have going on. To attract the best players you need recognisable players sometimes. We have the ffp rules to contend with and abide by and Amanda said from day 1 this was a long term project. The recruitment team can only do so much and we literally had a sub standard squad. It takes time. This ****ing crying, moaning, bitching and bed wetting needs to ****ing stop. The football being played is much better, the players are much better, the squad is much better and hopefully the defeat yesterday might cull some of these new breed fans that bitch when then things don’t go their own way.
