It was bloody awful either way! God knows how he watches that and thinks 'yeah, let's give it another go'

And Brentford

Congratulations mate, loved the last one.

Could’ve been killed…

It got worse 🤦‍♂️

🤞🤞🤞

Glad too see the back of Bayindir but not the ideal conditions to make your debut…

As a very foolish man once said…
"Playing performance doesn't really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business."

He has a point about the media and how the constant negativity creates an almost impossible environment for players to thrive. Feels a bit rich though coming from a bloke who has spent the past 11 months blaming all of his own deficiencies on those same players.

Yeah, having 5 defenders and being incredibly dull to watch would be little easier to swallow if we’re weren’t shipping crap goals and chances constantly.

Nice one, I’ll give that a watch. It does feel like it often gets taken out of context to justify stuff that we can see is bollocks. Doesn’t help that Utd seem to be so far behind the curve on this stuff.

I do think there’s a tendency to look at the data and completely ignore what you can see. The amount of times he talks about missed chances in a game and I’m thinking ‘did i nod off through that bit?’. To be fair, there’s every chance.

Agreed, so much of it is game state. The only time we did that from a losing position was when City switched off for the last 10 mins knowing the game was won. Also the Sesko goal (3x shots) and the penalties massively skew the XG.

Sick of hearing about how great our XG is without any mention of context. We've got a manger now pointing to a game we lost 0-1 at home, where we created sod all as an example of how his system works. It's bizarre.

Made the same point about Coutinho earlier, even if it didn’t work instantly it would at least feel like a genuine rebuild.

I’m sure they did but knew how poor the optics would be if it looked like a club decision. Wouldn’t be overly surprised if it happened in Jan if they thought they could get a decent midfielder (or two) in.

Spelling! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Felt like our potential ‘Coutunho moment’ 🤷‍♂️

Agreed mate. Can’t be arsed with the whole cycle again. The only way it has any chance of changing is if the club prioritise rebuilding the midfield over everything else and properly utilise what we have. We’ve spent over a decade re-spraying a car with no engine!

I REALLY hope he turns it around and I’m taking shite but I just can’t see it.

We/he can’t change that much and that’s exactly why LFC passed on him and they had a really good side (🤢). Unfortunately we don’t have the money or the time for the rebuild that his system requires. It also makes it harder to utilise the academy when they play a completely different style.

Fingers crossed he works out and develops but it’s another example of poor planning. The wing backs are vital to his system and we haven’t got one on either side that’s good enough (yet).

I might well be wrong but I thought he’d played more games at full-back in Italy. 🤷‍♂️ I’m just not convinced his final ball will ever be good enough for a player that (if the system works) would be one an our main creative outlets.

Think you’re missing my point. I like Dorgu and think he could be a decent full-back but he’s nowhere near good enough on the ball to be used the he is currently.

Not convinced that’s enough. Bruno feels like a luxury in that position regardless of who he’s paired with.

They will be because the players I mentioned have zero end product. Dorgu in the derby being a prime example.

The lack of any joined up thinking throughout the club is comical - so much for best in class. We’ve now got a situation where we’re relying on two bang average fullbacks with no end product for much of our chance creation.

Agree on that. Thought they could’ve pulled the plug this summer and brought in 2 midfielders. My other worry in terms of creativity is that the system won’t be effective until we have specialist wing-backs and that sets us back at least another 12 months.

At least we can agree on ETH! I think the issue is that the midfield set-up is nullifying our most creative player.

I wouldn’t want to defend ETH because I thought he was just as bad if not worse, but you could argue Brentford have lost their best players since then and we have spend another boat load of cash. Either way, neither are anywhere near acceptable.