goodrobotusses

Found out Graham gave an interview to the Echo and was asked about Keita, and said his injury problems were down to coming from 34-game Bundesliga seasons and not physically adapting to the intensity of the PL plus multiple competitions, and that his poor performances were down to being asked to play more conservatively in our midfield, with less freedom to take risks with the ball than he was afforded at Leipzig: The bits in bold certainly raised my eyebrows. If only we'd altered a league and CL-winning system to accommodate Keita's lack of work ethic and desire to go free jazz in midfield.

Lijnders apparently wrote in his book that Keita was the perfect sub because he could dribble easily around tired opponents. Talk about damning with faint praise.

You're only allowed to communicate in superlatives on the internet. It's the most annoying thing about it. Keita was bobbins in the context of what was expected, though. And a warning against trusting data exclusively during recruitment. Ian Graham in his book doesn't seem to have noticed he wasn't very good for us, and for all I know his stats while at LFC might still have been good. But whatever the intangibles are a player needs to make it at the top, Keita didn't have them.

Still assume Wirtz will come good, but the Bundesliga isn't as strong a barometer of top-level ability as assumed. Some continue their trajectory because they're freaks, like Haaland and Bellingham. Others are Keita, Sancho and Timo Werner. Gittens was one of Dortmund's best players. Has he even played for Chelsea yet?

Looking at a couple of clips, seems to fit the old model of being a multifunctional forward. Looks like he could play across the front line, scores, assists, can dribble a bit, without looking mind-blowing at anything. Kind of in the Jota vein. His record over the last couple of seasons looks very good, but at a much lower level than the PL. Prediction: goes to a mid-ranking PL team, does well, and we then pay quadruple the price for him in two seasons.

If Olise is really a gettable target and long-term Salah replacement, we're gonna need someone very quick on the left. Our lack of pace has become a real problem.

Years of high intensity football from a young age. He's probably physically older in terms of miles on the clock than his actual age would suggest.

Think the combination of losing him, and Mac Allister's fitness/form falling off a cliff, go a long way to explaining our season. TAA's distribution got us up the pitch and into dangerous positions quickly, and Mac is the only midfielder we have capable of controlling the tempo of a game. Mac Allister's recent shipping out into the No.10 role seems to suggest Slot has realised that, for whatever physical reason, Mac cannot currently cover the space off the ball in a deeper midfield role. So in combination with playing a narrow midfield we've helped patch up a defensive weakness, but our play on the ball has become even more turgid.

Pronation is when the foot turns inward towards the other foot. I have to wear running shoes with soles that offer more stability because otherwise my right foot pronates a little and tends to kick the inside of my left ankle when I run.

Would have been interested to see the reaction had the club not pursued the deal because they thought him missing one pre-season was reason enough to pull the plug. Sure the transfer thread would have been a font of measured reflection. Although maybe the club should have also known that Micky Longlegs would break his leg mid-December.

Agreed. He did everything he could to get here. If he does pre-season at NUFC the deal probably doesn’t happen. Missing pre-season is a real thing and probably more so for a player with a history of muscle injuries.

That he might miss pre-season again.

Ran the ball out of play with his first involvement, not a shock after ages injured, but was solid enough after that. Hope he can find his feet and give us an option for the rest of the season. We need his pace and he seems a good lad.

Agreed. There’s just no way after the sort of collapse we’ve had this season we can snap our fingers and start playing scintillating, winning football again. From the low ebb we had reached, we have needed to grind our way first to results to get back up the table, and then hopefully the performances will come. They might not, and perhaps results start slipping again, and if that happens Slot will eventually pay for it with his job. But the reaction on here yesterday was just weird, as if people were disappointed we’d won after playing badly because it moved us further away from our goal of getting rid of the manager and not closer to where we need to be in the league.

I’m kind of hoping we win every game like this for the rest of the season and win the league in doing so. Gonna be a wild party.

Helps that Wirtz is willing to play simple balls through to him when he runs unmarked toward the byline, rather than opting for the Gakpo Shinblaster Special.

Three points, just get up the table. We can discuss the rest later.

Have you ever considered speaking to someone?

Jamie Jackson at the Graun, who has been a bit of a United mouthpiece, reckons Semenyo prefers a move to us over them: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/dec/19/antoine-semenyo-january-target-liverpool-manchester-united-manchester-city

My hometown team Colwyn Bay moved out of the English non-leagues into the Welsh pyramid a few seasons back, but they’d be my team if LFC ceased to be a thing. I’ve tried giving a s*** about teams here in Germany but I honestly just can’t do it. I find German football quite charmless on the whole and just don’t have enough of an emotional connection to anything here. The closest I’ve gotten here around Berlin is Babelsberg in nearby Potsdam, who play in the regional leagues, but that’s mostly because I like the area.

We played some really good football when Kenny took over from Hodgson. Made the following season of endless crosses more frustrating.

He’s worse on the ball than Ibou.

I don’t think anyone thinks we are, but thanks for the update.

By this stage, maybe second. But baby steps. We’ve been terrible. Let’s try to get our average points per game above two and build from there. We’re on 2ppg over the last four PL games. If we average that until the end of the season, we’ll finish on 70 points. An average 2.5ppg from this point on gets us 81 points.

A reference to a past kit. Didn’t see that one coming. Can’t wait to sit down and watch the next franchise reboot in that bad boy. Think if (if) we manage to play to 70% of our capacity until the end of the season, we’ll finish third. Villa will drop off because they’re not actually all that good and Chelsea have a Club World Cup-sponsored collapse in the post (which is also what probably hands the title to Arsenal over City).