surf

Formation is an issue. I'm struggling to see how we fit Grav, Macca, Dom and Wirtz in the team at the same time. The only way it works is with Wirtz as left winger, but does he have the pace and does it suit him? I guess the answer is we don't and the best 3 play. If Dom doenst play we look lightweight and Grav also looks an instant starter, so it's between Wirtz (our 100m signing) and Macca (top class last season). There's no ideal fit and that's something we're struggling with.

We're not winning the league this season. Let's just consider it a transition season. Play the players in their proper positions, play the new lads, give them time to get fit, adjust & gel. It's going to painful for a while, but hopefully things will click and we'll kick off after Christmas. Bradley & Kerkez are poor this season, but they were good last season so they're better than they're showing. Same with Macca and Konate, they don't look fully fit. We also need to find a formation that gets the most out of Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike, we spent big money on them and the talent shouldnt go to waste.

Salah needs dropping, start him from the bench.

i'd get ekitike on for salah and play him from the right

Back to last years formation then. I hope we see fewer mistakes from the midfield three and just see more of the forwards. The front three have been anonymous this season.

When you think of it, VAR is just a bunch of men looking at replays on tv screens isn't it. And then they have a list of things they look at and a "process" in which they look at it. But sometimes they're only looking at one or two frames in the whole incident and fail to see the big picture. That's when they're too focussed on 1 thing, the process fails and the wrong decision is made. What we really need to improve it is to add VART: the VAR Review Tribunal. This is a huddle of female referees drinking tea and watching the men go through the VAR process and picking up on any errors. This should be pretty successful, cause if anyone knows the mistakes that men make, it's women. We really just need to add VARTs.

Yeah, Gerrard would have been our best right back if we played him there.

i'm still not sure this game happened, it was probably generated by AI

Have we had anyone snide since Suarez? We're too nice.

Wirtz is definitely putting players in good positions, those players havent made much use of those situations yet. I'm sure they will when they start anticipating Wirtz's balls. I'm still expecting a lot of assists from him this season and that will make up for the lack of pace. In the meantime, he does need to improve on keeping hold of the ball cause he's been losing it unnecessarily in bad positions. Bulk up a bit and make keeping-possession a target.

Yeah that happened quite a few times. They had Forlan and Djemba-Djema and still won 5 league titles after that.

hmmm 3-4-3 ------------- ali -------------- ----- konate -- grav (libero) van dijk --- --------- Dom -- macca -- frimpong -- ------------------ kerkez ---------- salah --- wirtz --------- --------------- isak ---------------- (it's still s***)

It would be less of a deal if we were unlucky or met great teams, but we've played badly against poor to average opponents.

Grav and Dom need to play, it's a choice of Jones, Macca or Wirtz for the third spot.

The other options are: - Wirtz with 2 men behind him. This appears to be what he was bought for, but it's not working as our midfield is too lightweight and getting overrun. Just shows how important Dom was last season. - Wirtz as a LW: not his ideal role and doesn't really have the pace - Don't play Wirtz

So you agree with Hassony

Massive holes?

He was a rock last year, he can’t suddenly be s***. I have no idea what’s up with him. Virgil has also lost a yard of pace, doest look the player he was 2 years ago.

How mad would it be to stick Wirtz at 9 ad a deep lying forward in the Bobby role and have 2 of Isak/Salah/Ekitike/Gakpo as the wider forwards? That will allow for Grav/Macca and Dom as a midfield 3. Alternatively he’s playing in Doms position from last year, but we’re missing physicality in midfield. Or he’s playing at LW with the same 3 man midfield. We spent a bucketload of money but can’t fit him in nicely. He’s not the upgrade on Dom we hoped he would be. At this point it looks like the money would have been better spent to replace Diaz, on a pacey LW to make something happen down the left.

We needed to replace trent, nunez, jota We chose to replace diaz & get a new LB Doesn't feel like too many on paper.

heitinga's not doing too well either, getting sacked soon

lets hope we get 2 mins out of that

it's a continuation of number of awful performances, like the team doesnt know what it wants to be

last 5 games(ish)

we don't look like we're winning the league again this season