Tommok

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Yeah he always looks a threat and puts loads of effort in too. I'd love to know what Slot really thinks of him and why he isn't keen to play him more

Yeah same. Was pretty chilled before the game and even when they scored I was still convinced we'd win it. But yeah didn't take long to get properly wound up and Oliver was a big part of that.

There was way too much of this in general and the CB's passing to each other too much as well. Mentioned in another thread. Konate (who generally played pretty well) seemed to have way too much of the ball yesterday and that slowed so much of our play down to walking pace (literally). Wirtz being an option for Grav or occasionally taking the ball off the defence/keeper directly himself would have made so much of our play more attacking and forward moving.

I agree. Wish we'd bought a big strong DM to do more of the dirty work in midfield and protect him - so Wirtz can just be totally focussed on tricksy attacking stuff/assisting and scoring. Little bit lopsided to have spent so much money on attacking talent and full backs but we've still only got one DM in the first team squad really.

Yep. That's precisely why we bought Wirtz. Passing the ball forward/running forward with the ball instead of around at the back all the time (and just hoping the oppo will suddenly open up and leave a space for us) would also help. About 40 of them were pissy, floaty balls into the box

Yeah Mac and Salah deffo need to be dropped and I think he needs to give Chiesa a run in the side - either in place of Mo or maybe on the left to rotate with Gakpo. Wirtz needs to play in the number 10 role and be given a decent chance to bed in, even if he continues to have a few missteps, he's surely bound to come good and has already shown glimpses of what he can do. We need him feeding the forwards. We certainly had more than enough good chances to win fairly comfortably (in terms of the scoreline at least). Gakpo simply must score that header and maybe at least one of the three chances that he hit the post with. But like a lot of the early games this season we wouldn't have deserved to win really. Slot's shift to a calmer build up approach reaped rewards last season, but this constant passing the ball around the back 4 for ages is doing my head in - it went to another level yesterday. Konate (who generally played OK) saw far too much of the ball yesterday and he just walks forward with it rather than driving forward with any pace and then generally passes it square or backwards. There's slow and patient build-up to create spaces and there's just slow. We're knocking it around at the back even in injury time when we're losing, it's maddening. I also thought we'd seen the end of the floaty passes into the box when Hendo left but we're back to that regularly now - they so rarely work.

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he's been Utd's best player so far

We get the next goal and we'll go on to beat them.

The gulf in quality between our starting line-up (and bench) and theirs is quite something. Should be battering these.

...and for Mo to find his shooting boots too. He does generally love a goal against these..

I like Morgan Rogers at Villa. He's going to get a decent move soon you'd think. Hope he doesn't go to one of our main rivals.

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