TomC

5 hours ago, CVByrne said:

I think the 2024 exits on permanent basis would be the following.

End of Loan: Lenglet and Zaniolo (possibly he signs)

Fringe players: Sanson, Chambers, Traore, Hause, Olsen, Dendoncker

Youth Players: KKH and Iroegbunam, possibly one more. 

Regular starters: Cash, Digne

I can't see us selling Cash. Whether you like him or not, part of our problem right now is that we don't have a second RB as cover and have to shift Konsa over when we leave Cash out. No matter who we sign, we still need Cash as cover.

20 minutes ago, sidcow said:

He had space. Could have moved the ball. Had absolutely no reason to take a speculative shot from half a mile away. 

Could say that of Cash's shot just now couldn't you? 

1 minute ago, 479Villan said:

Think you’ll find Michael Scott said that

Wouldn't surprise me...quotes get misattributed all the time...

Just now, sidcow said:

Why the **** is Donk shooting from there? He needs to come off. 

He didn't have any better options. Sometimes you just have to have a go. There's an old quote attributed to the ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky: 100% of the shots you don't take don't go in.

Just now, Davkaus said:

It's a 2023 PL VAR pen, but is it really a foul? Probably not, he barely touches him.

Yeah, it's a foul. He clipped him from behind when he was on the run and a threat. That's a penalty in any era.

Obviously he's not at Ollie's level (yet), but Duran can hit the ball a lot harder than he can.

I assume the poll meant this season, not next/upcoming season?

2 hours ago, TRO said:

ok.....attacking player.

It's interesting how the American use of "offense" has crept into football talk in the last decade. When i first started following English football 30+ years ago, I quickly realized that it was always "attack," never "offense."

3 hours ago, TRO said:

It might sound controversial, but I don't think John McGinn can either for slightly different reasons.....I think we need another option there, to give Dougie and Boub a rest at times.

The double pivot was enhanced when, Kamara arrived, and dougie's performance was improved......its a role, that has an impact on the rest of the teams performances.....we need cover for it, quality cover.

I don't think that's controversial at all. I, at least, agree 100%.

Deano used Dougie and McGinn in the double pivot when he used a 4-2-3-1. It didn't work. McGinn's abilities are best used further forward.

Last summer, I thought that Tielemans was signed to rotate with Doug and Kamara in the double pivot, but now he's being used further forward, too...if we're 3-box-3 in attack, it's been Doug and Tielemans on the front of the box, and Doug and Kamara on the back of the box.

We also have JJ and, when he comes back, Buendia competing for positions at the front of the box. Arguably Zaniolo too.

So yes, we need cover in the double pivot. To me, Donck in the double pivot is like Olsen is as a GK. Olsen is a competent shot blocker, but today's goalkeepers need to do more, i.e. pass the ball, especially in our system where we pass the ball around in back so much. Donck is a competent ball-winner, but his passing limitations mean he just doesn't fit our system.

The problems is, if you find another player who can win the ball and pass, i.e. another Doug or Kamara, he's a good enough player that he's going to want to start and he's going to be expensive. But the "big" clubs have been managing this sort of problem for years. That's part of us moving up in the world.

6 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Really strange that. Emery clearly doesn't want full backs carrying it down to the byline very often. They all avoid it.

I'm not sure that I agree with this. I agree that we aren't doing it, but I'm not sure that Unai wants it that way, at least on the left. Moreno did it a lot last year and was probably bought to do just that since Digne tends to cross more from deep. But Moreno hasn't played much this year and is still looking a little rusty when he does.

On the right, when we play the asymmetrical formation, it's the job of the wide forward (whether Bailey or Diaby) to get to the byline, not the right back. In that case, you're right that Unai doesn't want the right FB going there. Sometimes we don't play that way and Cash gets ordered to go forward, but it's not all the time.

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

Rubbish again today. 

So bad he was completely invisible out there.

1 minute ago, Joshie2000 said:

Looks like we sold the wrong brother, JJ played rubbish again and missed the easiest chance.

JJ has not played well since coming back, but saying we sold the wrong brother is harsh. JJ took a while to get back into the groove after his injury last year, too. He'll be OK.

4 minutes ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

Thought Diaby was much improved but then again he missed a couple of good chances, after their sending off Villa should really have scored a couple to make it comfortable.

Agreed. He finished one of his chances and did a lot of good things. He hoofed a few over but just needs to avoid getting under the ball. He's not missing left-to-right.

Told you we'd be OK.

We have 12 minutes plus stoppage time and they're down to 10 men. Yes we shouldn't be in this situation but stop being negative. We can still win this.

1 minute ago, The_Steve said:

This is a very naive Burnley team to be so attacking with 10 men. They are so easy to cut through defensively. 

What else are they going to do, sit back and accept defeat?

On 26/12/2023 at 19:07, DJBOB said:

Our inability to stay composed is part personnel, part tactical (wrong players in wrong positions), and part Unai dogmatism.

I don't think of Unai as dogmatic at all. Quite to the contrary, it's well-known that he has changed formations many times over the course of his career.

I think it's more personnel...Dendoncker just can't play the double pivot the way we need it played given his passing limitations. Unai may have been slow to recognize that about him, but I wouldn't call that dogmatism.

19 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Dendoncker was a weak point and they focused on keeping play on Diego’s side of the pitch knowing that Dendoncker can’t pass well enough to bounce it to the other side of the pitch to escape the pressure. Luiz was inexplicably terrible as well. 
 

Jacob Tanswell just backed up your point with hard data in the Athletic...if you look at the passing networks in our team, Dendoncker had a very weak passing connection with Doug (or anyone on the left side of the field.)

(I tried posting the diagram but it's too large and I don't have time to shrink it right now.)

2 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Force us to the right. Pin us against the sideline and kill our progression. 

The kept boxing us into that right corner and the diagram shows it.

He was bought as a project and is still a project.

We don't have a second experienced pure striker right now, so he's filling in. If we get one, he will be off on loan.

I know people wanted Archer to make it here, but he's two years older and hasn't exactly lit the world on fire at Sheffield Utd. He has started regularly and has three goals, only one more than Duran. Compare Duran in two years to Archer now and we may be happy with our choice.

2 hours ago, Jas10 said:

I think many of us need to realise that Unai has got this squad over performing… there isn’t a heap of quality or even form beyond our strongest 11.

In form and uninjured, we're deeper than 11.

Emi, Cash, Diego, Konsa, Mings, Digne, Pau, Moreno, Doug, McGinn, Tielemans, Buendia, Diaby, Bailey, JJ, Kamara, Watkins. That's 17 that are capable first teamers.

I'm sure that some will disagree with players in this list (Tom13 about Cash, Delphinho about Bueni) but I don't think too many would narrow that list down past 14 or 15.

Losing both Mings and Bueni for a whole season has hurt with depth, though, because that does reduce the list from 17 to 15. Then take out Tielemans, Pau, Kamara, and Cash as unavailable (Cash is out of form anyway). Then take out Diaby and JJ as out of form. Now you see why we're scraping the bottom of the barrel.

9 minutes ago, AV82 said:

Considering we played that game with our back up CBs (Lenglet and Carlos), no proper RB (Konsa), missing our best CM (Kamara), arguably no LM (Ramsey was incredibly poor) and that Douglas and McGinn unfortunately had poor games I'm starting relax a bit. 

I think we can write off today's defensive problems as a bad game.

It's the inability to score from open play that has me worried.

14 minutes ago, flashingqwerty said:

I think it's clear Zaniolo is not cut out for this league.  Lacks work ethic.

I can't fault his performance tonight given that he barely played and didn't get much service when he did.

The problem was in back.