Turkish Delight

Our forwards have one goal between them in the last 5 league games. As a team we have no style of attacking play other than reliance on individual brilliance to open games up. Right now none of them are providing that. As for Darwin it's painful to watch at the moment. For large parts this season he's looked dangerous but lacking composure in front of goal. He was a liability today. Constantly offside and the two chances he did have didn't even result in a shot which is an ongoing theme.

I put him into a bet builder to be offside twice or more and he managed at least double that. Also reckon he had our best chance of the match with the back post header first half that he chose to pass.

Frustrating game that. There are a number of things in our game that are difficult to watch and while I'm delighted we're close to the top I don't actually know what we want to be as a team. We play with zero width most games until we change system as the one we start with isn't working. For any unambitious team it's easy to defend and doesn't move them about. We appear to be a team reliant on the quality of our individuals (and set pieces) and there's no noticeable patterns of play. Our goals are generally from individual brilliance or set pieces. There was certainly no link up play of any note today or in many other games lately. There are also the same negative individual traits that are coming to the fore every game when we have the ball and are repeated constantly. Salah predictably cutting in on this left and being tackled, Nunez being caught offside and making decent chances seem like nothing, Gravenberch underhitting passes behind players, Szoboszlai belting the ball into the crowd from miles out, Trent trying the impossible relentlessly and losing the ball on 90 odd per cent of them. Without the ball we have a shape and plan but that's it. With it we're just a collection of individuals who are trying things. It needs to improve for us to have a chance of contending.

I've seen the interview and it wasn't. He gets a bit of a pass for being a kid but if he was a few years older he'd have just come across a bit cunt-ish.

I had the opposite opinion. He's entitled to think that but the best way of looking at making that comment in a tv interview is it's highlighting his inexperience and at worse it shows a lack of class. Can't imagine his team-mates thinking highly of the comment.

Haven't seen any links on it but the political piece in Turkey is complex and made me wonder a bit about this. When there was an attempted coup a few years back it started at Besiktas's stadium and Erdogan had dozens of football officials arrested. He supposedly is very nervous about mass gatherings of football fans. So much so that he bankrolled the tiny Istanbul Basaksehir who get attendances of a couple of thousand up the leagues. When one of the big Istanbul teams win the league there are millions on the streets. When Basaksehir did nobody cared. Then you read this club president is one of his MPs and the comments he makes about football violence. If he was wanting out anyway it's not much of a stretch to put a link between him punching the ref and Erdogan using it as an opportunity to clamp down further on football.

This is 100% a thing and may lead to a big tail off of interest decades down the line. I have two boys who are 11 and 9. If tickets were accessible and affordable they'd be regulars but it's near impossible. I fell off the ladder for league games when they were babies and only maintained my cup credits. If I leave the auto-cup scheme I'll lose them too and the boys have no credits at all so there's no easy way to get tickets. They've only been to one competitive game each while I was a regular from the age of 6. In terms of their interest levels my eldest was mad keen when he was little but now has a mild interest. My youngest is football mad but he's pretty talented and he's more passionate about playing. He will watch the Reds though and most other matches that are on.

We won 17 and drew 2 of our last 19 league games in 21/22 and were unlucky to lose the Champions League final. If we went out the league cup and FA cup early it's unlikely to have changed what we did in other competitions. That said the defence notably has a question on depth due to injuries which we need to manage. We don't have a league game after Arsenal in the FA cup for 2 weeks so I think we can and should go strong there. I'd expect minor rotation for West Ham between the two big league games but we rotated in this round two years ago too.

Hope he ends up with a big mouthful of the skin off the top of the milk.

I'm really rooting for the lad but his knack of making good chances not even look like chances at all tests my enthusiasm for him at times.

To be fair to the Spurs fans when they sung 'We've got our Spurs back' they knew what they were chanting about.

Had Stevie not given Martinez the weekend off before playing for Argentina I reckon they might have done. Instead they had that Everton reject Olsen flapping around the place.

Everything about Darwin's game is top class apart from the finishing. I'm not worried about him and love watching him play but for that one off the bar there was a big space in the goal to put that in and he didn't hit it because he wanted to leather it in. An inch lower and it looks spectacular but hitting it the way he did made not hitting the net more likely. He contributes enough that he's still worth his place but if he fixes the finishing he'll be world class.

Agree with all that bar the first sentence. Nunez hasn't been unlucky to keep missing sitters. He's missed them through a combination of poor technique and a desire to leather a ball when it can just be passed in the net.

My main observation today was on his passing. About 4 or 5 times he had the ball and had a simple passing option where putting the ball in front of one of our players would either create a chance or open up space in attack. Each time his played it underhit and behind the man attempting to play to feet. It was such a basic thing to get wrong so often.

Agree on all but the Gravenberch bit. At least 4 times he's had a chance to play a simple ball in front of player to put them in space in a good position. Each time he's played it slow and behind them.

If Toulouse win we'll need to still draw the last one to save having to play an extra round v Champions League dropouts in February.

I think he's generally been outstanding this season after a shaky time last year. I think his injury record in the middle part of his time here and the fact he's next to Virgil has held back the wider recognition of his ability a bit. He's a terrific player who turns up in big games. While it's 4 years back now he was comfortably the man of the match for me against Spurs in Madrid. We definitely need to tie him down for at least one more year.

Wolves fans singing the same song off the back of a 50/50 pen not going their way just dampens their message. It's not in any solidarity at all. Ironic that the two teams singing about corruption voted for that dodgy loans rule the other day too.

Iconic photo that one...

We're +3 compared to the same fixtures last season. The 4 you've mentioned plus an extra 2 points v Villa at home and -3 v Spurs away. I agree on the thought process of beating the poorer teams being a good platform for success. I'm not entirely convinced this formation will help us do that but I suppose time will tell. Of thr current bottom 12 we've had Wolves, Chelsea and Luton away so far this season and taken 5 points.

I don't think the sample size is big enough to claim that. We have 5 away wins from 12 since we made the switch. Four from ten if you ignore the two games we had to change shape in due to sendings off. We played well in 2 of those (Leeds and Leicester last season who were both as shocking as we were good). In that time the only team of note we've beaten at Anfield was Spurs who we had a bit of luck against. The jury is still out for me. I think we lack creativity playing this way and put too much onus on Trent being our source of making things happen. In the tougher away games his pass completion is around 60% which leads to the play coming back at us and in several games we've struggled to create much from open play due to our narrow formation. I'm quite happy to get proved wrong but there's still some way to go before I trust what I'm seeing on the formation front.

Soz mate.

I went bald at 18. It was an issue when I was younger as I had a bit of a baby face so it never really suited me at all. It also made me look about 15 years older. I'm in my early 40s now and reckon I've grown into it down the years. I just shave it with some clippers once a week and keep stubble on my face. I was chatting to a group of girls on a night out last week who all guessed my age as being early 30s and the last couple of girls I've dated were in their late 20s too. My mates who used to take the piss about me looking old when we were kids now all ask how I haven't aged much in the last 25 years while they add years to themselves by clinging on to their last few greying strands. There's no use trying desperately keep the look of your youth if it's now gone. if it's going then my advice is to embrace the change, shave it off and own it. Clinging on to what remains is what will age the way you look and what will turn the women off. You might look different but it's possible to be a handsome bald fucker and I wouldn't change it now even if I could.

I agree. It would just be another chance to double down on the original decision as VAR is now.