joe_fishfish

Well. Certainly lots of things to improve on.

No Gomez seems weird. Need huge improvements from Bradley and Quansah compared to their last outing at Old Trafford.

He’s five ten, medium height if anything

Problem I have with Gakpo is that he’s six foot four and strong with it, but has games where he only ever wants it to his feet standing still. When he turns and runs forward with the ball, or runs onto it, he’s very difficult to stop, but he seems reluctant to do that half the time.

Sets him up well for coming here then.

Found this on Reddit, helps to get an idea of the fixture congestion in the run-in. For us tomorrow is massive obviously, then it’s two relatively easier games at home where we might be able to get away with our usual low-intensity shenanigans that we see all too frequently. But then after that we have a run of four consecutive aways, all tricky in their own way, with two days between each one. (Also this format makes it clearer why that West Ham game being moved to 12:30 on the Saturday is a pain in the arse.) Then if we beat Atalanta, which we should, we have yet another European away game on the Thursday after West Ham. If we get three points tomorrow, and get through that run of five consecutive aways, we are massive favourites, for me. That is a horrendous run. Do the other two have runs like that? Well, not really. From next Sunday, Arsenal have a run of four consecutive games with two days between them, but two of them are at home. If they get past Bayern, they have another run of four, but again, two are at home, and the game away at Spurs comes after a four day break. If they get through that first run of four with no injuries they will win all their league games imo. Abu Dhabi have a slightly tricky run of four starting on Tuesday against Real Madrid, but there’s an extra day’s rest for them either side of their league game, which is of course at home to Luton, a team who as well as being shite also have an injury crisis of their own to deal with. Then it’s the FA Cup semi final against Chelsea. After that they get four days rest before the fun really starts, presuming they get past Real Madrid. Starting on the 26th they have five consecutive games with two days between them, same as our hell run, but of course two of theirs are at home. Then they have three days until Fulham away, but that Spurs game in brown probably gets rescheduled after that, so no free week for them going into the final day. Final day is a guaranteed three points and +7 GD for Arsenal at home to Everton, a significantly trickier but still very winnable home tie for us against Wolves, and an easy victory for Abu Dhabi at home to a West Ham side who either have their flip flops on or are looking forward to a Europa League final (unlikely though). Don’t expect those games to be a factor at all. City’s run looks the hardest in terms of time between games but they have the easiest fixtures. I’m expecting Arsenal to get past Bayern relatively straightforwardly, and unless they pick up injuries should comfortably win all their league games as well. The biggest hurdle we have after tomorrow is that run of five aways, but that happens sooner than City or Arsenal’s really tough runs, which could work in our favour. Get through the European games with no extra time, scrape three points in all the league games, and it’s all downhill for us from there. The thing I’ve not mentioned is that City and Arsenal will (imo likely) play each other in the Champions League semi. I actually don’t think it will have much of an effect. Happens too late in the season and the remaining league games are either against teams with nothing to play for or Everton.

Fully agreed and I think we will beat them. But you can’t deny Everton will make it a lot tougher for us to leave Goodison with three points than they did for City or Arsenal.

Just don’t see where Arsenal or City drop points, they are comfortably better than everyone they will play in the run in. Villa are the fourth or fifth best side this year and absolutely shat themselves against City, if you’d watched that game with no knowledge of the table you’d have thought Villa were a lower half side, maybe even in the relegation fight. Arsenal and City don’t have a run of five consecutive aways coming up either and whenever they go away in Europe their next league game is piss easy. Meanwhile we have still to go away to Goodison and Old Trafford and whenever we get an easy fixture like Sheff Utd we decide to play like an over-60s walking football team. I still think we can win it like. But we will need to finish on 94.

As if we’d get a draw

I can see Arsenal winning every game from here on in, I think we’ll need to do the same, or we’ll end up losing it to them on goal difference.

I absolutely fucking hate Man Utd. Just get these beat Reds. I’d look at Gomez at right back with Robbo starting this one. As well as Bradley has done he’s looked knackered for a while now, and he was shite at Old Trafford in the cup. Endo, Macca and Szoboszlai start in midfield with Curtis coming on after an hour.

Good article, although I had to use archive.is to read it. One thing I noticed from watching a bit of them (especially the Benfica game the other night) is their wide forwards cover a lot of ground, constantly part of the pressing game whenever they’re out of possession. They’ll drop off when they’re beaten in the press as well, our lads tend to stay high up and wait for a midfielder or defender to win it back, so they’re in a good position for a counter. Diaz and Jota press pretty well, Darwin has his moments, but I don’t see Mo suddenly becoming a pressing monster at 32.

Shite as they are we still need to improve a lot from tonight if we want three points on Sunday

I know we will probably go on to win this game, but why the fuck do we have to play so half-arsedly and concede SHITE goals like that

Ah good to know, my sample size was three games, and two of them were against stronger opposition

There are obviously going to be differences in formation and style of play with any manager we bring in as well, I'm not hugely concerned about that unless it's a complete sea change in style, eg. if we hired a cynical shithouse long ball merchant like Allardyce, Frank or Pulis, which we won't do. I watched a bit of Sporting the other night against a Portuguese also-ran, saw them against Benfica last night, watched them against Arsenal last season. IMO the biggest difference between us and them in terms of style is they drop off deeper out of possession and they do it more frequently than we do. In possession they're maybe a little more direct? But not hugely so. I haven't got any concerns about style of play or formation with Amorim, *if* (and it's a huge if) he can adapt to the Premier League and working with significantly stronger players than he ever has done.

It's a tick, I wouldn't say it's a huge tick. Basically just means he's generally been stronger than the Porto or Benfica coaches within Portuguese domestic competition. A huge tick would be outperforming Porto and Benfica in Europe as well, which I'm not sure you can make a case for. Those videos on the front page are lacking any actual match footage aren't they? Not hugely useful.

Amorim is much more of a risk than de Zerbi imo. The Portuguese league is shit apart from the top three. Imagine the Scottish league had a strong-ish third team in it, like Aberdeen or someone were about 80% as good as the Old Firm. That’s how big the gulf is in Portugal. So I wouldn’t read too much into his domestic stats. Sporting aren’t at the level of Benfica or Porto but they’re still way way way ahead of the other teams in that league.

Keane went way overboard there didn’t he, don’t think he’s seen much League Two recently

Aside from the fact he is a German Brendan Rodgers in terms of personality, we played Nagelsmann’s Leipzig side in the champions league and they were fucking shite.

Theo Hernandez is a fucking shithouse rat. Good player like. Probably a bit old and a bit pricey for us. I think between Robertson and Tsimikas we shouldn't need an immediate upgrade at left wing back, if Amorim comes in, and if he decides to play 3-4-3. Neither are perfect fits for the role I guess. But it's not like his current left wing back is that prolific, he's only got 4 goals this season.

I thought Arteta was, dare I say it, a bit Mourinho-esque in his approach.

Of course he mainly scores against inferior teams, there’s only us and Arsenal who aren’t quite significantly inferior to City.

I think Abu Dhabi will, yeah. Arsenal less likely to, but still in with a shout. They are a lot better than they were last year and haven’t picked up injuries to key players like last year either.

7 wins from 9 won’t win it this season. Have a feeling we will need all nine to be honest.