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I don’t think there’s anything wrong with questioning him tactically based on what we’ve seen so far this season. Maybe it’ll click when he’s been given more time and has a fully fit squad, but until that happens we have a right to ask the questions.

That’s because we’ve not really bought players to improve the first 11, maybe aside from the new Turkish full back. We’ve bought players who we think will replace the ones we currently have in 2-3 years…

In fairness, I’m abroad so not watching it. And Ruttner’s clearly proven me wrong already 🤣

Seems a very conservative line up. If Minteh is ever likely to shine, it would be a game like this where we’re away and have less of the ball. Looks like the type of game where Mitoma could be crowded out if there’s not balance on the right.

I thoroughly enjoyed this.

That’s interesting. I think the rest defence element that he’s talking about is what concerns me when I watch us. Whilst we win a lot of balls back quickly, when he don’t win them back quickly we’re often so open and only 1-2 passes away from being completely torn apart. It feels to me like...

Which is fine, but they’re often next to Welbeck, Mitoma and whoever is at RW. It makes sense to a degree, when you’re Man City and your technical players are so good that they can keep the ball on the edge of the opposition area, but for us, with our higher turnover of the ball in these areas...

I totally agree with this, I just think there needs to be some question mark about how high the CMers are. There’s such a huge gap between them and the defensive midfielder on transition that it often only takes 2 passes and teams are in behind.

Any idea where the counter pressing numbers are from?

The other thing you need to be able to do is defend the turnover more effectively by winning the ball back at source. Our current tactics don’t allow for that particularly, making it easy for one or two passes to get the opposition behind us.

I’d say the exact opposite. We have a young team that needs guidance and that’s learning to play his style, whatever that proves to be. But there are times when the best managers know they have to be pragmatic to get results, and the new guy hasn’t yet shown that maturity. Which is...

No. The issue is tactical. Swapping Hinsh out for Milner, who’d really struggled as a high 8, would’ve left us more exposed with his worse pace and mobility. What we needed was to stop the transitions at source or drop the midfield players further back so that they were in better positions to...

Of all the bad decisions we witnessed yesterday, this one blows my mind most of all.

This is absolutely the case. Not all the time, of course, but the weekend was a good example of players needing to manage the game by understanding when to drop deeper.

In fairness, a striker should always be shooting there. Just not straight at the keeper like Welbeck did. But that’s why he’s playing for us and not a top 4 side anymore, because he’s not a natural finisher.

The issue is the two 8s being so far away from the DM player. Teams are surrounding the 6 at all times, making it difficult to play through them as they’re isolated, and meaning they have players to counter the moment there’s a turnover. The 8s are positioned so high they can’t react.

Yeh, I get that argument. I think it’s probably one of those orange card tackles that could go either way. But it’s a yellow minimum.

The issue is how wide the area that player is having to cover though. The gap between them and the next man in midfield is often huge, making it next to impossible to be in the right position all of the time.

He had to go through the player to get the ball. It’s really that simple. It’s a blatant yellow, whether he gets the ball or not.

It’s difficult to keep the ball when you’re against 10 men who’re sitting behind the ball, and you have 5 of your own players up against those 10 men. There’s just no space.