Rayvin

Yeah I don't doubt we can beat them but the rest of the league seems incredibly slow at responding to tactical shifts in other teams, or plotting how to deal with them. Almost like most of the people running football clubs aren't really that smart. I would add to your list that prioritising an early goal would be significant - forces them to attack against a defending team and opens up potential for the quick breaks you mention.

Some of it might be earmarked for contract renewals mind. It's also possible that it was a calculated risk against hoped for future earnings.

This is still valid to some extent. Arsenal are that fragile that us beating them in the cup might well torpedo their league campaign.

Wolves' passing is diabolical. It reminds me of how we used to be. In a sense, as frustrating as it is in this game, it's nice to remember how far we've come.

Well, Wolves aren't turning that around. Forest don't look amazing, just fast.

Wolves literally firing chances into Sels' chest ffs.

Aye just saw it yeah - set piece and two counter attack goals. This is the thing tbh once they're struggling they've got to attack and the whole thing falls apart. Maybe they'd have more success at our place, perversely.

This is the worry - Wolves can have all the pressure they want but they have to make it count because on any given attack they could get torn open again if it goes wrong. Really difficult once Forest are ahead tbh. Might rewatch the highlights of our game against them tbh, curious how we dealt with this.

Yep, overcommitted and got burned.

One thing they said about Forest earlier mind, was that their approach is largely counter attacks - and just there seeing they've the lowest possession in the league. Could it be that their success is coming from teams underestimating them and attacking too aggressively? Kind of like our CL qualification season. If so, it's not sustainable long term IMO. They'll be found out.

At least we got mentioned a few times courtesy of being the comparison between the two Man Utd games Granted, it was all "Man Utd changed things and did this" rather than "Newcastle were just better than Liverpool at dealing with them", but hey ho. Take what we can get I suppose.

I'm gonna watch the Forest game this evening and try and make an active effort to convince myself that they're shit and will fall away.

Apparently Trossard was sent off against City for 'delaying the restart'. Think he said they had another one for that too but I'm not sure which.

What I can't get my head around is why Tesla are still putting up with this... isn't he meant to be their CEO? What kind of a look is this. How many of the pro-electric car/environmentalist individuals are in line with his current worldview? I don't really understand how the ground hasn't collapsed beneath his feet yet.

I honestly think he has far less support here than he imagines he does.

Aye, I was talking to an Arsenal fan the other day and he was saying they'd had two players sent off for time wasting Arteta clearly taking the 'if you can't beat'em, join'em' approach with this. Shame then that he doesn't know how to do it properly... why are your players already on yellow cards, doing the timewasting? That feels like a fairly stupid approach.

Brace yourselves, apparently the yanks are coming to "liberate" us

Maguire at the end The last player any Man Utd fan would want to be on the end of that chance. You'd imagine they'd sooner have it fall to Onana.

So how should we play this over two legs then? Same as usual for both, or try to be more conservative in game 1?

This actually stuck in my head a bit, that PSR has fundamentally changed the game into less of a transfer free for all, and it dawned on me that against that backdrop, the value of Howe is underlined even further. Because if you can't just buy players to solve your problems, you instead have to coach and train them to be better. This means that any team with a very hands on, in the details coach - as with Howe - is in a stronger position than those that operate with chequebook managers. I would say his value to the club is far higher under PSR than it would have been otherwise (not that it wouldn't have been high anyway).

Aye, turns out "the guy who got Bournemouth relegated" actually might have been a good choice.

Honestly feel like Botman with a few more games back under his belt wouldn't even have let them have that tbh.

Have to say like, think Spurs might actually be outdoing Villa as the saltiest... the number of people failing to understand the handball rule and calling corruption is actually impressive.

This game has broken Postecoglou based on that interview

I think this version of our team might be challenging the 90s era version in terms of how much I like them. Villa, Man Utd and Spurs, all put to the sword in a row. Fucking hell. We're getting CL this season. Calling it now. We're probably the 3rd best team in the league realistically.