The Fish

Can't believe you don't know Plovmadov's 2004 tilt at Champions League qualifying rounds

It would be hilarious seeing Jacob Murphy teapotting off some Slavic monster in the Champions League.

Bit of a tangent, but I think that's somewhere we're going to struggle. Established teams can rely on their 4th or 5th choice striker against FC Plovmadov, we don't have an established U21 squad of any quality. So we'd need to rely on whoever isn't shoved out the door in the summer.

7th best defence (34 goals conceded), but they've only scored 25 goals (6th worst). It's not like they're not creating chances, they're just not putting them away. Bowen and Benrahma are their top scorers with 4 a piece. Mind, when they've hosted teams that play a high press (Man City, Brighton, Brentford), they've lost 2-0. they're passive as fuck, only Bournemouth and Forest press less often than West Ham. However, they appear to play similar to we did under Benitez, passive until the opponent gets around the box. Just looked at their fixtures, fucking hell they're going to struggle to get a run of wins going.

Read some of their match thread, seems the only reason we won is because they were shit, Weghorst isn't very good and De Gea can't pass. They couldn't work out that the reason they were losing the ball so often is because we forced De Gea into booting it long where our players could out muscle their forwards, or because we were snapping at the heels of every player for 90 minutes. We could and should have won by 4 or 5 goals and on another day we would have. Longstaff was unlucky with his long range shot and the one early doors where he couldn't get it out of his feet. You'd have expected one goal from either Isak's header or Willock's rebound and against a lesser 'keeper it would have come. Honestly, think the only reason they're policing the celebrations or whining about the post-match comments is because they're bored of blaming their players/managers but they're still hurting.

You sit right there, I'm going to spend the next 55 minutes describing in great detail why you're wrong and I'm going to back it up with impenetrable mathematics.

.... rrrrrright, but that's not a argument for keeping Longstaff and players of his level. He's one of the more limited players in the first team, and should be replaced for that competition.

No they don't.

Just good planning and subtle automation. While reports are running I come on here and school fools.

Champions League is a step up, but next season we'll need better players, even if we only manage to qualify for the Europa League. A quick scan through our starters highlights a few areas where we should strengthen. Looking deeper into our squad it would make sense to move them on and push Longstaff, Burn, Murphy further down the pecking order, or out of the door if the right bid comes in.

I've never driven a Rolls Royce, I'd still have one over the Kia Ceed I'm currently pootling around in.

Not much, no, but I bet you every penny in my pocket against every penny in yours that, if they're allowed to make signings for the Premier League, they will. And they won't rely on the team that got them there. Just like we didn't. Like Bournemouth didn't. Forest didn't... and so on.

When Burnley come up, they'd be mental to sign any players. Just keep the Championship plodders that got them promoted and hope they can improve further. Because if nothing else, what watching football for decades has taught is that sentimentality always wins out.

Ok, lets say I'm Sean Longstaff. My hometown club has made it into the Champions League and I'm a big part of making that happen. Eddie Howe, the man who's taken my game to another level pulls me to one side before I go off on my summer holidays and lets me know that he's going to make me available for transfer because he's bringing Milinkovic Savic in to replace me. I'd be gutted, I'd plead my case. But ultimately I'd rather play football than be an unregistered moody cunt, and I'd take that phat transfer move to West Ham (or wherever). because, THAT'S HOW FOOTBALL FUCKING WORKS.

You're shit.

No, they deserve to have a nice goodbye on the field, like Shelvey did. Just before our Round of 16 game against Ajax.

Don't make me say it.

The "6 chances created" is simply that 6 of his passes lead to a shot. His xA was 1.2, which is very, very good. He had Dalot on toast, but also contributed to the defensive side of things. His decision making was much better, but he still drove inside too often, for my liking. I'm convinced he could have gone wide, dragging at least Dalot with him, leaving fewer defenders in their box. It was a very good display in a game of very good displays. He, like Longstaff, are players who will likely be moved on or pushed further down the pecking order if we get Champions League football. But he's an attacking threat in more games than he isn't, and he's adding more to his game with every fixture. No, he'll not be dancing through 4 defenders to score a Ben Arfa, because we don't play that way any more. Even in this game, he had several opportunities where once he'd shoot, but instead he chose the higher value pass. Several of those passes could have resulted in a goal, all of them were more likely to result in a goal than him taking the shot. I like him and there are few players in the league that are more likely to get you out of your seat as frequently as he is. I'll love him until long after he leaves, and I'll defend him til he's dead.

We're third on merit. Comfortably the best defence in the league. No team has lost fewer games. Only 4 teams create more chances. Only one team concedes fewer chances. 13 clean sheets from 27 games, no team has more. Final of the League Cup as well. If there are people out there suggesting we're not a good side, or don't deserve to be 3rd, they either haven't watched enough of the PL this season, or are being cunts.

I chose a few similar-ish players 0.04 goals per 90 for Longstaff, from ~1 shot per 90, he is clearly not a great finisher though. 0.26 shots on target per 90 and only 0.17 goals, per shot on target. He's underperforming his xG, but the sample size is so small it's difficult to extrapolate too much.

Longstaff isn't a problem, as such, he's just not an elite footballer. We're way ahead of schedule here and he, like many in the squad, were supposed to be the bridge between midtable and Europe, not midtable and Champions League. He will need replacing, but as has been said goal scoring CL-level midfielders are rare as rocking-horse shit.

That sounds exhausting. Mind, I can understand it if that's the only way to shut her up.

Don't worry, she'll bounce back.

Mind, just looking they are definitely missing; Eriksen, Garnacho, Casemiro, Might be missing; Varane, Sabitzer, Rashford and Martial. If 3 of the latter 4 are out, that's very very good news.