The Fish

I blame Batty and... Keegan.

Same has been true for so much of the season. Our starting 11 has been good enough to win most games, but as time wears on, our bench has proven too weak to manage the game.

If I remember right, our forward lines were in attack and they caught us in transition, then they played a pass through the lines into that pocket of space vacated by Bruno who had joined the attack. A true DM would not be so keen to leave his position and would likely be staying pretty close to De Bruyne. With a 6 you'd have a pressing trap further up the pitch, but the 6 only committing himself if the trap is sprung, or if the trap is evaded.

That's the problem though, we were getting away with it when Pope was fit. Get a proper DM and the gap you highlight above doesn't exist.

DM is priority, for me. Not only lessens the pressure on the defence, but frees up Bruno and/or Miley to play further forward. A sweeper keeper is great, but if everyone in front of him is so exhausted/tentative that we're camped around our own box anyway, what's the point?

Basically, yeah. If Pope is sweeping, everybody is playing 10yds higher up the pitch. Which means the defensive line if further forward, but more importantly, our press is performed further up the pitch.

This is goals conceded (red) vs chances conceded (blue). Pope got injured in the Man Utd game, before that you'd expect us to concede around a goal a game. After he got injured the average amount of goals and chances conceded leapt by about 2-3 each. So, we're gifting more chances and conceding more from those chances since Pope got injured. Pope made about 2 defensive actions outside the box every 90, Dubravka averages around 0.5 every 90. (Distance from goal of those defensive actions for Pope, ~20yds. Dubravka's is ~11yds.) Pope was making around 2.8 saves per 90 minutes, Dubravka has made around 5.35 per 90. The likelihood of those shots ending up in the back of the net has risen too. The Post Shot xG (the likelihood of the shot ending up in a goal given factors like area of the goal aimed for, power of the shot, keeper's position etc) has gone from 1.09 with Pope, to 3.01 with Dubravka. So Dubravka isn't just facing more chances, the shots he's facing are more likely to hit the back of the net.

We're creating a similar number of chances, but failing to put them away. It's not hard to spot when Pope got injured, we're nowhere near as stingy as we were with him between the sticks. We're still doing ok in attack vs the rest of the league But defensively? hoo boy. Still not in the dreaded top left box, but no longer bottom right which is the best one eva

Gave us ~£30m for Sissoko as well.

Be curious to see the dates of those transfers as well. I ask because I'm assuming there is a correlation between the regard that Man City was held in because of their league dominance and the fees they could demand for their youngsters. Same happened with Man Utd.

This is something we really need to accelerate. Right now, the fury that would follow selling Lewis Miley would be a sight to see, but we should aim to have 2-3 Mileys coming through a year. Sell 'em to fund everything else.

FFP (or PSR) is fucked and is protectionist, but who's going to vote for change? the top clubs have a nice moat and control of the drawbridge right now. The other clubs won't want Newcastle free to do as they please. We're the bad guys, and short of fighting it in the courts, or doing it regardless of the consequences, I don't see a way through. I definitely can't see anyone helping us out. (Except maybe our brothers in light blue.0

But our first 11 isn't under the same demands as they were. Regardless of injuries, I expect a good number of points.

Anyone unpaywall this for us?

You joke, but we should have enough to get 9pts from them, especially as we're not playing 2 games a week any more.

So maybe back for the Arsenal game? To be honest, Luton Forest, Bournemouth aren't the worst games for him to miss.

What I took from Eales' interview is that to compete with the very best we have to give ourselves more room to manoeuvre. Which means we need to sell someone for big dollar bucks. Over a decade of negligence means we haven't the squad depth to sell our 3rd choice midfielder for £80m or whatever. Our most valuable assets have value and if that valuation is met, we'll sell. Just like every single club on the planet. Be they Runcorn or Real Madrid. It's a business after all, and sometimes you have to be ruthless. Villa used the Grealish sale to build a deeper squad, Spurs did it with the Bale money, Liverpool with the Coutinho money too. Man Utd did it with Beckham, Lukaku and Ronaldo. I don't think that means we're actively trying to offload our stars, just that everyone has a price. If someone came in with £120m for Bruno (say) we'd be mad not to take it. He's class and I love him and I don't want him to go, but with FFP the way it is, the only way to gain footing in the elite is by inflating the club's revenue. Ideally we'd sell Longstaff for big sums, as he represents pure FFP profit. Had we been more fortunate with injuries (just seen Joelinton is out for 6 weeks(!)) we could have probably demanded large fees for players operating more on the fringe. Longstaff, Willock, Targett, etc. But as it stands the only players we have that would be attracting significant interest are players we ideally wouldn't be selling. All that said, I'd sell Willock.

Mate, it's "immoral".

Inspired me to rewatch. It's an amazing piece of tv. Doesn't paint the Brits in the best light, but whaddyagonnado?

Gone too early. You, not Sven.

I'm just saying local jobs for local people.

I think marrying debt-linked transfer guidelines with rules about minimum % of players in the squad from within a certain geographical area would help too. Would mean teams wouldn't be able to stockpile scores of young players to send out on loan (Chelsea) or flood their team with players from abroad (Spurs).

Aye, between forefinger and thumb.