OTF

Longers through the middle, told ya so, and Miggy back on the scoresheet. Me likey.

Man, every one of our players are having poor games. #United

Longstaff forgot to make a play on the ball there.

Have a look at how many Bournemouth players are defending in our right side. We're too predictable naking it easy for them and hard for Miggy and Trippier. For me Longstaff needs to drop into the centre more and sit deeper than he is. From there he can try to get more involved in distribution.

It's true, a fucking nothing challenge in a game we had all but won when we only needed a draw has cost us dearly. We've got nothing through the middle making us very predictable.

Plenty of fret here

Isak looking similarly involved to Wilson so far.

Bournemouth bringing a surprising amount of energy and movement.

It's the bag he carries his trumpet and jars full of dreams in.

If it's possible to have less than no credibility that's CN.

Standard day for me

If they need the Glazers out there's not a word in existence that adequately encapsulates the magnitude of our prior requirement to remove Ashley from the club.

They no doubt had some very detailed understanding of ways that clubs, "in theory", could flout the regulations.

Robin's overused cunt And....

The second one was cut off. ....reliable and experienced in the field of coming into clubs, making them and their players worse, departing with a hat full of excuses and leaving a redolent stench.

I imagine this unfortunate mess will be sorted once they send that link to the premier league and clear things up.

Something for wor flags to pop on some banners.

Without having read all of the specifics of the charges I'm going to say nee chance they're relegated. There could be a sizeable points deduction but you can't imagine it would happen this season with how long these sort of legal proceedings take. A lot of the charges stem from failing to provide information, which, from Cities perspective may offer them enough plausible deniability to avoid the harshest penalties. The others relate to breaches of premier league sustainability and european FFP rules. Interesting the periods covered include the same seasons for which they were previously punished with a fine in 2014 (that was from that season and the two prior I believe). Initially that was a ban from European football but for whatever r€a$on £ha£ n€v€r $£uck. Our manchester blue correspondant has a lot to answer to.

You're right. All the ducks need to be lined up; from a legal perspective it doesn't matter how much smoke there is, proof of the actual fire is required.

Longstaff doesn't like to sit deep from what we've seen of late, neither does Joe, I feel like we'd not have a lot of shape with that formation, just a lot of forward runs with still not a lot of finishing. It's more than possible that Longstaff is doing what Howe asks of him, so maybe sitting him deeper could be possible, though he's rarely convincing defensively IMO. May be worth trying Willock out in a deeper role, he's more dangerous coming into the box late and has the energy to hound players like Joelinton does and is a good defender against the break. We effectively know how Bournemouth will set up, they'll sit back trying to compress our space and will hit on the counter. If we're stacked with forwards who like a bit of space (Almiron, Gordon, Isak) we're playing into their hands a little because they'll have no space to work and will be too far up the pitch to get back when they counter. They'll have plenty of bodies in the box, but can be a bit flat footed and won't like pressure when they've got possession at the back. We'll need lots of pace and movement on balls into the box, the kind that Trippier can get, but will need Wilson running superb lines to take advantage of them. I'm not sure who will be best suited to act as that midfield fulcrum distributing the ball, but fair chance shape wise we'll need two of them. Normally it's Bruno doing that for us, against West Ham it was a mix of players, but it mostly meant that we favoured the wings more than usual. Brighton, at home, who have a similar playing style to us struggled to break down Bournemouth in their last game. They scored late with a superb header to win it. They should have scored in the first half when a bit of pressure forced Leno into a terrible pass and they were almost made to rue that missed opportunity.

Dan Burn is a good target, but not a good header of the ball. Schar is a better header of the ball, but still not particularly good. Botman is mere moments from scoring even when he's sleeping. Wilson operates best with space and isn't tall. On the flip-side Lascelles is actually a good header of the ball, but is otherwise Lascelles.