Danny

We have just come out of a run of games that has included Spurs, Man City x2, Liverpool and Arsenal and it went as badly as you'd expect it to. Still without 6 of our starting eleven, still without any degree of pace going forward which is why we've looked so bad in attack against the teams we've just played. The plus side is that we should have Bryan Mbeumo back for the United game, at least that's what we're hoping for. If we get him back then it's a game changer as we can actually hit teams on the counter. We now get to play Burnley, United, Brighton, Villa, Sheffield United, Luton Town, Everton, Fulham, Bournemouth and Newcastle. A couple of games we should expect to win there, looking specifically at Burnley, Sheffield United and Fulham. Then you have sides like Luton and Everton who should technically be winnable but it'll be difficult to take a result away at Goodison Park and Kenilworth Road. Then you have the rest, Brighton, United, Villa, Bournemouth and Newcastle. Teams who have performed well for periods this season but ultimately they can be up and down. I think 15 points is salvageable out of that, hopefully we can get players like Schade, Hickey, Pinnock and Mbeumo back into the team and I think the closer we get to full strength the more likely we are to put in a good run of performances towards the end to veer away from what is the current bottom 3 and then Nottingham Forest.

What makes it worse is that the ref was stood directly in front of it lol

Have to disagree with your last comment. There was a point this season where you were thrown into the title race by most pundits and the pressure of that culminated in 3 of your first 11 massively losing their heads against us, and since that game your results have dropped off considerably. I think you prefer being the underdogs and I think Emery’s style leans towards that, but not sure it’s because you’re more grounded. In fact I’ve just seen McGinn’s red and that is even more headloss

What's everyone think about the VAR call? Can't lie I'm at a loss as to how studs down someone's chest/belly isn't a foul. Probably a yellow card anywhere else on the pitch

Probably important to remember that any new coach will want to bring their own players in who know their style inside out. Liverpool will probably sign about 5 players in the Summer that should fit the new style. Then on top of that you still have Allison, VVD, Trent and Salah who are all clearly world class (though may not all stay…). And then you have players like Robertson, Quansah, Mac Allister, Szobslai and Jota who either have it in them to play at that level or already have done so. Probably also good to remember that Klopp himself said Liverpool were ahead of schedule and didnt expect to be fighting for the title.

Not watched the whole game, sounds like there is issue regarding Havertz? To push a title challenging team that have spent the amount Arsenal have whilst being mostly at full strength when we have 6 first eleven players out is a great effort. To go toe to toe with a team that can spend £100m on one player, what a team.

That went how we all expected it to go

It’s that point of the season I don’t miss, first couple months of the new year is a disaster in terms of fixture congestion. As long as you keep yourselves in the race all will be defined in the final month or so when you can get some momentum and mid-week training together. All the training atm is just recovery and slowly going through the motions of potential tactics that you cant 100% train or put into action

Self-imposed or a setting?

Have you tried sliders? I got to a point on Fifa 23 where I had s treble winning Aston Villa team that were unstoppable. Tried sliders on a new save and it brought the competition back

Tbh it would be suicide not to include Walker at RB

I hope Catterall gets the win, massive robbery the last time out that has set his career back by a couple years now.

Still think Joshua will knock out Ngannou out

I think I'd like the below, with Foden and Saka rotating wings and Foden essentially being given freedom to drop centrally. The focus in midfield has to be on Jude Bellingham, by far our best player. I think Trent has had such a great season that we can't leave him out, but I'd like to see him just drift more as a half back almost and let Walker bomb forward and give Saka the freedom to cut in. Then we're still left with Rice playing DM, Trent playing a similar role to what he does at Liverpool and then Foden, Saka and Bellingham just causing problems drifting around and swapping positions. Honestly I don't think Foden needs to play as a cam, I think he's just at a point now where as long as you give him freedom to attack he will do it from either side of the pitch, and again if you give him the freedom to rotate with Saka and Bellingham, the latter who does find himself in various attacking positions for Madrid, then you're still giving him the chance to play in his favoured positions whilst making it hard for the opposition to mark their man. Foden - Kane - Saka Bellingham Rice - Trent Chilwell - Guehi - Stones - Walker Pickford To field a second eleven to show depth. I know Phillips is controversial but the fact remains that England only have two players that can play as a #6 and that's him and Rice, and you need depth in every position. The 23rd player for me would be Ivan Toney, I just think it would be mad not to take arguably the best penalty taker in the league and someone who is a direct replacement for Kane stylistically: Grealish - Watkins - Bowen Maddison - Palmer Phillips Lewis - Colwill - Dunk - Trippier Pope

I think where he’s made some mistakes this season, understandably so considering the lack of consistency in any position, some of your fans have jumped on him. But I think he’s been decent overall, not a world beater, but a good utility man who can put in a good shift wherever he plays.

Two great strikes but City should be 3-1 up before Foden scores. Not sure what Ten Hag is complaining about, clear dive from Rashford, lucky not to get a yellow. Even then, game probably should have been stopped moments earlier to give Evans a yellow for timewasting.

Yes the man who has not played football for months on end will be back to full fitness straight away. But 4 in 7 is exactly the record that gets him 20 a season.

Annoying, Chelsea have created nothing outside of the goal and as great as the ball in and the header were, it was completely uncontested. How have Zanka and Ajer let Jackson slip in between them, when he's the only person forward? Terrible defending, take control. I want us to swap to a 4-3-3 in the second half, get more pace down the wings, get more creativity in the middle and try to overload this Chelsea team. The way Poch has set up has cancelled out our attack, but it's also left Chelsea pretty weak going forward.

Chelsea with a superb goal out of the blue, taken control of the game since. Fernandez has been the best player on the pitch.

I can only hope Forest get deducted lol

I've played around with a few formations, I like playing season mode and having to find a formation specifically for each team. Career mode is great but I always end up doing the same formations with similar players. In Seasons I'll play as Netherlands, I like having to make use of the amount of centre backs they have. They have about 5/6 who could all be top quality on their day, so fitting one into the defensive midfield position is a must to offer the best defensive solidity. Depay - Gakpo Simons Ake - De Jong Malacia - Van Dijk - Van de Ven - Timber - Dumfries Flekken Sometimes I'll play as Croatia and use the below. It's a bit of a weird one but essentially Croatia's dominance over the past 6 or so years has come down to the quality of their midfield so I thought how best to use the midfield? Brozovic sits at the base and acts as a defensive midfielder, Kovacic will sit next to him but has more room to push forward. Just behind the strikers are Ivanusec and Majer who play as Attacking Mids but have the freedom to drift wide a bit. Then Modric sits in between all of them playing in a free role, linking up play. The idea is that it should always draw the opposition in to press you, but because they are so good at keeping the ball when being pressed (Kovacic and Modric especially), it allows for Kramaric to break through behind and also for Ivanusec and Majer to do so as well. But the last two also stay connected with the box midfield so that there is always an option to pass to, with the wing backs moving forward to increase the passing options. Kramaric Ivanusec ------------------ Majer Modric Kovacic -------- Brozovic Sosa - Gvardiol - Sutalo - Juranovic Livakovic Last year on Fifa 23 I created the below for England, it was before Pep stopped using wing backs so I am officially claiming he copied my brilliance. The idea is that because we were winger heavy I decided to play with 4 wingers. Saka and Sterling would cut inside and play more direct whereas Grealish and Foden would look to hold the ball on the outside of the area and then dribble in, either beating players or playing 1-2's. Kane would be floating around as a false 9 always ready to score from a cross or cut back. Bellingham and Trent would play as defensive midfielders covering the centre, Trent specifically spraying balls out to either wing when on the counter or when needing to switch play and Bellingham being given freedom to push forward in possession. With those two covering the centre defensively it meant I could take Walker when defending and rush him out to the wing, same with Stones (can play Rice on the left instead and Stones central). With Rice playing central though it offers another defensive player who can play big long balls out to the wingers when on the counter. It worked really well with England, but it's difficult to do in career mode as you really need the skillsets. Sterling --------- Kane ---------- Saka Grealish --------------------------------- Foden Bellingham - Trent Stones - Rice - Walker Pickford In Career mode I have been playing as Udinese. It has been a challenge as they lack money, signing talent hasn't been an issue but getting depth was. Took me about a season/season and a half to fully get the depth I needed to push for Europe. The formation was inspired by my Netherlands back 5, but also took something from City's attack too. Back 3 who don't push on too much, Lenny Yorro and Vitaly Janelt sat in front. Yorro is just a physical presence who can win the ball back consistently. Janelt is similar but he has play-making responsibilities. He will often pick the ball up on the right hand side, draw players towards him and then I can rifle a ball cross field to Zafeiris who is playing left midfield. This generally opens Zaferis up for a run and to play into players ahead. Otherwise Ebosele is used to bomb forward. The front 3 is fairly simple, Ferguson makes runs in behind and I try to get him as many 1/2 touch finishes as possible, but he can also drill them in from distance. Baturina is a bit of a playmaker but mostly he's there to score goals and help keep possession. Pafundi, who I didn't know anything about, has been phenomenal. He is the team's playmaker, dribbles in and out of defences, can play difficult passes but also scores a lot of goals from distance, especially when on the half turn in a difficult space. This team is now pushing for top 4 with about 8 games to go, though it maybe a bit too much with the gap. We are 6th at the moment. In terms of depth going forward I have Jurasek, Karabec (both Czech) and Konate from RB Salzburg. Konate is a great option to bring on when defences are tired, he's also great at pressing. Karabec does a job and Jurasek can play across the attacking midfield spots to score goals, very prolific. Ferguson -------------------Baturina --- Pafundi Zafeiris --------------------------------------------------- ------------------Yorro ----Janelt --------------- Ebosele Lukeba - Harwood Bellis - Diomande Silvestri

With a mostly fit squad no, but we were expecting most of these injuries to clear up in January/February and now it's March and we're still waiting on news for a lot of players. Hickey, Pinnock, Mbeumo, Schade...for me, I've said this a million times but right now our problem is a lack of pace. We normally do so well against the big teams because we have pace to get behind them, but with Henry, Mbeumo, Dasilva and Schade out there just isn't anyone to get in behind off Toney. Then we have the defensive issue in that our current first choice back four are all injured. I think we're finally at a point now where we accept that we could be in a relegation battle, the season has just been terrible for injuries and we've not had much restbite. The one thing about this league is injuries can force 14 of the clubs in the league into a relegation battle if they are that bad, and right now for us they are bad. The West Ham result was difficult because it's probably the worst we've played since promotion. West Ham were terrible on the night and were there for the taking, and somehow we conceded 4. We beat Wolves which was great, but we needed a point minimum against West Ham to help cushion us in this run of games where we are playing Liverpool, City x2, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd, Brighton and Villa. Fortunately we still have to play the bottom 3, yourselves, Fulham, Bournemouth and Newcastle. But it feels close right now.

Will we win? Will we lose? Will we field a team of fully fit players? Who the fuck knows.

I didnt wanna have to say it out loud so thanks for that Stan That’s just our entire back 4 out, Schade, Mbeumo, Dasilva and whoever else I’ve forgotten

I think a lot still do but I’ve been unconvinced, he just runs a lot which I think has convinced people that hes good but for me theres no real end product when he gets forward, continually loses the ball and hes not that great defensively, just has recovery pace. Put in a couple of real stupid challenges yesterday and I couldn’t believe he had the cheek to get sarcastic with the referee both times, especially when he was on a yellow. I hope he grows into a better player as its early days with us but he reminds me of Sergi Canos and thats not a good thing.