Ricey

Red card changed it, obviously, but to only make one change in the second half was madness. KDH and Casadei in particular were knackered and we didn’t freshen it up. Albrighton, Coady or Akgun would have strengthened us in those final 10 minutes.

They move matches regardless of TV now, to spread them out.

Huge blow, especially as we can’t sign anyone until we sell someone. Fingers crossed Praet gets fit, or even better leaves.

He would have been told to go to the monitor because it was subjective whether Salah was interfering. For a normal offside where the player offside has touched the ball the referee wouldn’t be sent to the monitor.

Good first half but as ever not clinical enough with the chances we created. The game management in the second half was terrible, as were the substitutions. We also used up all of our slots early on so we couldn’t make any more subs in the last 10 to try and stem the tide. Maresca has had a howler there unfortunately. I’d have taken a point before the game, but that’s a real kick in the teeth after leading for so long.

I started work at EA a couple of weeks a go, working on FC. UI bugbears, hit me...

Brighton were very defensive and organised when they first came up. They’ve transitioned to their current style.

My biggest worry is the comments coming from Enzo. He’s happy with the amount of chances we are creating and thinks we just need to be more clinical, but I totally disagree. We hardly create any good opportunities anymore. Last night the worst team in the league, who had scored 8 goals going into game, had more shots than us and registered an xG of 1.4 compared to our 1.06. It was absolutely ludicrous to say that not being clinical enough was the reason we drew. The same can be said for most games. From minute 1 to 75 we just don’t create anywhere near enough chances and instead we rely on the other team getting tired towards the end. That’s not a sustainable game plan. There will be too many occasions when we’ve left ourselves too much work to do or when the opposition sneak a goal, like last night and like against Middlesbrough. We also have to start trying to mix things up in an attempt to stop teams stifling us like they have over the last couple of months. Do that and the chances will come. Swap the wingers, ask Ricardo to overlap at times, ask the wingers to go on the outside rather than always cutting in, inject some intensity and higher risk passing for a 5 minute burst. Take teams by surprise. We have become far too predictable.

I’ve not been that annoyed by a performance in a long time. It was sloppy, but I think it was the arrogance that has annoyed me the most. Maybe it was because it was Sheffield Wednesday or maybe it’s because we are over confident in this ‘tire them out, score late’ philosophy, but we looked like a team expected to win with minimal effort. Once we scored we just…stopped, as we so often do. Intensity drops, aggression lowers, players stop running and passes become too safe. We are playing the team rock bottom of the league, why not try and get a second and kill the game in the first half! There was an arrogance to the team selection as well. I know that we need to rotate, but did we need three traditional CB’s? Did we need Casadei who’s clearly out of his depth? It reeked of complacency. Teams have also sussed that we aren’t actually that good at playing out from the back. Every team is now aggressively pressing us once the ball moves out from our GK or CB’s and it’s causing us all sorts of problems. The worrying thing is that I can’t see Enzo adjusting anything to combat it.

I think so far this season all we’ve seen are the benefits of this clearly defined, well communicated, possession-based style of play, but now we are seeing the drawbacks. Too often we want to take more touches or more passes than are required, whilst we also seem incapable of upping the tempo or mixing it up when we really need a goal. We saw it as well under Rodgers, but perhaps not quite to this degree. Teams learning how to best combat us also isn’t helping. I think all of the above becomes irrelevant if we sort out the general sloppiness that seems to be there for about 60 minutes of most matches. Wingers running into blind alleys, KDH being incapable of weighing his passes correctly, our striker not linking play, our no.8’s just generally not offering enough creativity etc. I’d also love to see us try and go at a team early, rather than settle instantly into the slow, possession based football that’s designed to tire the opposition out. I’m not panicking, but I don’t think we are going to walk automatic promotion like a lot of people think. I think Ipswich, Leeds and Southampton are at least on a par with us currently.

The club should have planned it better. A tannoy message beforehand asking fans to stick around afterwards to show their appreciation. They could have given King his award on the pitch with the Birch, would only have taken a few minutes.

It was only a matter of time I guess. JJ can play there, but as you saw on Saturday he plays that role totally differently. He likes to get forward on the overlap, which with Ricardo also moving into midfield in possession, could leave us even more susceptible on the counter.

Just a shame that so many fans had left prior to the three of them getting their moment. Mind you, a lot of them had left even before the final whistle because some of our fans are ****ing weird.

One thing really impresses me, apart from his goalscoring and defensive work rate, is how he looks after possession. Even when he's being pressed I have confidence that he'll do the right thing.

He was never going to play the same team as Friday and rightly so when we have another match in 3 days. Ricardo, KDH and Ndidi have played a lot of football. They were due a rest.

I’m both elated and furious at the same time.

Positionally it’s absolutely terrible, players getting dragged all over the place. Two teams trying to play a style that they don’t have the players for.

Pretty obvious that he’s resting Faes and Casadei because they both played 90 mins on Tuesday. Chill out everyone.

Nope, I don't work there anymore. Kind of does sound like it's set-piece coaches from the way it's listed in that section.

Quality of life features are normally smaller features that improve the overall experience, or often in FM's case it can mean features that are designed to improve longer-term saves.