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How ****ing thick have you got to be to commit the exact same, totally unavoidable error that you've just seen cost us a goal about ten minutes earlier?

Was the assist down to him do you reckon?

Pashun Daka

Thought Thomas and Choudhury have looked very ropey and the wingers aren't quite at it yet but that aside, been alright. What a shock that we look better when the forwards are trying to be positive, not dwelling on the ball unnecessarily and getting into the box. Lovely stuff for the goal - moving the ball quickly, perfect first-time pass from Daka (guessing some people missed that bit) and then James doing what we've been crying out for our midfielders to do and making a run into the area. He's already making a huge difference.

Well, it's different. If it's crap at least it'll be crap in a new way rather than another week of Ayew slowing everything down and Mavididi skinning himself. Ricardo on the bench is disappointing but we know by now a) we can't realistically expect him to start every game and b) what an impact he can make off the bench. There's been no mention anywhere of an injury for Nelson and you can see him with the rest of the squad in the training videos where he looks, to my layman's eye at least, healthy enough. Seems a safe bet he's just way down the pecking order which is a shame.

Yeah I think they will probably be decent if functional. Be interesting to see if we get another spin of the now-traditional West Ham cycle whereby they make an appointment to steady the ship, bin them for someone more glamorous and then in turn bin them for someone to steady the ship again. Diouf looks very impressive at left back and I wonder if they'll be reuniting Nuno with Chris Wood in January to attack his crosses.

Alternatively, Nuno brings off a player who's not long returned from a serious hamstring injury and hasn't played 90 minutes since January

Yeah but you can be as crap as you want in as many league games as you want, it's the first 45 minutes of Carabao Cup first round games that really tell you who's up to the standard

I don't disagree that's probably the way to go IF we get promoted but in the meantime it relies on the opposition having a good amount of the ball and committing players forward against you in a way that I don't think many, if any, teams in this division will do. To play on the counter there needs to be something for you to counter against and if we try to sit deep, play on the break and invite teams like Wrexham, Derby and Oxford onto us, they're probably just not going to bother. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be quicker and more direct with the possession we do have, of course, and we might be able to do that more easily if our "striker" ever enters the opposition half.

Shame how there is a seemingly endless supply of clean slates for the "established" (i.e. we've established over a long time they're not very good) defenders no matter how many clangers they drop but Nelson will be beaten over the head with a bad half in the league cup until he leaves, which he presumably will before too long if he has designs on actually playing football.

I can't pretend to be objective about him because I just really dislike watching him play. I'll grant you abhorrent is an exaggeration but I think outstanding is as well.

Like others, I am broadly wanting to get behind him but I feel it's already becoming quite difficult to do so unreservedly. His completely inexplicable boner for Ayew, our inability to reliably create decent chances and now academy prospects getting pushed to one side to accommodate failures like Kristiansen and Bob (yes I saw the goal, please don't start). The league position I think belies how good we've actually been and there's certainly plenty of room for improvement.

Grim stuff, another game where we looked unthreatening pretty much throughout. At least in the first half we were fairly tidy between the two boxes but then the sub at the break changed that. Ayew is ****ing abhorrent and worryingly Carranza didn't look much of an improvement. Monga needs to either cut the diving or get a lot better at it because it's already getting a bit embarrassing.

Two bookings for diving now for Monga this season isn't it? Someone needs a word

Another incredible half from our false nine

Played Warhammer 40K Boltgun as a palate cleanser between all the 100-hour RPGs and open world stuff I'm trying to get through. Very good fun and I say that as someone with no nostalgia for the Doom/Quake era nor any great love for Warhammer. Hades 2 full release today which I'm very excited for.

Alves could have played, they changed the rules this season so players can play for two different teams in the league cup

I was looking the other day and as far as I can work out the cheapest is from Fanatical with an affiliate discount code from YouTubers/websites, which comes to £38.94. The first one I came across was this one

Not sure that's true. FBref have him joint 10th on 15, 6 of which were against Wednesday when he was just shooting straight at the keeper from about 30 yards. Not even the most shots in our team because apparently Fatawu has had 16. Conversion rate he's joint lowest of players who have scored but then obviously there's everyone who has taken a shot without scoring below him. But you're right, most of the time he's not actually close enough to the goal to take even a speculative shot. All part of the duties of a false nine of course.

I don't really rate him but I think he'll probably be OK as a safe, steady full back if we have Ricardo on the opposite flank and players like Winks, Faes and James (i.e. players who aren't afraid of the ball) in the side. Between Thomas, Choudhury, Okoli, Skipp and Soumare there were just too many players who were at best unadventurous and at worst outright uncomfortable in possession.

Our xG+/- improves when Faes and Winks are playing though

I think it's fairly likely he would. 7 goals and 5 assists last time in this division in about 12 90s - the Ghanaian Firmino has put up better G+A than that once in his career and that was over a decade ago in Ligue 1. Daka might be a bad striker but Ayew is not a striker. Ideally Carranza settles and starts ahead of both.

Does look like he might be a bit of a flat-track bully but there's maybe an argument that's what they needed given some of the points they've dropped against dross over the last few seasons. Funny if it now goes the other way and they can bully the crap teams but lose against all the good ones.

I broadly agree but creating chances is the bigger concern for me than finishing them. Assuming Carranza isn't a total waste of space, I think we should have goals in the squad but we really haven't been creating enough good chances for my liking. I'm optimistic however that with Ricardo and Winks back in the side, James looking much more positive than Skipp/Soumare and hopefully Ramsey able to establish himself, we won't look as blunt.

I thought he was alright, not as good as the other two midfielders but nowhere near as bad as we know he can be. He does have a habit of underhitting or slightly misplacing simple passes to players in space which forces them, and the move, to slow down. Otherwise he was decent if unremarkable.