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If you foul someone who is very obviously clean through on goal, it is a red card

Well in the summer you reckoned we'd be mid-table and didn't have enough quality in the squad to play possession football, so which is it?

Interestingly, Vardy, Daka and Iheanacho are all scoring at or above a goal every other game. 0.94, 0.73 and 0.52 goals per 90 respectively. Cannon not a million miles away on 0.43.

Bear in mind you're talking to someone who was convinced that our relegation was part of a deliberate "tactical retreat" strategy by the board

I had a dabble around the initial release and enjoyed it, though the game show trappings didn't do much for me. The destruction in particular is genuinely pretty amazing and felt like a rare instance of genuine innovation in multiplayer shooters. That said, I found it very hard to come away from it thinking anything other than "this is fine and all but I really wish you lads were still making Battlefield instead". Trailer looks fun mind and a big new injection of guns and gadgets may well see me having another look - one of the problems I had with it was that it felt like each class only had one or two weapons that were actually worth using, though I imagine three months or so of balancing and patches may well have changed that. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Arc Raiders, which was initially meant to be their first release but was pushed back in favour of this and has since been retooled into an extraction shooter. Nobody else seems to be able to make one of those that appeals to a wide enough audience without also sacrificing the things that make stuff like Tarkov compelling.

I don't think anyone is under that impression. The general consensus seems to be that the reason he left for Everton was because they offered him that position which he saw as a step up, whereas we wouldn't/couldn't because we already had the immovable object that is Jonny Rudz working his magic

I think it would be more unfair to take it away from De Zerbi given he arrived in September and was in charge for 32 of their 38 games. They also finished three places and 11 points better off than they had under Potter the previous season, which I mention not to discredit Potter or the job he did at Brighton, rather to emphasise that De Zerbi definitely took them up a level. It's hardly unusual for non-elite teams to struggle to balance Europe and domestic football but they've not been anywhere near relegation like e.g. West Ham were for much of last season with a much more experienced manager and much more expensive team. If he does get a "big" move then I think he'll have earned it personally.

My favourite part is definitely when we decided we had to risk it and not spend any money in summer 2022, then realised in January we needed to spend money if we wanted to avoid going down, then went down anyway

Good work at Sassuolo, took Brighton to their highest ever league finish and Europe for the first time after a summer/autumn where they were raided for both players and staff, track record of playing decent football and trusting/improving young players

I wouldn't say he was constantly hoofing it long at all. A lot more than we're used to from Hermansen, sure, but he's not as good a passer, he didn't have Winks (or Ricardo in the first half) always making himself available like we've become used to and we were playing against a much better team than we have all season apart from Liverpool. The winner came from a move started by him playing a risky pass under pressure. I would be very surprised if we sold him. If we go up we'll have more than enough work to do on the squad without adding a backup keeper to the list. Stolarczyk has proved himself a capable deputy and Enzo evidently has little to no faith in either Ward or Iversen.

Faes is only quick in comparison to Vestergaard, Coady and Doyle

Outrageous player

For those of us who've never seen one in action, what is a helicopter gesture? I'm imagining either you spin around on the spot with your arms out or you twirl your finger around your head like one of those hats with the propeller on top

Will Vaulks needs a good long sit down in the sin bin

Where's the hate? He's justifiably behind Vestergaard in the pecking order and Nelson has looked very impressive in the time he's been given so far, that's all. Also, if you're looking to add recovery pace to your back line then Coady is categorically not your man.

BOOOOOOOOO

Cheer up fella

There's no good reason for them to have done that though, because by doing so they'd have been deliberately jeopardising the departure of a player they don't want and who will be leaving for nothing in a few months

Helmet

Absolutely we do but the fans seemingly refuse to get right behind the team unless it's playing in the exact way they want it to, which I think is what Enzo is confused about. I'd have thought at a certain point people would go "you know what, it's not necessarily how I'd ideally want us to play but it's clearly working extremely well, the manager and players are all on board and on the same page, there's no reason why they would start doing things differently, maybe I'll just get on with supporting the team". It's not up to Enzo or the boys to create the perfect conditions for supporters to support the team and even if it were, they would have done a very good job of doing so.

I'm sure if Vestergaard launched it down the channel at every opportunity instead of passing it short the stadium would become a cauldron of noise

I agree with almost all of that but I'm not convinced it's a generational or age thing. I'm sure there are some impatient younger fans but equally there are older ones who won't stand for all this tippy tappy nonsense and don't see why we can't just get it in the mixer and win every game 6-0

In the eye of the beholder isn't it? Games in which one team is a lot better than the other (i.e. almost all of our games this season) are rarely edge-of-your-seat thrillers. If we do what looks likely and bounce straight back up, the method by which we do so could not be much less important to me. I understand people have their preferences when it comes to style and nonetheless I am still continually surprised by just how angry and frustrated a lot of our fans are because although we're dominating the league, we're not doing it the exact way they think we should be

There can't ever have been a team objectively so good that has inspired so much negativity