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We're so back

Watched Slow Horses over the past month or so, enjoyed it. I do think it does the black comedy/drama aspects quite a lot better than the spy/action stuff though. I've no background in espionage myself (or have I???) but some of the fight and shootout scenes in particular are pretty ropey and at this point I reckon a good 80% of chase sequences have been resolved by Jackson Lamb anticipating exactly where the target is going to run to and then teleporting there. Nitpicking though and hopefully the next series is none the worse for the change in showrunner.

I know some people get very cross when xG or anything similar is mentioned but to reinforce how unimaginative and reliant on wondergoals we are, per FBref we've created 2 or more xG once in our 22 league games. That was on the opening day against a Sheffield Wednesday team who'd had a disaster pre-season, were a man down for the last 20 minutes and even without points deductions would be rock bottom and 12 points from safety. At the other end we've got the fourth-worst xG against and up until fairly recently Stolarczyk was outperforming every other keeper in the league for shot stopping - it's not like we're sacrificing attacking potency for the sake of defensive solidity, we're just ****ing crap and I think even a moderate points deduction of our own will be sufficient to have us bang in trouble. Mid-table results, bottom half performances and some people continue to be amazed by the suggestion it could be any better.

It would also presumably rule out ever signing any players because e.g. there's no guarantee that a new left back or centre back will be an improvement on Thomas or Faes, there's no guarantee that if we send Carranza back and get another loan in they'll be any better and so on. Same goes for a new director of football, chief exec, owner - everyone currently at the club really needs to stay here at least until the end of their contract but ideally until they retire or expire, because their replacements could be the same or worse. Not making changes when things are bad because you can't be absolutely 100% certain they'll get better as a result seems like a good way of making sure things don't get better.

Like the kid on the school playground who would always hog the ball, except usually they'd be doing that because they were better than everyone else, which this lumbering old oaf categorically isn't

We've certainly had worse and more outwardly unpleasant players but he might be the one I've enjoyed watching the least

I personally really doubt the players are particularly bothered, certainly not to the extent that it would materially affect their performances

I'd be very surprised to see him gone. Three losses on the spin and a run of one win in 10 didn't seem to put him in any real danger, so as poor as today was I can't see it being the end of him after the Derby and Ipswich wins. Despite everything, the squad has enough about it to pick up enough results like those that we are stuck with him for the foreseeable imo

Did well to react for the rebound in fairness to him

Usually I think "shouldn't get beat at your near post" is a lazy cliche - that fourth goal however is not ideal

Had he been cheap, he wouldn't have been as bad a signing. If we're just talking about how good he is as a player then I agree it's fair to take the price tag out of the equation - when we're talking about how good a signing is, value for money and thus the price tag is a pretty significant part of that.

I sort of hope we do sell Seagrave off purely to put an end to the inane arguments about how we got relegated and went down the pan because our facilities were somehow too good

Great idea. Wes Hoolahan in to provide competition at no.10 and Gareth Barry as a Winks replacement and we'll have had a great window imo

Divinity wooooo, hopefully not too long a wait for that although presumably they'll be doing early access again. Enjoyed Control so I'm up for another and though I've not really managed to get into the Warhammer Total Wars I'll be interested to see how 40k turns out.

For all that Newport are shit, we are also shit and Winks is out of the picture (for now anyway) I'd be hesitant to recall him largely because, through no real fault of his own, it's the first time he's ever been playing senior football week in week out. I'm guessing his form means we could probably find him another loan at a higher level but there's no certainty he fits in or plays anywhere near as regularly. Similarly, I don't think there's really any guarantee he plays very often here either, and is it really worth dragging him back into this environment to have him sit on the bench and maybe pick up a handful of minutes here and there? From the sounds of it he's pretty integral to everything Newport do in a way that I can't imagine he would be here - the responsibility seems to be doing him good even if the reason he's been given it is that his teammates are all absolutely gash. I do think there's merit to each option but on balance I'd probably leave him be and let him get a full, uninterrupted season of first team football under his belt.

Same. I can accept there's a possibility we're not very fit relative to some other teams, but to the extent that we're blowing so badly after 45 minutes that we physically have no choice but to drop off? Not having it

Second half was genuinely the sort of stuff you see when a lower or non-league team play someone like Man City in the cup and are just hoping they can hold out for penalties

He seems worryingly out of his depth for someone who had already been managing in this division for the past two seasons. Proper rabbit in headlights stuff yet again

Makes some very impressive saves but his handling and distribution are really poor and I'm not convinced he's actually much (if at all) better than Hermansen was at commanding his area

Stop parrying it straight back out you helmet

Didn't see that coming, totally against the run of play. What an unexpected thing to happen! Truly a surprise.

This is as concerning as it was predictable. It happens so often you think it has to be deliberate but it's so obviously counter-productive you think it surely can't be.

Another smart finish from Bob and superb work from Fatawu who I was reading earlier is "garbage" and needs dropping. We're so back

I've never really been sure how beneficial it can actually be to arrange friendlies against teams because they're geographically close to the ones you've got in the groups. Say we were playing one against Nigeria - what would that actually tell us about what it's going to be like to play against Ghana? They've got a different manager and a completely different set of players. Are we more likely to beat Panama if we play a friendly against Honduras instead of Japan? It's not like there's a really strictly defined Central American or West African way of playing football and if you think about a team doing the reverse and e.g. trying to get a feel for playing against England by arranging a friendly against Scotland, I don't know that it would make much sense. If we were playing away then I could see the logic in picking geographically to try and recreate what the conditions will be like, but they're both at home. A couple of decent teams to actually give us a test rather than two minnows we wouldn't really learn anything from strolling past makes sense to me.

My suggestion would be to always dash into/through his attacks rather than away from them, if you're not already. Bait one of his big sweeps, dash through so you're behind him, get some hits in, repeat. Easier if you have extra dashes via the mirror upgrades or Hermes but even without, you'll get used to the timing and learn how late you can leave it. If you can get Athena dash then even better. My go-to weapon is the Chiron bow which makes it really easy to just keep your distance (i.e. away from his lunge/thrust attacks, which are the hardest to anticipate and avoid) and chip away at him.