TWar

Formation wasn't the issue today. We had dreadful CBs, a woeful keeper, Broja who is a massive step down from Adams, and Diallo who had a dreadful game deputising for Romeu. Romeu and Salisu coming back will fix half those problems and the striker situation we will have to wait and see. Goalkeeping will continue to be an issue until we sign a good one.

Ramsdale has been the best keeper in the league this season imo. Has proven so so many wrong.

I disagree, I think he quite often claims crosses very well. However, even if you consider his last three games before the brighton game which he played a large chunk of injured: Leicester: First goal, straight at him, parried straight back into danger. A good shot stopper puts that round the post. Second goal, beaten at his near post, absolutely not good enough for a prem quality keeper Liverpool: 4th goal, pretty much straight at him and squirmed through. Wouldn't normally criticise as it was hit hard but quite often shots seem to squirm through him (like Greenwoods one earlier in the season) Norwich: 1st goal, dreadful, near post again. That's goalkeeping 101. Even worse than the Maddison one as the header wasn't even that powerful. 2nd goal, again, has to do better, the header was very close to him and missed it. Awful. Statistically speaking, McCarthy was one of the worst shot stoppers in the league last season and this season is well below average too.

I think the squad is already almost there. If we spent £30m on a high quality attacking mid, our answer to Raphinha or Neto then we score a lot more goals. Another £20m on a top CB so Salisu isn't our only one worth anything then our defence would sure up. Remaining £10m in prising Johnstone from West Brom and we're away. The team doesn't need much galvanising imo, just needs a couple of game changers. A bit more star power in positions that right now we have relegation level players in.

No one player is 100% at fault for the loss. Our CB pairing was criminal and atleast partly at fault for all three goals, Diallo was dire, misplacing everything, Broja was anonymous in attack and his pressing is nowhere near the quality we need, our attacking mids don't make enough, etc. In my opinion though, Willy was our worst player and the largest individual contribution to our defeat. The 3rd goal was entirely on him, and the second a good keeper claims. He also could have been at fault for two more, one from a dreadful missed punch which Gabriel was luckily marginally offside and one from a shanked clearance which led to a chance Saka put right at him luckily. McCarthy is a very poor shot stopper but he claims the ball well and has a decent command of his box (Although not perfect, see Richarlisons goal earlier in the season), Willy had absolutely 0 control over his box and claimed basically nothing.

Willy Livra Stephens Salisu KWP JWP Romeu Mo Djenepo Redmond Tella If one of Broja/Arma/Adams is fit then them instead of Djenepo and Tella back at the 10 role.

It's because the two teams they haven't played are City Arsenal whereas we have Palace and Brentford and we are on the same points as them.

I think the major loss for our pressing was Adam Armstrong. His pace and fitness are much higher than any of our forwards other than Che, without either of them our pressing is much much less effective. Elyounoussi who replaced him certainly wasn't as effective.

It's literally how we played against Liverpool (people moaned), in the second halves against a couple of big teams and against Chelsea in the cup. It is definitely a weapon we can and have deployed.

While I mostly agree, to be fair to the recruitment department we have a lot of players out. I think most teams of our size would struggle with best CB out, best DM, best AM, both first and second choice keepers, best striker injured and second best going off injured in the first half, third choice then going off injured midway through the second. Our depth is better than it was before but it isn't sufficient that we have a good reliable squad with that many players out.

He is certainly hit and miss, I think there's potential but he is a way off the finished article. Still young though.

A pretty good breakdown of the first half, weirdly enough, it's funny that the closest I've ever seen you to accurate analysis is when you are doing it ironically.

Salisu is our only good CB, without him we are dreadful at the back. Willy was awful, inspired 0 confidence and had no control over his box. I'd say a good keeper claims the second and third. Diallo was very poor. I rate him but he had a massive off game. Armstrong going off hurt us as he was our main source of pressing, they had a much easier time playing it out after. Broja was completely anonymous, doesn't work hard enough off the ball, and cocked up a throughball to Armstrong in the first half when through on goal and generally gave it away a lot. Redmond and Tella were OK, Ely was less effective. Upside, Salisu and Romeu will be back soon to vastly improve our defence and midfield. Downside three injured strikers (both Arma and Broja looked hurt coming off) could be very rough to an already goal shy team.

Last season he was amongst the worst 3 I think, but tiny sample size, before that he was very consistently an upper mid tier keeper for many years. I did some plots on this in a hurry on the other thread.

Yeah I wouldn't suggest like 2 years, but giving Willy till the summer if he performs well could be alright.

Guess you were all right, Willy to start on the weekend says Blackmore. Thought he might be a back up until he gets a bit more training but straight in apparently. Hope he is more effective than McCarthy and Forster! With any luck he will earn a longer term contract.

Plus the government lies, but they don't lie for fun, they lie for financial gain. There is very little to be gained, financially speaking, from prolonging the pandemic. They are on the the same team as us, on this one, we want the pandemic over so we can go back to normal, they want it over so their mates can go back to selling us expensive holidays and high street goods.

No, I don't think we'd sign someone who hasn't played professional football in months and start them 2 days after arrival. It's more likely for me he sits on the bench as a back up if Lewis goes down and if Lewis does poorly (as he likely will) he'll be in for the next one. Again, not sure, could start I'm not ruling it out, but in my opinion I think that's what will happen.

Not wild about it, have to admit!

I'd guess Lewis will start this one and Willy will remain a bench option, atleast until he has ample time to prove his quality in training.

I'm agnostic. And against the smiting of homosexuals. Haven't read Deuteronomy.

His follow up tweet speaks to the reliability of this

Caballero may be a very cheap wage, given he is unemployed and on the verge of retirement.

For those particularly interested in such things, I did a very quick stats analysis comparing him to our current two keepers. If you aren't interested in stats, look away now! This is for people who are. Save % comparison Here is their respective save % over the last 12 seasons: Note this only includes top flight seasons, and that Pre 2015 Fraser was in Scotland and Willy was in Spain. You can see from this a steady decline in Forsters form, from being the best of the three pre 2016 to being the worst until 2019. Following this he had a brief resurgence in an easier scottish league and again after coming back, putting him ahead of McCarthy. Willy has been pretty consistently middlish throughout his career, until his final year where numbers plummeted but worth noting he only played 180 mins in that year so maybe take with a massive pinch of salt. McCarthy has been universally pretty average xG prevented comparison Here is the xG prevented (how many goals they conceded vs how many they would expect to concede) for each in the last 5 seasons, data only available for prem minutes. Again, not much data and pinches of salt all round Willy seemed to be the best and pretty consistent until 2020/21 which is likely an erroneous season given his small number of minutes. Macca did well the season before last but that seems to be an anomaly in his career. Forster hasn't really been good since 2016 and xG data is only available as of 2017, which doesn't benefit him. Forster had almost the same xG prevented as Macca last year, it's hard to see as there is no line as he didn't play in the prem the season before or after, but you can see the dot Final takeaways Willy seems to have been consistently the best since 2016/17 when Forster really dropped off formwise. He had a bad year in 20/21 but only played 180 mins so hard to judge too accurately. Macca is poor, pre-2017 Forster was much better but nowadays they are much of muchness. Data is a little scarce on all three as neither has consistently held down a starting birth for multiple years since 2017, so take with many pinches of salt All data was harvested from FBRef

McCarthy has cost us probably 8 points in the last 4 games alone. He is a liability, what can you do?