Pizy

Like the look of Buanonotte in each of his appearances so far. Tidy player who doesn’t hide from the ball. Should be getting plenty of minutes in the weeks ahead if Palmer is out.

Season unraveling just a few weeks into it. Our attackers here look like they’re seeing each other for the first time today and our defense is comically shit as usual. We’ll almost certainly turn this around and win it but Brighton and then Liverpool are going to slaughter us if we don’t improve dramatically ASAP. And if we lose those 2 Maresca should be under huge pressure. Completely inexcusable to keep looking this poor nearly every match this season.

I’m not mad at the players or even the bulk of our recruitment. This squad is more than good enough in MOST areas to be performing much better than it has to start the season. I’m starting to get more and more pissed off about Maresca each week. The stupid team selections, where in the formation he plays players, how he decides to rotate, his rationale after games as to why he didn’t play certain players. And most importantly of all, the fact that seemingly EVERY match thus far it feels like we’ve started so fucking sluggishly and only ever begin to look better after we concede. For me that’s on the manager. He doesn’t have this team mentally ready. He has to get a bit of slack because he is being undermined by the fact that the club refused his request for a new CB. But then at the same time he has been in love with Rob Sanchez since he got here and defends him no matter what. Don’t think there’s any chance he gets the sack during the season and tbh that’s not something we need. But if we finish outside of the UCL places he should 100% be replaced once the season ends. It would be completely inexcusable to finish lower than 4th with the squad we have and the money we spent.

I was seriously excited for this season. I never thought we’d put in a genuine title challenge where we’d be there until the very end but I thought with 100% certainty that we’d finish a respectable 6-9 points behind the eventual champion, comfortably finish in the top 4, and really kick on to build something special for next season. Now I would be STUNNED if we finish higher than 6th. The Colwill injury and subsequent refusal to replace him with a top CB + Sanchez in goal will kill our season within the first handful of games now. Our defense + keeper have produced catastrophic errors in nearly EVERY game so far this season. From extreme optimism to utter calamity in the blink of an eye. If we fail to beat Brighton next I may just give up on the season.

Worst Man United side perhaps ever, manager on the brink on the sack. But then Charity FC once again comes to town.

Weekend ruined once more.

Game over after less than 5 minutes. Good job, guys. Fucked by a simp,e ball over the top once again.

Good lord, this rain!

Fofana starting in wet, slippery conditions against United’s tricky attackers? Hmm, not sure I like that at all.

Looks like there’s going to be some shit weather for this one. So probably going to be some shocking football on display.

Brighton 2 up on Spuds. All the more reason that we MUST win today. Brighton up next who are always super tricky followed by Liverpool. We could very easily fail to win all 3 of these next 3 if we aren’t on it.

Would be nice to see Estevão & Garnacho as the starting wingers for this I don’t think Maresca will do it. I could actually see him putting Palmer on the right with Buanonotte in the 10 and Neto on the left.

We always seem to play down to their level. No matter how shite their football has been or how terrible their form has been leading into the games with us, we always match them shit for shit. I expect much of the same tomorrow unless Maresca gives us some nice surprises in the XI. Both teams will play not to lose.

I would drop Enzo for Andrey Santos for this one. Maresca would never do it but I would. United are SHIT in the middle of the park and especially against athletic, mobile midfielders. We could really cause them problems in there with legs and pressing which Enzo doesn’t have. I think he could be a liability against a side who is a real danger on the counter attack. I’d drop Tosin for Josh as well since United are surely going to try playing a shit load of those balls into the channels and over the shoulder which Tosin gets roasted on. Mbuemo, Cunha, Ahmad, etc are highly dangerous in space. Josh’s pace and ability to get around and recover is needed.

Spot on. They’ll be in desperation mode already. They’ll be extremely motivated to make up for that embarrassment in the derby and will raise their game as they always do against us for whatever reason despite being shit against every other big team. We need to take the game to them and attack with pace and purpose. If we do our usual walking pace + pass it around slowly at the back bullshit then we’ll let this awful Man United side beat us. Lose this and I’m going to seriously doubt we’re going to kick on and have a solid season.