31 Aug 2026 12:15:09
I always believe time gives us better clarity of a situation, or in this case a football match.
Yesterday was a good and potentially needed result after the poor performance against Hull. Every club is susceptible to having a bad game, but two in a row, both against promoted clubs would have been the start of a negative narrative that would threaten to derail our season before it even gets started.
Some takeaways from the game then.
Mainoo was excellent in midfield, and he is the only one so far who has really put down a marker to be a starter. That said he does have a slight advantage as he is already settled in this team. He is really flourishing into a great player, and so far it looks like which of the other three will swap in to play alongside Kobbie to suit the game plan for that particular match. I still believe it will take another 6-8 weeks for our midfield identity to fully take shape, and probably longer for that to become consistent with the rest of the team.
Our attack looks very threatening, especially when Bruno clicks into gear. I think attack will be our strength this season. Without having one dominant goalscorer it becomes very hard for teams to come up with a plan to shut us out. It's not like if you mark one player out of the game that we are completely nullified. All of Sesko, Bruno, Mbeumo, Cunha and Rashford should be aiming to score at least 15 league goals this season. That alone would give us 75 league goals, which would make us the second highest scorers in both of the last two seasons. Add in another 20 or so goals spread out amongst the rest of the squad and we could be looking at 90+ league goals.
Finally, defensively we still look suspect. Both individually and in certain phases of play. Our tactics leave us a little open in the middle of the park, and that can lead to us being susceptible to quick counter attacks when we lose the ball. Maybe a slight change in our rest defence here could help. Rather than have 424 shape, have one of the fullbacks invert into midfield to create a 334 shape instead.
While individually we are making a few too many mistakes. Maybe some of that is down to rustiness, or a lack of cohesiveness due to a lack of consistency of selection. Or it could just be a lack of quality.
We could see quite a few high scoring games this season, where we let in a couple of goals each game, but score enough to still pick up points.
Some people are being a little too dismissive of the opposition in my opinion. Hull have won both their first two games, a record currently only matched by City and Chelsea (although Arsenal will probably also join them).
While Ipswich played well in the first half against us and made a real game of it, as well as having won their first game of the season.
Promoted teams maybe, but still in the league on merit and playing well.
31 Aug 2026 13:35:02
If you add Amad to scoring line, they each only need to score 12 to reach 72 goals total.
Everything up front looks promising.
My worries are with the back 4.