Nottingham Forest (h)

[Mick]

[Eeeeen]

What has Livramento done to deserve this? Obviously not one of Howe's 'favourites'. Will he ever learn?

[GhostfaceKillah]

Comfortable home win, can't see anything other than that today.

[KMK]

Should have put the game out of sight given our possession first half. Their defence is crap. One goal  is never enough and so they equalise after Miggy mistake. We need to reset  and go again second half, just can’t lose this!

[GhostfaceKillah]

Midfield looks disjointed again. Pretty embarrassing to concede against this lot, bottom of the form table, new manager, barely look like they know what they are doing. Shocking from Almiron and then to compound matters Schar just leaving Wood free in the middle for a tap in, wouldn't say they deserved an equaliser but we have been so sloppy that you wouldn't say it was never going to happen.

Same sort of setup again for us, nice passing until the edge of the box and then no cutting edge. We are so poor in the final 3rd, entirely predictable, same patterns of play each time, and most of the time they don't even result in us getting a shot off, nevermind a shot on target.

Expect a step up in pace in the 2nd half, but we are making hard work of a very easy home fixture, but the performance so far is in keeping with what we have seen a lot lately, the main leveller I can throw at these performances is sloppy, it covers everything we do at the minute.

[Eeeeen]

Look again Ghostie. If Steve Bruce was still in charge, how much louder do you think the booing would have been at half-time? Our defence, not graced with a great deal of pace, caught out again and again by Forest's counter-attack. Meanwhile, we have two full backs on the bench who have more pace than those on the pitch. Is Longstaff getting paid for not turning-up yet again? And is Miggy actually sporting a virtual right foot that only appears to be there, but isn't really? It's the same old same old and Howe is really starting to look like he doesn't have a clue. It's been there, under the surface, for a long time, but a squad that has had as much cash lavished upon it as ours has, should be thrashing this Forest side. Perhaps that cash has been lavished on the wrong players in the wrong positions. By the way, had anybody else wondered about Tonali's possible complicity in his whole sorry saga at NUFC? After all, it gets his beloved Milan out of a hole and makes it NUFC's problem. How long, I wonder, will he remain at our club after his ban is over and where, I wonder, will he move on to?

Not good enough. Any of it.

[KMK]

Get Joelinton on, need some muscle in that midfield to help our defence.

[GhostfaceKillah]

We don't have a midfield. For all the praise Miley has been getting, he isn't going enough yet out of possession. For all the praise Longstaff got earlier in the season for his energy, and most of last season, he is a million miles off the pace both with and without the ball. For all the praise Bruno gets, and a lot of it justified, he has been really slow out of possession. I can't think of a single team in the Premier League who can function without a midfield good both in and out of possession, and right now we have a midfield poor in possession, and absolutely fucking abysmal out of possession.

You then step further up the pitch and we currently have two hard working wide players with no end product, neither look like creating or scoring, and in the case of Almiron, he has become a parody of himself. Incredible work ethic, but no end product, sick to death of seeing him out there trying to shuffle onto his left foot, knowing 999 times out of a 1000 it will come to absolutely nothing.

It's so easy to be kneejerk after a performance and result like that, a total embarassment, but when you break down the sum of its parts and look at what we currently have in the middle of the park, either through lack of experience, lack of fitness or lack of form, and you can see why the entire team just looks like a complete mess, it puts pressure on the defence and stunts quality in the attack. This for me is where Howe is most guilty, because instead of adapting to what he has available, he is setting the team up like we have 3 box to box monsters who can control a game of football, and they simply can't.

Dubravka, Burn, Longstaff and Almiron all need to be taken out of that starting 11, get Karius, Tino, Joelinton and Isak in, with Wilson down the middle. I don't see us getting another point in the league until February, and you can see a complete collapse in the FA Cup the way things are going, we have seen it all too many times with this club, when the shit hits the fan, it turns into a total meltdown and things rarely recover without something major happening, like a transfer window or change in manager. The latter won't happen, understandably, although massive questions need to be asked, but I do feel like the January window is now a big one just to help boost this squad. Phillips or Neves to help the midfield, someone on loan on the right wing, who might not be capable of performing week in and week out, but will at least give us something until the end of the season.

What a sorry shambles we are right now, and Howe setting this team up the EXACT same way every single fucking week isn't helping, it's absolutely mind numbling draining to watch.

[KMK]

Poor decision making both on and off the pitch cost us that game today.

[Mick]

We had the back four who did so well for so long.

But Schar kept going walkabout, Burn was cruelly exposed by pace, Botman clearly wondering what he’s doing here and Tripps still recovering from shock.

And whatever the fuck Dupiaza was doing in goal is anybody’s guess.

We didn’t have a clue how to deal with a pacey counter-attack - which is a bit worrying cos that’s how the makems play.

Missing Willock - the midfield are just playing 3-man tippy tappy with no pace, no ideas.

Need a pacey striker to play at the same level as Anthony Gordon.