⚽ Oxford vs Arsenal | FA Cup 3rd round | Mon 9th | 8pm
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Qwiss I'm not so concerned by form. Hopefully Tomi will get back to his best, but we all know what he's capable of. With Holding and Tierney it's different, it's not their lack of form that concerns, it's the limitations to their game relative to what we're trying to do, particularly when it comes to progressing the ball.
I saw this earlier and it doesn't look good for Tierney, or maybe it just looks very good for Zinchenko?
One thing those stats show is there's no way we could play the way we do without proper footballers right across the back five. The days of specialist centre halves who can't pass and move are over.
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Those stats don't look great for Tierney but I'd wonder how much of an impact playing a lot of his football in our backup team has.
It'll definitely have an impact but in Tierney's case we've seen him enough with the first team to know it's something he struggles with a little in general.
Burnwinter I remember a few debates on here about the emphasis on defenders and keepers who can pass out the back and what takes priority. Since then it's definitely swung closer to being of equal importance and maybe even in favour of distribution. We've got someone like Ramsdale who's value as someone keeping the ball out of the net has been questionable this season, but has been so good on the ball that no one ever thinks to raise it as an issue.
Put simply, the players topping our "passes per 90" are all defenders except for Partey. And everyone forward of Partey is accountable for generating and finishing chances, not recycling the ball. And of course White and Zinchenko also participate heavily in our build-up.
I bet we see very different numbers if we go back prior to the squad overturn of the summer before last.
Burnwinter central defenders of almost every team top their pass %, DMs too but its just the way that stat goes. Its just easier to pass the ball in your own half. Our central defender do it well compared to other defences though. I think they move it much more quickly than they used to and make less major errors on the ball compared to Luiz, Mustafi, etc
Spiers as Xhaka 
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Never watched that film so no clue who Spiers is, actually thought he said Spurs
But yeah the Xhaka was hilarious. Where is the Xhaka yellow card when you need him.
Edit: Lakonga and Airpods looooooool.
Big Willie But yeah the Xhaka was hilarious. Where is the Xhaka yellow card when you need him.
I love that Xhaka's name is the only one in yellow.
Pepe LeFrits exactly. I was looking for the name with the yellow card image but didn't realise how to do it.
goon
Brilliant!
Big Willie It's an HBO mini-series(10 episodes, about hour each) called Band of Brothers. It's absolutely brilliant! Definitely recommend if you haven't seen it yet. For me, it's certainly among the best TV series ever made.
Lakonga and Holding
Lol. Yep Band of Brothers is wonderful. Thoroughly recommend.
Qwiss 
️ I want to see the old stats.
Charged over the handball appeal, which is hilarious.
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We're obviously the only club that appeals for anything. I'd hope we keep doing it but I think on the pitch I reckon it's counter productive.
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Do I misunderstand or do you think it's counter productive but still hope we keep doing it?
We should keep doing it. Fuck the FA. Every club does it but only we get penalize for it