I was calling for this half way through the first 45 at Newcastle.
You could have a traditional back 4 reverting to a back 3 at times. It may be a way of accommodating an extra midfielder against certain teams, with Slobz playing the right side and Macca & Grav played the double pivot.
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Not quite in tune with the rest of the team I can accept
Wandering around is what he did before last night he was a beast. He was closing down all over the place yet not over committing and being a real menace to the opposition. In possession much more aggressive than usual.
A good match from him in fact I can not think of one of our players that I would criticise for their performance last night. An overall good effort!
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Yeah I thought Szoboszlai was very good yesterday, after a bad first two games. Good both with and without the ball. Great to see him getting into shooting positions as well, I’d like to see that more often.
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Dom is the one who often ruins our shape by running into areas where he shouldn’t be and leaving gaping holes in midfield. His passing was poor again and although I love his effort his tackling was ineffective or just ended in a foul. I’m not down on him but he needs to show more discipline.
Kerkez is the one I despair of. I really don’t want Iraola to trust him with being the main supply for Barcola down the left. It’s just details though on what was a very good performance.
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I thought much the same tbh. Charging down needlessly on his own and then being out of position as they attacked, and his passing wasn´t very good, and often deferring to defenders to do the passing.
However I thought he was better than in the last game, so a bit of an improvement. Sharpness coming maybe.
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We need to be drilled. You often see Wirtz looking over his shoulder for Szoboszlai. It’s like he’s asking ‘where should I be?’
We can not do anything about that the manager has to sort it.
As for Kerkez for me he’s had 2 good matches, last night he hung off their winger a bit much. Even do he had some good moments where he got it right (that I feel was coached for this match as he doesn’t usually hang off like that and is very good at forcing his man onto the wrong foot).
As for worrying about supply to Barcola, are you having a laugh?
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No, why would I be joking? Kerkez is not the sharpest player in the toolbox and his decision-making is all over the map. I don’t want Barcola relying on Kerkez to feed him down the left, to spot his runs or anticipate what he’s going to do on overlaps etc… We need a smarter LB to read the runes there, as well as as our midfield obviously.
Surely you saw the the Ipswich winger was allowed to ping over crosses all night with Milos notblocking a single one? Or win a header, so I’m genuinely wondering what you saw that meant he had a good game. He terrifies me! 
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That was better. We’re not at the point where we can put a full game together yet, and there are still some issues, but credit where credit is due. That was better.
Gakpo was excellent. Isak looked much sharper too. That’s the guy we have been wanting to see! Araujo was very solid. Munoz buzzed around and didn’t let them settle. It was great to see Barcola in a red shirt. There will be much more to come from him.
We’re not there yet, and there are issues, but we have a bright young coach and I am hopeful. I expect us to improve further as we go, and it’s lovely to have a sense of anticipation about it all again.
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Gravenberch did play, for the last 30 minutes or so, came on when Isak went off. Iraola appears to have been using that phase of the game to work on controlling play to set out the win, rather than trying to go for a third goal. Imperfect performance, Ipswich got 4 of their 14 shots in that stage though all four were well outside the box.
In that sense, the match was a useful exercise - loads of flaws to correct, but always better to work on flaws in between wins. We showed much better energy in the attack, but probably still need to increase the tempo of our defensive play, particularly in midfield.
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absolutely this. I got the sense that we eased up in terms of both our pressure on Ipswich as well as our internal nervousness going into the match after our quickfire two goal lead and then we worked on practising a measure of control in a Premier League match. But because we were so in control from the beginning it was indeed a very useful exercise. It actually allowed and Andoni to leave Wirtz on the pitch to try and get more cohesion with his teammates and I think it will serve as a valuable lesson for the video analysis that goes on between now and the next match. So it was a very productive match both in terms of the three points and everyone’s confidence and also another positive step towards acting as a more cohesive unit for a long period of time and also implementing Iraola’s tactics more and more.
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Btw I couldn’t believe VVD did this. I mean I know he’s skilful but this is slick as fuck!
https://x.com/k4comps/status/2096005186066035104/video/1?s=46
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Second half he did an Ozil style bounce pass into Kerkez 
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Reminiscent of my Rolls Royce like performance for TIA against the bitters.
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If this was a result of “work in progress”, I am looking forward to see what the team can do when that “work” is done.
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Was this the first leg of a CL semi final or what am I missing? Think those player highlight videos are a bit embarrassing.
Its called improvement or positive progress.
Try it a bit more yourself and you might not dampen your panties so often
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I think they should buy him in January as in the summer it will be too late guaranteed RM will be in for him.