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The loyalty on display here is really inspiring. I agree he's not been the same since Liverpool, but the attitudes here stink.

Fair to say I've lost confidence in him mainly because it appears like the club have lost confidence in him - signing alternatives etc. But he's starting today. Good luck Matty, I hope you smash it like you used to and put yourself back in the picture.

He starts to loosen up a little bit once they're 90% through the interview, but I wouldn't blame anyone for saying we spiked him with mogadon to get him to sign for us.

This is the guy everyone was hammering and calling a troll because he said there was pressure on Howe to get a result against Liverpool, isn't it? Made ourselves look like dicks here, haven't we? P.S. I don't really agree with you here. We had about as much of the game as Liverpool did against us - we just didn't put away our chances while they did. Your celebrations at the end of the game told their own story, it wasn't a comfortable night.

Makes me shudder because it doesn't sound impossible.

According to Eddie, Hall has played no games since last season, so is a long way from match fitness. Don't think he'll be starting games for us for a little while.

Thought 'yes, here we go!' when he got the ball and then... what the hell?

He needs to get a grip of that. Do either, but do it with conviction.

If we're going along with the idea of transfer restrictions, then I guess I agree to be honest. Seems arbitrary to have it.

Don't want to pile on him, but had a real sinking feeling when he messed that up. Need to see it again, but not sure what happened to him - to me it looked like his legs were giving out underneath him as he ran.

More importantly, not to drag up the Barnes debate up again, but there's more to football than shooting. Taking away his goal, Gordon was far more contributive, varied and threatening in build up play. With Miggy it's the same stuff every time, good and bad, unfortunately.

We've only really made three meaningful signings since Isak in terms of style, in Gordon, Tonali and Barnes. I'd say the first two certainly can adapt to different systems and are generically attractive to coaches. Barnes, I could see the jury being out on, but I wouldn't call that optimizing us for Howe-ball at the expense of taking other options off the table. We're a DM and a RW away from being able to play significantly differently if we wanted to, and I think - at least with the RW - circumstances have dictated us not buying them yet.

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/gordon-we-should-have-won/ Good lad. Says good things that he was selected to do media after the game. Although, I'd say the mentality isn't quite right to be talking about trying to get us up there 'with the top teams'. It circles around the issue of us struggling to transition mentally from underdogs to proper contenders. But that's no slight on Gordon right now.

He's one of 'those'.

I see where you're coming from, but I don't really think that's right. I'd say one of the best things about what we've done overall is build a squad and club that, if Eddie somehow disappeared tomorrow, is really well positioned to be taken on by A.N.Other. There's nothing eccentric about it, no sense of personality cult. Just team spirit, fitness, tactical awareness and natural quality. I wouldn't accept any manager coming in and struggling Bruce-style to convert the team to 'his way of thinking'. Conversely, if the club had hedged it's bets with, say, an oppositional sports director we could end up at war with ourselves and not getting the best out of what we have which, overall, Howe absolutely has.

Two clear yellows, it was as simple as it gets as he wasn't attempting to get the ball, just Gordon with an arm across the face. The referee knew it too.

It was certainly a standard, pre-planned substitution. Regular for him to come off at that time. Whether he NEEDED to is open to debate though... The club do all sorts of things like taking regular bloods to assess individual player workloads, so I'm reticent to say it was a terrible choice to bring him off. But we definitely suffered from it. Hope he doesn't have a daft reaction to today's defeat. Feel like today's result will reverberate throughout much of the team. We need to stick together.

Apparently not - seemingly fixed with extended rest.

Genuinely, what whining? There's been a bit of talk in the press about a new one, but I keep hearing claims that his head is wobbling over it - what's the evidence for that?

Loads to say about that. In short, Klopp and Liverpool have our number. If they don't, we make sure we give it to them. Not felt so pissed off about our naivete since... The last time we played Liverpool at home. We lack the nous to finish them off and that accusation can't just be leveled at the players, I don't think. On the upside, it wasn't long after the last time we had this fixture that we went on a massive running run. But it is true that to be a great you have to come out with the wins from these occasions. There is more to life than unrelenting energy.

Was hoping we won today so I could come on here and criticize him without being accused of a kneejerk reaction. Obviously, he has lots of good qualities, but in an attacking sense he keeps holding us back. Wish we had Murphy on today. It was reminiscent of our pre-Murphy Feb-March form from last season.

Good post, although I think this attitude is unnecessarily defeatist. I think the point just needs to keep being hammered - professional football is an entertainment business, VAR makes the product less entertaining. The way they've chosen to implement it is bizarre, that much is true. Would make more sense to just strap a tablet to the referees chest and let him view replays of incidents he wants to double check with extra perspectives.

Everything's always changing. And some of those changes are a consequence of the block on transfers. It's a great way of creating a sense of jeopardy for a club and causing them to overbid for a player, as we've seen lately.

It functioned fine before, I don't remember any popular clamour to block transfers happening outside of short windows. Certainly don't see why the Saudis, or any other country, should feel forced to do business in the same strange way as UEFA. The fact the window finishes a few weeks after the season has already started is a mystery to me too.

Or we could just get rid of our transfer window like it used to be?