80

Really impressed with his defensive effort tonight. Wasn't thrilled when I saw he was out left again on the teamsheet, but it all turned out very very nicely.

Thank God we were dominating them because this guy's thumb well and truly went on the scales midway through the first half.

It's the black hair that got his shooting boots back on, I reckon.

And yet many among us seemingly wouldn't have him in our top 5 for this season

Unless we did something more radical i.e. the 3-5-2 STM was talking about earlier, I think my bias would be towards reverting to one on the pitch (Isak tonight) and one on the bench (Wilson), mind.

Yeah, with our current squad it would be more for special occasions i.e. breaking down an ultra defensive team. Basically shaking up an opposition who thinks they've got a good plan. I've been a bit surprised at how conservatively we've implemented playing them both from the start, though. Seems to negate the benefit of it on first sight.

The latest controversial effort at interviewing one of our players. Joelinton himself was great, to be fair!

Yeah, whenever I imagined them as a duo, it was as a duo. Not, as Howe carefully specifies in interviews, Wilson up front and Isak out separately on the left. I'd like to see them more as an updated Shearer and Bellamy.

The worrying thing is l don't know if you're joking or not. If not, fair play to him! If you are, oh dear.

I honestly felt embarrassed for Joelinton. The players must talk about it among themselves. I've noticed a handful of times people like Willock and Howe have made remarks about how they've already answered a particular question the last time they spoke or words to that effect...

Incidentally, I thought Joelinton looked great in that interview. Confident, happy and relaxed despite the interviewer's best efforts. Very reassuring...

I know the feeling Can't wait for it myself.

fair enough

Yes, I believe that's the plan. It happens too often for it to be accidental, so I don't know how much I can blame him for his relative lack of overt contribution.

Plus he was pictured wearing a compression garment on his ankle weeks after that while meeting fans on a day off. There's no doubt he's carrying a problem.

I didn't see the match so can't comment overall. But just on the offside ASM goal, I've seen it said repeatedly he held on to it too long before releasing Isak. Are you sure? He was in possession of the ball for literally less than a second. When I first read it on here I thought he'd been dawdling. In that sub-second, he took two touches, the first to control a heavy, bobbling ball from Trippier, the second to flick it on with the outside of the same foot. And I believe if he'd knocked it on with his first touch the covering defender may well have been in position to intercept any through ball for Isak. And, incidentally, the entire chance came from him pressing aggressively to cause Leeds to turn the ball over to Trippier in the first place. Seems to me Isak could've timed his run better...

Can't fully disagree with this. Midds has basically summarised my perspective above, though. Howe is in a difficult spot as I think he's still very much in the identity building phase of this club. I think he's, rightly, tried to leap frog the 'cautious development' phase of sneaking into 7th and instead get an essentially average squad playing like champions. And it usually works, in the same way having the best hand on the flop in poker usually means you win the round. But it doesn't always, and playing the percentages isn't good enough to win a given tournament. I can't pin any blame on Howe however things go over the next 3 games after the season we've had because there's not enough evidence to do so given the circumstances. As outsiders, we're only scratching the surface when we try to understand the adversity he has overcome. But, it is true that to me, the ability to break a pattern, spring a surprise and do a number on an opponent in a zero sum game is a big part of what separates the great players from the book learners in life.

No disrespect to Richie but we've been pretty lucky with our injuries this season. Most of the bad ones have either been on people we could carry (e.g. Krafth instead of Trippier) or well timed (Isak getting his injury just as Wilson returned from his) etc. Now we get two (short) season enders and they're to our backup CB and backup backup LW.

Well, I think by his own admission he's not exactly an intellectual. I don't think he tries to pretend to be anything he isn't. I think the thing that sets him apart is that he's actually learned from his life experiences, unlike many. But I do suspect his management style would be pretty PFM-esque......

Can't believe Callum Wilson is a Judas and a greedy cunt. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I know, I was just kidding about Dan Burn's defence force turning up whenever he gets some innocuous criticism

Can't disagree with him, I'm more like an 8 now than a 9, but I think I might prefer him not saying that in public

Have to give him credit for that, he's 99% spot on there...

Sentimentally, I loved that kit. Like others said, felt like it had been picked by the world to take the piss after our relegation, and we/Hughton and co. gave the biggest fuck you in response by redignifying ourselves in it and cantering to the title.

That from his podcast? Not an unreasonable target. People forget given the pressure, but if this was mid-season, we'd have every reason to target 10 points from these fixtures and hope for all 12.