Rich

Still managed to lose the critical header at the end, mind, and lost Diaz for their best chance of the first half.

I had it at 97, being a massive fucking nerd. Maybe an extra 30, but not what they got. Sitting here stunned. Every fucking time, man.

He was stinking tonight like, woeful.

@Heron

Aye, he’s top banana this bloke.

Hope a few more of you are coming to the light side after another half of that quality. We’re a proper decent side these days, even when we’ve got a few key players missing. Howe has done and continues to do a wonderful job. Love it. Even if we do conspire to lose from here, there are so many encouraging signs.

Isak hatty incoming then we’ll all be pals again.

Let’s. Fucking. Go. Guys.

Click it, you fucking whopper.

Aye.

@Toonjam88saying he starts, but he did say he was on the bench at the weekend…

Aye, really like Wee Man on the left.

What an absolute freak and weirdo that Odin was, man.

Christ

Howe said Trips was fine. Nothing new on ASM since the presser.

He'd slot in nicely on the right of the three, like. He's defo not a DM.

THAT'S THE THING WITH ISAK

Let's try this again. WE WERE FAR TOO SKINT TO SIGN HIM

Thought we gave them a proper game last season and were shafted, as usual. I know we're weaker tonight than we would otherwise be, but surely we're closer to them now than we were last season? We ended up with Ritchie at LB after 15 minutes, ffs.

If we really are done and dusted, who misses out on people's 25-man squads? 1. Pope 2. Darlow 3. Gillespie -- 4. Trippier 5. Krafth 6. Manquillo -- 7. Schär 8. Lascelles 9. Fernandez -- 10. Botman 11. Burn 12. Watts -- 13. Targett 14. Lewis 15. Dummett -- 16. Guimarães 17. Willock 18. Shelvey 19. S. Longstaff 20. Joelinton XX. Anderson 21. M. Longstaff -- 22. Almirón 23. Murphy 24. Ritchie 25. Saint-Maximin 26. Fraser -- 27. Isak 28. Wilson 29. Wood Anderson doesn't need to be registered, so four need to be culled. Krafth (?), Watts, and M. Longstaff are easy enough, but the last one is a bit tricky. Either Shelvey's not going to be back soon enough to be registered, which will make the decision for Howe, or it looks to be Fernandez vs. Dummett vs. Ritchie. I'd probably go Ritchie, just because it feels like we've got enough cover in the positions he can (barely) play these days, and he'd probably be able to find a deadline-day loan move due to being fully fit. (Pompey?)

It's Liam, of course he's complaining.

Stinks of being used by his agent to get a better offer out of Monza, to me. I've been wrong many times before, though...

Alright, I've updated it to focus much more on performance versus the same (or equivalent, in the case of the relegated teams) opposition: -- • 4 points better off (+2 vs. Forest, +1 vs. Man City & Wolves, same vs. Brighton) • Scored twice as many goals (6 vs. 3) • Conceded half the goals (4 vs. 8) • Goal difference has gone from -5 to +2. • xG For has more than doubled (6.60 from 2.93) • xG Against is pretty much the same (7.14 vs. 7.44) • xG Difference is more than 8x better (-0.54 vs. -4.51) -- Just proving what our eyes have been showing us, but with 10% of the season gone we're a far better team than we were last season. Worth keeping in mind, though, that of the games so far only two are Howe vs. Howe comparisons (the other two were Bruce & Jones). And both of the Howe comparisons came before the January window.