TRon

He sems to be amazed as well.

He's not a joke of a footballer, and he's not particularly out of form either. He's just a limited footballer.

I said before the game I didn't like us being over confident, simply based on the football we've played in recent matches.

Been good defensively, but we look toothless up front. Not getting any change out of their defenders, we are too predictable, needs someone to show a bit more adventure. We started off well, but not sure we have enough belief in our ability to play out.

Enjoying howTNT have the crowd drowning out the commentators. Nice change up from Sky.

Would have preferred to see Miggy tbh, but I trust Howe. Maybe he feels Murphy's directness will hurt Milan more.

Well the occasion is part of it, also they have a lot more experience playing European football. I've watched us struggle when teams pass it around us, and I do wonder how we'll cope with it on bigger pitches. Maybe individually they aren't superstars, but as a team they are far more used to this stuff than we are, that's what makes them favourites.

I don't particularly have anything against Everton, but it is a reminder that we could have done a lot worse than our current abhorrent owners who some people are still miffed about. There but for the grace of God...

Relatively speaking. Giroud is over the hill but still a dangerous striker. Pulisic was a player who was playing for Chelsea last season, Leao is fantastic, and you have Hernandez and Jovic. It's not Man City or PSG, but we are still playing Anderson, Longstaff and Murphy so just don't want to get above ourselves personally.

Probably a bit of both. I've seen footage of our fans taking over Milan, I'm guessing they probably aren't used to seeing huge crowds of chanting English fans getting pissed and sliding belly first on the streets in just a pair of shorts. For toon fans it's just a jape, but maybe it's been interpreted as aggressive over there.

Yeah I get that, and it's reassuring, but they should still be treated as the favourites here, regardless of their fans being a bit nervous.

This is sort of where I am tbh. I understand why people feel the need to take the piss, but it just feels like we are giving them oxygen in places like Milan when they really shouldn't even be mentioned out there. If there's a bridge in Spennymoor, maybe we could hang a poster there. "Have you ever seen a mackem in Waitrose" or something.

Just watched some of the Toon Review youtube channel where even the normally quite level headed Alex has been talking about how bad they were in the Milan derby, and I think we just need to keep our feet on the ground. They are still a CL side with a pedigree playing at home, and they'll have a bunch of superstars representing. Yes we can get a result, but we might just as easily find ourselves chasing shadows for much of the game. They aren't going to just give the ball to us because we run around a lot. We will have to bring our game to them and show some confidence on the ball.

Every city has it's shit parts, just look at London and Manchester. If you just need a cheap room and pay the lowest rates, it's not going to look like the Hilton.

You get what you pay for etc. So I'm assuming they paid about £10 a night for that one.

Not sure they are worth that much time tbh. Most people in Milan probably don't even realise there's a place called Sunderland, they'll be scratching their heads wondering what a mackem is.

Well his face is orange, he's got the Mad Dog crazy eyes, and the teeth not far off either. There is definitely a resemblance.

Indeed. But Howe is our manager, that's why we would agree with every word, Frank isn't so I'm afraid I don't agree with anything he said.

That would seriously annoy me, we'll need our lesser lights like Longstaff to express themselves, last thing we want is to give them too much respect and just let them dominate possession. Obviously they are at home so will have more of it, but we still need to be aggressive on the counter.

I was watching that Liverpool game yesterday, and it was a carbon copy of ours other than Wolves were playing against 11 men for the whole game. They should have had the game dead and buried by half time, the chance where the lad couldn't decide whether to head the ball or kick it when it flashed across the 6 yard box summed it up perfectly. In the end, Wolves just didn't quite believe they were good enough. We have to be humble as well. We got a great result yesterday, but looking at the starting line up we have to remember where some of these players were 18 months ago. Longstaff, Elliott and Burn have all done fantastic jobs but that recent saying we have heard so much is worth considering again: There are levels, and we have no right to expect so much from some of these players considering where they came from.

He was up against reserves and whoever Bristol were playing though.

Yeah I thought he seemed a bit nervous in the first half, not surprising considering his side comprised Anderson and Burn so would have been hard to gel right off the bat, but Barnes did better and better as the game went on.

Who cares? We might be short in some other areas but we really do have two top class strikers on call, and not many clubs can say that.

He's not good in tight pressure situations at all. Might have something to do with who they were playing against.

I did miss it on first watch, but I was also watching a close up of a corner we had in the second half where Wilson was trying to get some space and the defender (blonde lad) had his arms all over him, was tugging his shirt, and basically pulled him to the ground twice before the kick was even taken. Wilson himself made reference to it in his interview afterwards. It just seems to me that any amount of petty fouls are allowed in professional football so it's just subjective when VAR or ref decisions are applied.