Ashley17

I had been on Salah but he's got PSG on Wednesday and Everton away next Sunday. It's a big week and I can see him getting a rest, if not from the start then certainly an early withdrawal. Richarlison has a great fixture on paper but Everton aren't always brilliant at home, plus he's been carrying injuries recently. He got 20 minutes for Brazil so he's obviously going to play but again, he might not see out the whole game. That leaves me with Aguero by default, with Man City through in the Champions League Pep can gives Jesus a game there and Aguero can hopefully play the majority of the game here. West Ham managed to keep Chelsea out but Man City are a different prospect so you'd obviously expect them to win and win well.

Really enjoyable game, Bournemouth played reasonably well so it's nice to be able to say we won because were the better team rather than some sort of smash and grab scenario. There is a definite over reliance on Shelvey to create something but agree that it helped that Schar is a better passer of the ball than most of the team. His ball over the top for Perez just before half time was lovely and there were several other examples of him picking somebody out more than 5 yards away. It obviously helps that Ki came in and played really well, he barely gave the ball away and is a very intelligent footballer. A nice option to have. I would be interested to see Diame, Shelvey and Ki as a three in there at some point but probably away from home. That's a discussion for another day though, we know Rafa will rarely deviate from the norm. Rondon was absolutely outstanding, it's a long time since I've seen a centre forward of ours absolutely bully the opposition centre halves like that. His header was fantastic but his general hold up play and being able to not only win flick ons but generally direct them to another team mate is something we have lacked for a long time. We've seen bursts of what he can do but today it all came together and we look a different proposition with him as a focal point. Let's see if he can back it up or at the very least not come back from International duty with an injury. Fernandez looks better with every game that goes by, Dummett is rock solid but Dubravka is unbelievable at times. When you think of some of the goals Darlow and Elliot managed to concede last season before he arrived versus what we have now, what an absolute steal he was. I was worried when we tried to shut up shop, I thought we'd get too deep but to be fair it certainly stemmed things a little bit. Can only assume Diame got a knock because Paco shouted Atsu back during the second substitution and he was on a minute later but it helped us as Atsu was a willing runner, even if he did manage to be offside from a free kick when we were trying to waste time. It's nice to win the last game before the International break as I feel we never do, it's almost certainly not true but I feel like we've had our fair share of two weeks wallowing in our own misery over the years so it'll be a nice change. On this performance we'll not go down but as it stands this is very much the exception rather than the rule of our general performances this season so we've got to keep this level over the next few games, which are winnable. It's clear the league is still very shit outside of a handful of teams and there's about 12 teams all capable of beating each other but we'll have to make hay whilst the sun shines so to speak because December and January look like tough months, so hopefully there'll be plenty of points on the board by then.

They changed the rules this year so they can't win a prize unless they've played at least 3 gameweeks. So...they get nout for this shit anymore.

Thought it was BBC?

Hopefully Muto is available so we can try and get around their centre halves. Joselu isn't going to beat them in the air but they will come for a point and probably get it.

Obviously he's completely right but I do sometimes wonder what the current squad think about being constantly told they're not up to scratch.

Could be worse, I played Begovic (0 points) and have Fabianski as sub (11 points). Well played, me.

We were very fortunate to win, pulled some answers out of nowhere particularly on the picture round. It's an excellent quiz though, I don't know who writes the questions but they do a great job.

That quiz was fucking hard

It was Robin Cowan I believe

They just tweet stories from other outlets

I mean that literally can’t happen.

Anfield Express have been leaking the team news on a Friday so keep an eye out for it before you make your transfer decision.

Leicester have spent a fucking fortune to be honest. In the last two seasons: Maguire £17m Iborra £15m Adrien Silva £22m Iheanacho £25m Ndidi £17m Slimani £28m Musa £16m Mendy £13m Obviously they've sold their title winning central midfielders to finance some of that but most of those deals piss all over our record fee and some have already been moved on. One of them has even been loaned to us ffs. Puel can't really be held responsible for many of those deals but they just seem to be struggling to score at home, he had similar problems at Southampton. He's still taken them from 16th to 8th since he's been in charge so you'd think that would be worth some credit.

It's a comparison to their actual position.

I just don’t get why you would call up two debutant centre halves and then pick a back three like that. I know Gomez is primarily a centre half who captains the under 21s in that position but Walker...ffs

Will they all be added to the same gameweek? And you should have 11 good players already, the free hit only gets rid of transfer costs, doesn't allow to spend more than your budget. They should mostly end up in the same week, the exception being Spurs because Sky have put them on a Friday night against Brighton which means they won't be able to play the Wednesday. Obviously you can only improve within the budget but depending on the fixtures players playing twice in a gameweek you would hope would outscore players playing once. If you look at who isn't playing today: Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City are all probably going to play twice in the same game week, plus possibly Tottenham. Arsenal too but they've basically sacked off the league, you get the idea anyway. It's all a guessing game anyway, there's no right way to play the game, this is just my logic behind having 5 players today.

Decided to save my free hit for the double game week when the 6 postponed matches are tagged on. Would rather have 11 good players playing twice than a selection of dross playing once

Can't see him getting in the England squad. Smalling was left out of the last squad for not being good enough with the ball and I don't think Lascelles is any better, even if he has improved. The England squad seems like a bit of a closed shop, whereby they've decided on a pool of players at the various levels and if you're not in them, you never will be. The exception to that, oddly, is Jack Cork, but I think that says more about our midfield options than anything. He certainly deserves a cap though as I think he's really under appreciated outside of the region - how many English captains are there in the Premier League? How many captains are there under the age of 25? England could do a lot worse (and probably will) but we'll take someone like Joe Gomez because he's in the Under 21 squad. It's ludicrous.

Considering we have 3 weeks between games I think it's a good idea

I watched quite a bit of the 97/98 season the other night as my Grandad would record just about everything we were on. The absolute pinnacle is the Champions League qualifier in Zagreb, which was live on Channel 5 with Jonathan Pearce. Steve Howey is a pleasant chap: But also, how ridiculous is this goal from John Barnes?

They have two on tomorrow

I think Yedlin actually got the touch on it that sent it round the keeper so Sanchez wasn't in his stride like he would have been had he taken it round the keeper himself. Couldn't believe that didn't end up in a goal!

Caption said WBA, so no

Fenton does an interview in Touching Distance and it mentions he had followed Newcastle since he was a boy