Taylor Swift

I am here. We create 1-2 chances, pass poorly, can’t counter attack. Burnley look dreadful as well but score a jammy goal early in the second half and hold on while we huff and puff. The kind of game that makes you wish we played our next game the day after just to get the stink off. Would rather get played off the park than lose 1-0 dreadfully. Monday night away from home, it feels familiar.

Even Barcelona, who for years opposed sponsorship on their shirts, had to accept sponsorship money to remain competitive. NUFC are no different as long as it isn’t something like Wonga Dome I haven’t got a problem[emoji857] Barca will probably give a sponsor the right to add on their name to the Nou Camp pretty soon. It is what it is at this point.

4 points from the next 2 games, however we get it, would be awesome. We’ll most likely lose at Old Trafford so 18 points from 11 matches to begin the season is where we would be, which is an excellent return.

Gayle is clearly limping.

I would have taken a point before the game, so this is all right.

Is Gayle limping around?

No need to make that tackle, what a dumbass.

Dumbass tackle.

Captained Kane. Please start scoring at home, Harry.

Thank fuck Messi went angry mode today. The World Cup would have been shit without him there.

The defender agreed. Perfect.

This worked a fucking treat. Everyone captained Lukaku and I thought 'Spurs are excellent away' so I captained Alli.

It could be the net cash outlay as the Sissoko and Wijnaldum cash will be coming in over 3-4 years. Those two were £55m together, if we only 25% of the cash then it’s only £14m. That’s a cash deficit of £41m plus incoming transfers, I could see it being close to £80m. Of course it’s just typical of the way the club and Ashley dress things up.

Yup. I’m with you here. If they went merit based for 35% of the payments, it wouldn’t be a big deal if they banned loans and buyback clauses and all that nonsense that locks in good young players to the big teams. The goal should be to create a system where there is competitiveness.

We’ll always look bad when we’re down and need a goal. The team is not set up to play like this, we don’t have good enough forwards.

Still plenty of time. We need to get back some control quickly though.

Hayden has been disappointing. Poor on the ball and seemingly always running after someone who’s gone in behind him. Not sure Shelvey will solve this but I’d like to see him play today if it’s still 0-0 with 20 minutes to go.

Pretty even half. We really came into it after the first 10-15 minutes. They could have scored, same for us. Hoping we can keep up the last 15 minutes. We’re creating chances and have the ball in a lot of dangerous positions.

Need a classic Aguero hamstring injury otherwise I’m fucked. Can’t believe Pep’s benched Jesus.

I thought Coloccini gave us 4 good years plus the year in the Championship. He wasn't a captain but he was a good footballer and at his peak, he was very, very good for us. That was a good transfer IMO.

I tried speculating in my head but it's pretty tough, but let's say we finish 12th this year, he should get around £80m to spend in the summer. Let's say he spends it, other teams also spend but because of his management, we end up 8th the year after. He spends another £100m. Is there really any route where we achieve a top 4 position in 3-4 years? I think it'll take a long, long time. We'll need to do it the Spurs route. I think we can do it because of Benitez so I hope he stays for a long time but the money is so much these days that it'll be hard to catch up without having spending power.

We're not going to win every game. I would take a draw to keep our good run going. We have two relatively tough games after this one. A win would be a crazy good start to the season.

Yeah, I'm not transferring Kane in. Huge, huge risk. Going to stick with Jesus as captain.

You're very well run, though. I don't think that's true for a lot of the big teams, like City.

Personally I'm enjoying this Messi renaissance. He has been too passive since the CL win with Neymar in the team. You'll need to be better when you get deeper into the CL but it's not a bad plan to rely on Messi for now.