Raconteur

I wonder if Froggy[/member] feels his club has missed a trick in not appointing their long-time captain and the man who lifted the first PL trophy as an ambassador? As opposed to our club, where he’s served with questionable adequacy for eleven months...

If you're giving Bruce any credit whatsoever for Chelsea, you're degrading your own argument. Beating the Blues was the greatest injustice I've seen on a football pitch.

Was amused to hear Dowie saying he’d be better after being moved up front when Gayle went off. Clearly he hasn’t watched too many of our games this season. Awful today, looked barely competent.

Did this guy shag Bruce’s wife? Wonder what he thinks watching Joelinton, Gayle, Ritchie and Carroll do their thing week after week and never get a kick himself...

I think his lack of rotation had a lot to do with it as well. ASM has been fantastic, but he’s started every game since the restart and looked off the pace today.

Seems like his fitness has improved markedly - he’s making sprints and one-twos much more regularly, and for deeper into the ninety minutes.

It won’t be very often we can get away with Shelvey and Benteleb as the centre midfielders. Bournemouth allowed them to stroll around for 90 minutes but, against real teams, we’ll need someone with better ability to get up and back, and to run with opponents...

I was a big fan of Lejeune-Lascelles-Schar as a three, but Fernandez-Lascelles is doing the business as a two, and we look better as a team for it. It’s nothing more than a suspicion, but I feel both Lejeune and Schar suffer in a two because their defensive limitations are a little more exposed. I think it’s especially true of Schar, but I can’t remember Lejeune shining in a two either.

If players cannot meet themselves, does that mean the Longstaff brothers are ineligible, as they’d be in the stands as kids?

Is it not the motivation to try and convince new owners he's worth a shit as a manager? Seems the players are doing similar to stay on the potential Saudi gravy train. Not complaining if we keep this form up tbh (we won't). Like the player who turns it on for the last six months of his contract...

It seems like he’s quite conservative in his decision making - he always looks for a low risk pass and almost never carries it. From memory of the incident you mentioned, he took a long moment to decide to dribble. He indeed looked strong and positive, but he didn’t exactly ooze confidence. Still, impressive to see.

Not just the finish, but the timing of his run and the way he checked it was superb

Yup - he also bought property here when he played and kept it in his portfolio. He certainly didn't blow it all on blow.

Yeah, van Nistelrooy was overrated

From the BBC rumours: “The Magpies are also considering signing French forward Thomas Robert - the 19 year old son of former Newcastle player Laurent Robert - from Montpellier on a free transfer (Mail)”

Robbie Fowler has been released by A-League club Brisbane Roar. He’d only been there 22 games but had turned a basket case club around and was starting to really impress people. He (and his assistant) returned to England before the COVID lockdown, and has been unable to return, so he and the club mutually agreed to go separate ways. He built a strong reputation very quickly and is apparently in the market for a gig in England. Definitely worth keeping an eye on his next move.

Feeling pretty smug about "Yes - after that". One more week before the rubber stamp sounds very likely

Just hoping that one day Bruce realises he's got a Japanese international striker who might do a better job...

The James Joyce of N-O. Stream of consciousness. Nah, HTT is sometimes readable. Tolstoy works - densely verbose

Haven't seen anything...

Probably more interesting to guess City's possession stats than the scoreline. I'm going with City 72% NUFC 28%.

This gets overlooked far too often for me. Yes, he was very ordinary on the left, for at least three or four months from memory? He's been consistently good since playing on the right. Sure, he's made errors that led directly to goals, but he's more reliable than Yedlin and more... everything than Krafth

Yep, thought this as well - suddenly thinking "Ah, this is what hold up play looks like". Time for Andy to be a senior player and show Joe how to be a footballer, especially now he's got that new contract