Conjo

Sunderland "partnership" (feeder club) agreement announcement imminent?

I don't think they do in theory. In practical terms it is extremely difficult. It's quite rare that any business grows organically. Most successful/industry leading businesses operated at losses for ages before they became profitable. If top flight football was more sport and less business, I'd be all for the rules.

My immediate thought is that it has something to do with planning and setting up a multi club model like Man City.

I know, but isn't Shaw expected to be available for your next game? I don't think Mazaroui being out will weaken the team you'll be able to field. While I can't say I've seen him make notable defensive mistakes, I haven't seen him do much offensively either. Just an average PL right back in the Danny Simpson mould is my impression. I could be wrong. Have only watched 3 or so Man Utd games this season.

If he has been Man Utds best player this season, Man Utd have been incredibly shit way beyond what my impression of them was. He looks so incredibly ordinary. Refuse to believe Man Utd would be poorer with Dalot at RB & Shaw at LB.

I think Murphy has done better at RW than Gordon & Barnes.

Absolutely nails that pale malnourished UK type of white.

Probably just me overthinking and making things up for myself to explain the performance, but it seemed like quite a few players didn't play to the best of their ability in fear of picking up an injury. Noticed in particular Tino, Barnes and Gordon getting visibly angry and frustrated when they were tackled and felt some initial pain due to impact, as if they were terrified of picking up/wasting an injury on AFC Wimbledon. The performance felt a bit like players not wanting to take risks in fear of getting ruled out against more "worthy" opposition. Realize this impression is probably influenced by our Man City performance vs. rest of the season up until this point.

Depends a bit which Everton shows up imo. The away losses in 22 and 23 were at points where Everton had gone into their usual batten down the hatches mode (22 was end of the season where they were in desperate need of points to secure PL status, 23 was right after they had gotten the 10 point deduction). I don't think they are quite there yet so I'm cautiously optimistic that their team and fans won't show up in the same way this weekend.

Thank fuck this game is so early in the season that Everton isn't in panic mode yet.

Is he being played out of position today, or has he been played out of position up until now? Looks to struggle with the more physical cb's.

It is a weird obsession within parts of the fan base to claim bargains all the time. If there's three reports of a fee or wage varying from low - mid - high in the news about a new player of ours, the low fee/wage will mainly be the one you find quoted on here. An example that springs to mind immediately is when we bought Trippier it was always an initial ~£12m with a reported significant add-on reported to be an additional £12m if we stayed up, but you won't see much of that mentioned here. Only that Trippier at £12m was a bargain. (I'd say £24m was well worth it anyway) Perhaps this is something that all fan bases does out of some sort of weird tribalism I don't frequent or read much on other teams social media platforms to know if it is.

Having the top clubs that are struggling for form in February/March hovering up the top players from the rest of the league as a short term fix would be absolute cancer. Clubs are already free to open negotiations with any club and player at any time, it's just their registration that can't be transferred until the window is open.

Dubs Tino - Schar - Kelly - Targett (Burn & Kelly if Targett isn't fit to play) Longstaff - Tonali - Willock (Tonali & Bruno one half each) Murphy - Osula - Sanusi Should be good enough to beat Wimbledon comfortably. If we're struggling, we'll have plenty of options on the bench to turn things around while keeping our best players fresh for Everton.

He always finds a way to stay it seems Wouldn't be surprised if he gets an undeserved narrow win or boring draw against Porto, lose narrowly against Villa and get an undeserved narrow win against Brentford that will keep him in the seat into November. If he manages to tip toe for another few games he might actually get another transfer window to fix things, at which point it doesn't make sense to sack him until the end of the season.....but can they if he gets another trophy, like the league cup or the Europa League, even if they end up 8th in the league?

Exciting draw with a number of injuries to key players on both teams.

How do you know? I don't think Howe is asking the players to play with less intensity at all.

I think the discussion should be "should it be a penalty" rather than "was it a penalty". It clearly was a penalty on Gordon, but I don't think it should b. Player seeking contact, and going willfully over at the slightest touch should be deemed simulation and yellow card. Don't think Joelintons shout was or should be fwiw.

Funny you mention that. Seen one championship game this season. Opening game for Sheffield Wednesday. Thought the exact same thing

Great result and great performance given who we had missing and against nearly full strength Man City.

Agree. Isak or Wilson on the pitch today and he gets an assist. Considering how good Barnes is at shooting from the distance he got the ball in the beginning of the game he would maybe have had two assists if Barnes didn't fumble the first touch.

Did better than Barnes on the opposite side today. Some people will just latch on to the usual scapegoats though.

Didn't notice anything like that until the end when he was completely exhausted. Should have been subbed. Put in a decent shift the first 70 minutes.

Great point, great performance.