Chris_R

Fuck no. Now his legs have gone, let them pay the next 2 years of the ridiculous contract up whilst he stinks the place out with his constant sulking.

I honestly can't recall him stopping a single shot.

Yeah this is all great but I really need a career-limiting injury now - Hamstrings disintegrating or his groin falling apart. I actually think he's built where that kind of thing is fairly likely too.

Given how shit he is with his feet but good with his hands, and how shit Ramsdale is with his hands but good with his feet, well boy do I have a good idea for the next match.

That's really shit. Tough hand to be dealt at a relatively young age. Fingers crossed for him.

Already seen one in my lifetime

Yeah I'd rather have a good goalkeeper who can't play football than a good footballer who can't keep goal.

As good as he is with his feet, he's just not very good at the goalkeeping part of goalkeeping.

I'd say that far more than numerical order, I hate upside down formations like this. To me you've got Ramsdale up front and Woltemade in goal.

Good spot. One of my worst (best) typos for a while.

Don't want him to change positions but I suspect he'd be equally good at left wing or central midfield, either offensively or defensively. He's got one hell of a skillset.

YouTube isn't a banned word. It's on YouTube.

We'll likely concede if we play that passively in the second half. They had too many clear chances and the same second half will be very risky. I'm not a fan of ceding quite that much possession and territory for that long. Still, it's working out well so far.

Feel sorry for Miley who I thought this would be his breakout year but he's barely getting a sniff. At the age how where he needs games to either show he's good enough or not. Similar for Ramsey who I really want to see more of too. Neither can get on the pitch.

As long as we don't see Burn at LB I don't care. But this... Would scream to me that we'll actually see: --Barnes Gordon Murphy ----Willock Bruno Tonali Burn Botman Schar Livramento ----------Pope I really REALLY hope we've seen the last of Burn at left back but I somehow doubt it.

Weird comments on here complaining that he didn't press well enough. He was the only man up front, we sat deep in 2 banks and NOBODY pressed until the ball came into the final third. If Elanga went chasing after their defenders, he'd have been doing it on his own and they'd have just played around him and made him look ridiculous, like a dog chasing after a ball. He did what he could, he didn't just stand idly by, but his job was to be available on the break if we turned possession over not to pointlessly chase their back 4 round on his own. That said when we DID turn possession over and played him in, he looked completely bereft of confidence. I'm sure there's a player in there somewhere as I trust our recruitment massively but he just seemed like his head had gone. Hopefully he gets in a good place again soon and we see some positives from him.

eScouser at work spent all summer crowing about how great their recruitment was, how they never missed because it was all so data driven etc. Annoyed me no end about how he went on about Isak too. Been fun to see them fail so hard this season. I told him at the time that letting TAA go in his prime but re-signing mid-30s VVD and Salah seemed like a disaster waiting to happen but "the data" was wheeled out again and of course he couldn't see how a negative outcome could ever arise. He's been 100% working from home for the past month. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. I still think Isak is a fantastic player, but as others have alluded to he has to play in a team set a certain way. He's not a grafter. He's a selfish poacher, a finisher. Yes he can dribble a bit and create space but generally he needs good service, for a team to look to play him in all the time. He's great as a big fish in a small pond, bu he's floundering about now he's surrounded by others who don't (and won't) see him as the main man.

48 here, and I've been to lots of Tyne-Tees derbies. Would probably rather beat them than a team that's a complete irrelevance geographically like Sheff Wed or Luton etc (No offence to those teams, I'm talking literally geography here), but that's about as far as I'd go. In terms of who I'd want to beat it'd be Sunderland first obviously, then the cartel 6, then maybe Boro would be in the tier below that along with teams that had specifically annoyed me lately. They always seemed as a fanbase to have frothing hate for us, but it never really registered for us. I feel exactly like @Wallsendmag, often I've kind of wished them well and been able to "enjoy" their success as being good for the region and I have a couple of smoggy mates who I'm pleased for when they do OK. Quite enjoyed them being decent in the 90s with Juninho etc. They were a fun team.

I mean they've already invested hundreds of millions into the club, we've qualified twice for the CL and we've won a major trophy for the first time in my life so tbh even if the Saudis walked away tomorrow I'd still be incredibly happy they took us over in the first place. Doesn't bare thinking about what state we'd be in if we'd still been rotting under Ashley and whoever had taken over from Bruce after we got relegated. THAT'S the alternate timeline, not winning league titles and being a super club etc. If we were sold tomorrow (which clearly we won't be) then you'd imagine it would be for big money to a forward-thinking owner. Not picked up off the scrapheap for peanuts in a clearance sale as was our previous destiny.

We can't play through a press so we need to stop trying Burn is not a left back and should never play there again no matter how desperate we are Trippier looks finished Elanga doesn't look like a footballer WIllock is too lazy Botman is well off form and needs dropping Can't remember the last time Bruno did anything positive We don't actually look any better than we did when Howe took over 5 years ago. Back then he had us playing great, what's happened? Why have we regressed so much despite massive investment? Have we been found out? Are the new players just not buying into it? Are we playing differently? Whatever it is, much though I love Eddie he really needs to sort this out. He seems to have his undroppable favourites, we all know who they are, but it's absolutely shit that bad performances do not result in certain people being rotated out. Sends completely the wrong message to the rest of the squad. And to the players who aren't dropped too, they get lazy.

Honestly I love Dan Burn but we must never see him play left back ever again.

Really need to sort out our away performances to middling clubs. Don't care (in the larger context) about the result, but really want to see us play differrently today because as they say doing the same things again and again whilst expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

Seemingly except Burn or Joelinton. Who for me were a big part of why we were so shit.

Hmm. Seems we've gone from playing with 1 fullback to playing with 0. And from 2 wingers to 1. Are we just planning on going ultra narrow?