Lenny

Hasn't he signed for Atalanta?

For someone that barely uses Twitter I find Romano useful in just keeping me up to date with what's going on.

"Playing the ball" in Fabinho's case is surely successfully intercepting the ball, not passing it to a player. He attempted to block the ball, and was successful in doing so. It's unfortunate that his block went to Benzema but no one blocks from point blank range with any anticipation as to where it's going to land beyond the direction in which you're lunging. Real don't deserve to be winning but that goal should have stood in my opinion.

He's been very good under Howe, particularly defensively. It's a real shame he doesn't have a little bit (a lot) more quality going forward because he has all of the physical attributes to be successful; he's very fast, has an engine to get up and down, is strong and is reasonably tall.

He seems to like a quick "one-two" pass into space and is quite effective at drawing a challenge when he does it. Unfortunately it's not something we've been able to see much during his time with us since we've never had any ability to actually make simple passes; let alone the unreasonably difficult task of stringing two together quickly. Looks another player where it's possible his own game will raise with better players around him, rather than him falling behind. For that reason it might be worth keeping him around next season.

We're pressing and winning the ball higher up the pitch, and with Bruno's assertive and quick passing ASM is able to run at the opposition when they aren't quite so organised, as is usually the case when he picks the ball up for us. Unsurprisingly he's causing them trouble. I think he'll come good as we improve as a team. He's looked like he's trying to be more smart with the ball too with a couple of sensible passes.

Whilst I largely agree that in a tangible sense the January spend is a superficial take; the mental impact of fresh faces coming in that includes influential, internationally accomplished and up and coming players will certainly have had a substantial-if-indirect influence on things. It's quite clear that Trippier's influence extended far outside of the 90 minutes of the matchday, and I would expect that Joel, Shelvey and Willock would have tried to raise their game knowing that Bruno was waiting to take one of their spots.

No doubt some witty joker will bump this thread after we inevitably lose our first game of next season

I think I'll get over anyone leaving all the while there's hope and ambition at the club. In previous seasons, the thought of the likes of HBA, ASM, Cabaye, Enrique, Carroll and any player that is either talented or brings you personal joy in watching, would bring on pretty extreme disappointment. Now we're in a position where we're going to progressively improve year on year, I'm happy that players leaving will largely be for reasons that would contribute to fulfilling said ambition. Obviously I'll still have an affinity to particular players, but I'm not sure them leaving would bring on a feeling of it being the end of the world any longer (at least not until Mbappe leaves us having seen us to a stepping stone in fulfilling his lifelong ambition to play for Sunderland).

There's every chance Joelinton can grow with the club over the coming years. I expect it'll be a while yet before his standard is deemed not good enough for our squad at all.

Real Madrid using just one Ult all game in stoppage time

This echoes my feelings, too. Likeable, hard working and surprisingly capable at times defensively, but for his position his end product is consistently poor. He almost always fluffs either the assist or the shot. He has very limited vision too; he was lucky with his shot-come-pass for Joel's goal, and the chance he put wide from Bruno's long ball early in the game, whilst difficult, would have been squared by a good player, with Joel well positioned for a tap in.

Pretty poor game, but I'm still enjoying watching with minimal pressure or concern. Bruno likes to play the pass noticeably quicker than almost everyone else in the team; he's too quick of mind for some of our players. ASM is just off form, not for lack of effort and he seems to be trying to mix his play up but very little is coming off for him.

I would go as far as agreeing that it's team capable of achieving top 8, but I don't think it's a team that would be regularly operating within the top 8. It would obviously require some serious depth to support it, too. I don't think we have a midfield three combination currently that can control games throughout the course of the season, and we need at least another dependable creative/wide player along with the quality forward you've suggested. Hopefully we're looking for a striker, a winger, an attacking midfielder/no10 as well as a defensive midfielder, and a centre back. With an additional defensive as well as attacking central midfielder we'd have lots of combinations of players that could play dependant on the opposition. Half a team full of quality players isn't much to ask for is it?

It's no coincidence that he's looking more effective with a player sat behind him that will actively look to use him to his strengths. His expectation and anticipation of the pass from Bruno is almost making him look a yard faster and as a result he's getting into dangerous positions with increased frequency. He's starting to look like he's enjoying himself again, too, which is critical for him in particular it seems.

The thought of us ever being anywhere near as good as this Liverpool team seems absurdly unfathomable

There are a number of players at the club currently that either shouldn't or can't be "flogged" at the first opportunity, for various reasons, and should be demoted to a squad player as we look to improve in the immediate future. Wood is one of those players. I'm not a fan of his, at all in fact, but calling his use under the conditions we hope are the case next season disastrous is pretty negligent of context. It stands to reason that bringing a single squad player in at any one time, to an organised, quality team will likely result in improved performance from them given that they have better players surrounding them than what we're seeing now. Wood will be given that chance, and if he doesn't fulfil it, he'll rightfully be moved on. Wood may well be ineffective for us a times (a lot of the time), but equally, what are we doing to accommodate his strengths, or any centre forward's strengths for that matter? We're hardly putting chance after chance on a plate for him. The reality of our squad is that whilst the effort and organisation has improved immeasurably, the lack of quality across the pitch is still hugely evident; we're largely getting by on unbelievable team spirit and wave of momentum. I'd expect that when we have more than just ASM that can create something, we'll see more chances afforded to the striker(s).

He only really has Enrique ahead of him in recent times (not that there's a large pool of competition).

Who was it that took Joelinton out in the build up to the goal? Did they get booked?

I honestly can't see Zaha being the type of player that would fit into Howe's gameplan, and he's already accommodating ASM as it is. He's clearly got talent and productivity, but Howe has made it very clear that he [rightfully] favours group cohesion on the pitch over relying on individual brilliance to win a game.

Does Zaha work hard defensively? I always had him down as a similar mould to ASM with little defensive discipline or desire. I'd be very surprised if we go out and buy a player that's not going to defend from the front. Howe seems to like an extremely aggressive press so imagine he'll be looking at players that buy into that.

Gayle hasn't played regularly for 3 years, is 32 years old now and when he has played for us he's looked far from the player he was a few years ago so I'm not certain he would have quite the appeal he once had.

The was atrocious from Man Utd.

How does Matic get games in the Premier League nowadays, he makes Shelvey look like Usain Bolt.

I think the save from the header was very good. The shot from range was routine.