Gallowgate Toon

Looks very sharp indeed.

Fucking hell

As if he took them to Rialtos. What a dickhead

Not felt this apathetic since '08. Still think we'll be fine once we put a little run together, confidence is seemingly on the floor, atm, and it appears there's currently not that raw enthusiasm from the team that we saw last year. As everyone is now catching on; what's the fucking point?

They need time and a run of games. Player patience seems exceptionally low this year, especially odd when we know the context of the summer and lack of time players have had on the pitch together.

Context is key. We've just come off a horrific run and confidence is low. As a quite untalented squad that lack individuals to pull it out of the bag, we need to be tightly managed to get us going. We played some good stuff last year in patches creating a decent amount, when confident, and we have better available forward options in attack now than last season, imo. I'm sure we'll see that as we finally can get a run in for our new players now, barring injuries. By christ, it's felt a slog.

Better than Mbemba, lads.

We know we're limited but we can do better than this. Confidence obviously needs to be rebuilt and this is a good start. It was important not to lose today, as boring as that is. Useful result in context, imo.

Steve McClaren & Beardsley's jokes are absolutely the best things about it, but there's some other cracking stuff in there like Gangs etc. I love it because it feels like a 'modern' throwback to daft-as-shite comedy. Andy isn't particularly funny, for me, but he's good at bouncing conversation off Bob which often leads to my biggest laughs during the show.

Coloccini's first 2 seasons back in the Prem after Ashley relegation #1 were sublime, like. He was genuinely one of the best defenders in the league. It all ended badly and he was a shadow of his former self before he left, but those 2 years (and his season in the Champ, tbf) were really, really good. He matched players physically and his reading of the game was masterful, along with his play on the ball. Lascelles and prime Colo would've been a mouthwatering pairing.

Meh, we move on. Lost to a worldie.

Chelsea are more possession oriented and strangled us a bit. City are more open so there's more space for us to work with. Sarri has already worked wonders on Chelsea's shape in possession - it was really good.

We're benefitting from City being more direct than Chelsea as well.

Good half. Nicer balance to us.

Get in. Class from rondon!

Fuck off, Diame.

Interesting stat doing the rounds on Twitter. We were the best of the rest against the top 6 last season, apparently. We really should go for it more though.

Written by Craig Hope, who definitely isn't an embarrassing puppet.

People really do just need to ignore the bloke, like. He's the lowest of the low and loves the banter. Stop giving him what he wants

Don't think I've ever seen him praise Rafa once

He needs to work on getting everyone back in line and calm. He was very good at points of last season of getting the no panic message across, this certainly feels like that time as mongs start to shit the bed a few games into the season, 'negative' press stories start seeping out, new players start getting labelled as shite before they have time to bed in etc. Last night was shite and annoying but what we've seen for nigh on the last 10 years in domestic cups, apart from Rafa getting to the quarters(?). Just need to get expectations set on the playing side so the correct focus can go back to Ashley and keeping that pressure up

Not having that - we created plenty last year, we missed so many opportunities. This year has been a rough start but it's early days and we'll come out of it.

Finish, and lovely play from him in the buildup.

Can't believe I'm sticking up for Cider Ryder but he's just reporting that the players aren't happy with the coverage - a story to the original story Hope trying desperately to keep the drama alive. I wonder why...

Rafa is managing this opening fixture list as well as the goal difference, IMO. He knows results will likely not go our way so keeping some level of confidence (defensively, in particular) is going to be important. There are far bigger things to focus on than Rafa's tactics.