Gallowgate Toon

Gayle and Ritchie don't look match fit, tbh. Not surprised at the latter, considering how limited his preseason was.

Pretty comfortable, tbh. Just need to get into some rhythm going forward. Don't buy this team doesn't have goals, all about confidence.

I don't think him as a no.10 is a bad shout. Benitez liked having presence behind Gayle last season and this lad seemingly fits the bill, especially with Diame looking like a backup CM now. He won't be uber creative but we don't really need that for the system Benitez is likely going to have us playing in a lot of games this year.

They really didn't like. Did nothing until well into the second half and even that was from a set piece. We looked more accomplished and created more in open play against a side that is more settled and more capable defensively than City. They had 6 attempts. How many did we have? Most were potshots, no? Edit: Gayle's attempt seemed the only decent opportunity of the 1st, IIRC? Edit: ignore me

Spurs also created nothing of note for 45 minutes, like. You can't base attacking ability off 45 minutes of football. Lots of factors go into a game.

This is where I'm at. Unfortunately, he's very important to us.

Not going to wildly speculate based on one game. We'll see a clearer picture of our standing in this division in a few games time. Confident we'll have improved in attacking. Still need some reinforcements, whether starters or squad competition.

Ritchie and Gayle are clearly behind with their fitness.

He obviously has some issues. Absolutely no value or logic to what he did, especially as he worked so hard to get into peak shape. Ruined it for his team mates.

How annoying that this has all been ruined by the actions of a stupid fucking prick.

Cheers, Jonjo, pal.

Idiot. What was the point in that, the tit.

Biggest learning curve today is for Hayden. He'll make it as a PL player but you can tell this is his first real taste at this level.

Solid enough start, tbh. Good shape, some opportunities we should've done better with. Annoying about Lejeune's injury, hope it's more of an impact injury that's easy to recover from.

Honestly, I think we're going to be fine.

Loftus-Cheek with some lovely skill. Seems to have some talent.

Palace have had 2 very good opportunities, like. For a team playing counter, Huddersfield are leaving some gaps.

Zaha has been awful.

Surely if you're built on fitness you would last longer into the season? In the sense that they'll be incredibly fit now so can start quickly. First 6 games of the season are notorious for teams trying to get up-to-speed so you see lots of weird results.

Huddersfield are built on fitness, not a surprise if they start the campaign well. They'll still be well short come the end of the season, IMO.

Gayle will score a good amount of goals, if fit, no doubt in my mind. He was so far and above the Championship it was laughable.

Murphy's got some really impressive agility. He's shown some great touches and dribbling in preseason. Excited to see how we'll develop him.

Outrageous from Merino, like 40-yard, inch perfect pass outside of the boot.

Think there's been a bit of over analysis, like. We weren't even going 100% by a preseason game's standards (looked very hot in the first half), tbh, and we pretty much played our second XI for most of the game. Obvs, we still need some key players for the first squad. Our defending for those 2 goals was beyond crap, though. Diame and Colback for the first, Shelvey and, to a lesser extent, Hayden & Atsu rubbish for the second. Hayden was out of position and Atsu should've tried to anticipate the danger a little better.

Good runout, tbh. Hot conditions, top division team, high pressers, they've switched shape and styles a couple of times, as have we. So glad we've brought another CM in, like, Colback and Diame were so tragic defensively. Mind, Hayden and Shelvey didn't do much better for the second.