Gallowgate Toon

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.

Meh, preseason. We've tried a couple of different tactics and looked leggy in parts - some decent build up in places but awful final balls. Already know Colback is shit. Diame looks old.

Diame and Colback there, man

I don't think he ever was, reckon that was a Chronicle fuck up (but he most likely is for sale). He was in the training pics yesterday.

I expect to see Ritchie and Murphy/Atsu/Aarons switching a lot in games.

Like the fact we’re getting another young talent in; Rafa’s seemingly angling for more unpredictability and energy. Places lots of responsibility on Shelvey, mind. Goalkeeper and 10 are where we need experience the most. A more established striker would be good too, but I have a feeling we’ll go for someone a little less known again. I reckon we’ll get the numbers in, it’s really about quality now. ‘keeper, 10, striker and another winger will be our lot, IMO. Doubt we’ll shift much.

I imagine we've probably negotiated a decent purchase clause when the deal is up so we don't mind paying the fee?