Gallowgate Toon

Boro aside, which McClaren teams have been dour and defensive? Edit: club teams.

Didn't we dominate possession against Southampton, for large periods? We looked very comfortable until fitness went. Even so, it's a ludicrous post, it doesn't take much to figure out what we're trying to do - they've explained their plan.

Don't think we'll be boring at all. He seems to have changed a lot since Boro (which was nearly a decade ago, tbf) and will try and play good stuff. Nothing amazing, aye, but still good, passing football.

Watched it back and I don't think it's a red at all. Even the slow mo isn't that bad. Bollocks decision, simply a yellow card.

Thought Haidara was relatively solid defensively, tbh, and made some really good tackles. He needs to play games, he's certainly got brittle confidence.

Looking back over the start, we could've done better at getting ourselves into it, but I do maintain we did look positive going forward when we got the opportunity. Suppose it is difficult when they were so obviously set up to retain possession (and are excellent at it) but we needed a bit more to stamp our authority on the game. We tried to pass it short but seemed to lose too much faith early on with it, we were better when down to 10 for it, tbh. Was good to see SM trying to get the players to push up and push on late on, mind. Reckon the close-score will actually benefit our confidence, in a way.

What did he say? 'the player did well to get up, I don't know how he's still walking after the reaction he gave'

Ripped Coquelin in his NUFCTV interview Get in, Steve.

Also want to add that his movement off the ball was very impressive, at times. Bet he's learnt that from Bielsa.

His role was very different at OM, from what I can gather. He's obviously a very gifted footballer, definitely one of those that is quicker with the ball at his feet.

The linesman was an utter fanny, had an even worse game than the ref too.

For the next match, I'd be doing this, but I don't think it was right for today. We should go to West Ham and look to nail the cunts and look to play more of a possession game.

Fucking this.

I was/am fucking foaming, tbh, and that's a good thing. Potentially good game spoilt by an utter bellend. Really felt like we could've had this lot, today, we had the right players and set up.

We'll miss him against West Ham, like. He probably does need to calm down a bit but we need to make sure he keeps an aggressive game. He did 1 or 2 really nice bits of link up before the decision and we need a striker in away games that won't give defenders an easy ride.

Posting stills of tackles is utterly, utterly pointless.

He's mint. Really hope he gets dropped to CM against West Ham. Good to see him berate the ref (shouldn't have been booked for it, considering how often other clubs do this), as well, shows why he was the captain of a title-winning club.

Looks a player, to me

Gutted, was looking forward to seeing him. Thought he was just getting himself into the game when the sending off happened, couple of nice bits of interplay and hold up etc.

interesting, thought we had about a good 30 seconds then they took total control until the sending off Think I'm just in fuming mode Certainly remember some promising moments from us before the sending off. They were obviously getting more possession but I wasn't too worried about that. Will have to watch it back.

Thought we started fine, tbh. Got stuck in, created a good opening, some good moves. We were just getting into our rhythm when Arsenal decided they didn't like being touched.

With Sissoko back, I'm not too bothered, tbh. Sissoko is tailor-made for these games, Wijnaldum is highly flexible positionally (which we'll need today) and we need Thauvin's delivery for Mitrovic. Perez is an excellent option off the bench, along with Aarons, de Jong and Cisse.

Good team for this game, IMO. Best balance between defensive cover and attacking ability, as well as counter-attackers that can play some possession football.

What match are you thinking would be? We're at home to the essentially possession winners of the league. We need a dude like SDJ in the squad. Games where we're going to be the ones dominating possession and needing to break teams down.