Gallowgate Toon

Top finish.

Nawty from ASM.

I still love him. Thought he made a noticeable difference when he came on and I was glad to see him get in an actual left wing position a few times getting to the byline. I think he's a proper system player so would love to see him under someone like Fonseca. We know now he's never going to be massively cutting edge but he can bring a lot to the team and be very useful for a while as we build.

At first, I felt strongly about this because I do feel there's a lot of hypocrisy from many (not all) journalists and, frankly, they're patronising as fuck. It seemed the PL were getting off very lightly with the coverage. Pretty chill about it now though. I actually think the Squires cartoon was the peak of it for me, I've not felt bothered by much since. Shrugged the flag off yesterday without much thought.

I work with Palace and I think they're a really good club. Behind the scenes, they're trying a lot of things to evolve the fanbase and create a direction. They have to fight hard for new supporters and they put a lot of effort into fan experience. Some of it is trial and error so it can come across as a bit of artificial but they really do have a lot of competitive factors to contend with.

Wilson is so good, man. Clearly our best player.

Darlow is a fucking moron.

Pretty bizarre. Presuming this might be a bit of a 'fuck you' considering what's going on behind the scenes.

Feels like one we might nick with Willock coming off the bench.

Palace look tidy.

Standards have obviously slipped, they've had more days off than on since the takeover happened FFS. Let's see if he keeps the same routine up.

I do think a back 3 probably suits our CBs now, tbh. I don't think there's a pairing that's good enough as a 2 but they can be very workable in a 3. Lascelles/Fede/Schar, in theory, should be good. I think the problems we really have playing with a back 3 are wing backs and the midfield. Midfield really is the biggest problem we have - no combination of players there or shifting of formation gives us enough.

Went down to the office yesterday (darn sarf) and absolutely everyone said to me 'I feel sorry for him, he was treated awfully'. Made the case that the guy is dourest, wettest, woe-is-me-est twat going but it didn't really land. I stopped caring what other fans thought about our view on managers after Rafa left - as is often the case in the current world, nobody has a clue but they do have a strong, expert opinion on the matter.

I'm excited about this but some of that is somewhat just down to the fact that we're not going with the usual PFM bollocks. I think Fonseca could be really good for us in the short and medium term. Doing some reading up on him yesterday, he seems to be really good at cultivating a good squad/club atmosphere (this will be important short-term), improving younger and more peripheral players, creating a culture of being comfortable on the ball, and providing a lot of detail to players. His defensive record is suspect which I think is what will inhibit him from being a top, top manager (he may very well learn though as he seems to be a student of the game), but, apart from a select few managers in the world, most have some pretty big flaws somewhere. He feels like someone who could get us into a top 8 position and create some great foundations. What I really liked about what I read is that he made Roma really good at beating teams you'd expect to beat which had apparently been their Achilles heel for some time, but he couldn't get it to translate to beating the big teams. For me, that's a good sign that he could get us into a good top 8 spot with some deep cup runs. It doesn't sound like his Roma squad/team was that good either, compared to what they've had in the past? We need to buy some really good spine players in January to keep us up. I'm confident he'll get us to a comfy position with some fresh blood in, and we'll have some actual proper football to watch along the way.

There's a fair chance he's competent enough to create a short-term plan for the players he has. Philosophy doesn't necessarily mean there's no room for variation.

Luke telling the world he loves wine again. He is a genuine creep.

Maverick player loves manager who instills no discipline and is dead nice to him no matter what? Shocker. I'm not convinced ASM is going to make the cut long term, tbh. He's a really lovely footballer to watch but not convinced he has the other parts to his game. It's going to be really interesting seeing how he fares with someone tactically structured.

Christ, seeing the idea that players think about 'fun' in training you train for about 2 hours a day, man, have loads of fun for the rest of the day. Feels like something Shelvey would come out with.

Oh Alan.

Good riddance. Not an ounce of sympathy for him. Best bit of news is that Edwards no longer has an in with the club, the smarmy bastard,

I think they'll make the right calls soon which is ultimately the most important thing, but the situation is annoying, counterproductive, and getting worse. Surely they can convince the 2 Steves to stick around with Jones for a bit while this gets sorted?

The match itself was almost secondary for me yesterday, I thought we were going to get battered regardless and almost didn't give a toss about the result. My overriding emotion coming away was pride; I thought Wor Flags was fucking incredible and was a perfect crescendo to the atmosphere that had been bubbling up all afternoon.

It was difficult to make out what was going on but a guy in a grey jumper ran around to where the struggling fan was and jumped in to help. I take it he was a doctor or nurse - was absolutely mesmerising to watch someone react like that, tbh.

So fucking good.