Mattoon

First half was a bit of a slog, you could see we were a little nervous and disjointed but as the game grew on we looked more and more relaxed and the football really started to flow, confidence was high at the end and we looked really dangerous every time we went forward, there was some empirical displays from Bruno and Gordon, Miley had a solid, mature performance, Murphy was class and Woltemade orchestrated everything from a deep role, linking up well with the players around him. Ramsey showed some great glimpses but drifted in and out of the game, which can probably be attributed to the time hes spent out injured and will probably get much better with more game time. Thought the defence was solid for the most part too, Burn was probably the weak link in the first half but recovered well to see out the game. A solid performance and I think the score line probably flattered Benfica in the end, it could have been so much more had their keeper not made 6 or 7 really good saves.

Never heard of the bloke

For all the question marks over his head when we signed him hes been stupendously undroppable.

Best centre forward we've had here in some years, involved in everything positive going forward, he dictates our forward play with precision and speed, unselfish and very likeable, hopefully we keep hold of him for a long time, he could be a legend here.

Great to see Barnes back on the score sheet with that rifle of a shot hes got, hope this is another one of his streaks hes hitting, Gordon finally reverting to the winger we saw in his 1st full season here, hope he can keep that up, midfield looked great despite the changes and Woltemade is just an obscene orchestrator of the game, I'm just gutted he didn't get on the score sheet tonight, he deserved it.

That was our best performance of the season so far, everyone to a man played their part, now let's take that into the league against Fulham at the weekend.

Both back at the beginning of November so not horrific and doubtful both get injured at the same time again.

It would be a really bad time for your battery to die

They've got prior for paying off refs, that was absolutely scandalous

I think there's probably only 1 goal in this game so it needs to be ours.

It was so unbelievably short sighted, because a bunch of spoilt brats had no respect for Bobby they replaced him with the angriest man they could find who was literally a game away from being sacked at a Blackburn team languishing at the bottom of the table, they even paid to take him off Blackburn saving them a hefty payout. Completely insane and I remember being enraged at the time. Edit: it still makes me angry just reliving it then

I said this a few pages back, for every Andy Carroll theres an Andy Cole, I remember the running joke being "Cole not being able to score in a brothel with £7m strapped to his nob" but once it clicked he was prolific.

Great, we've also got Joelinton and Miley carrying niggles and Ramsey coming back from injury.

Loving the demise of the most moralest club in the whole wide world and it tastes even sweeter that the catalyst for said downfall is the rat that deserted us. Their whole £500m summer looks like the most expensive of Emperors new clothes, their crown jewels have turned to coal and their shiny new manager looks an absolute fraud. It may not stay this way, but right now its the perfect schadenfreude and I will revel in it for as long as it continues.

Ideally yes, but I think Mourinho will have them parked up for this one, they do have some defensive issues due to injury which could help our cause though.

Cagey game, 60% possession to us against a low block and Woltemade to score in the 65-75th minute to win the game 1-0

One thing I've noticed about Benfica is there's a lot of red cards in their games, including their run in, in May there's been 11 in 24 games. Still a decent side and it won't be an easy game like the last one but we should absolutely be winning this at home. A Mourinho team, likely to park the bus away from home in a low block so Murphy and Barnes have to start this one for me, I'd give Big Joe a rest too, hes been our weak link in that midfield 3 but still has a big job to do over the coming weeks with the schedule looking relentless. I wish we had more options to rotate the wing backs too as relying on the old guard of Burn and Trippier to play 3 times a week is going to bite us at some point, maybe Krafth can step in and give at least one of them a rest?

1. Slot is a fraud who won the league on the coat tails of Klopp 2. VVD and Salah are on a steep decline 3. Isak is a bit of a donkey 4. Wirtz is not suited to this league and not worth £16m never mind £116m 5. Has Howe ever lost 4 games in a row?

Van Hecke is such rat

Bring the chaos

Pawson is tragic like

That's filthy!

That's a pen all day

How have they not had any cards with all these fouls? Every time we take the ball off them they foul us to prevent the break away and they get away with it.

Much better start this, close