John P

No, not even close. Christ knows what I saw then

Did anyone else think the Southampton goal was offside? Only saw the one replay at the time but it looked like Ings was off when the ball was launched forward and no-one touched it before he latched onto it?

Looks like his body has given up the ghost and he's lost all his physicality. As soon as someone makes contact with him he's off balance and tumbles to the floor.

Apparently back in training but way too early to return to the team.

Surely got to play Fernandez? Clark and Dummett are so one-footed that it would seriously fuck up the balance of the side playing them both either side of Lascelles.

Parkinson has a decent record at that level doesn't he? Few promotions on the CV, got Bolton up under a transfer embargo, got Bradford to the League Cup final beating premier league opposition along the way. Not sure why the fans are seemingly so disappointed, they're a League One playoff side FFS.

Ian Holloway has confirmed his interest in taking the Sunderland job...

Agree with this. After signing him and looking at his youtube videos I thought he would be overdoing things and running into blind alleys a lot, but he's actually shown so far that he is very good at releasing the ball at the right time.

Love this guy, he's a mad bastard. After he made that run at the start of the game and slipped it to Almiron he was properly trying to get the crowd psyched up.

He's doing a live Q&A on the Athletic now with Chris Waugh and is saying some interesting things about Owen - "when Owen signed; he didn’t want to be there, the club bought him anyway and then he made it abundantly clear he didn’t want to be there every time he ‘played’. Paul Ferris’s book is really good on this. Shearer the manager and the whole club needed players with commitment. Owen had none. He was an awful, awful signing - pound for pound (at the time), the worst in their history, as far as I’m concerned." "Owen hasn’t told us anything we didn’t already know, although it’s pretty startling to see it in black and white. I wish we’d never seen him in black and white .." Love him even more now.

https://www.nufc.co.uk/news/galleries/toon-in-training-magpies-seeking-successive-premier-league-victories/ Willems, Joelinton and Almiron all took part in training. Also, check out the physical condition of Rob Elliott in picture 24. I genuinely think I'm more athletic.

Exactly, good riddance.

With Ritchie, Krafth and Willems likely out, we'll probably have to play Dummett and Manquillo as the wing backs so guessing we'll go something like this: Dubravka Schar Lascelles Fernandez Manquillo Hayden Longstaff Dummett Almiron Atsu Joelinton

Anyone seen the Luke Edwards piece on Shelvey saying he's not lazy? Well, the Daily Mail has run the exact same story, with the exact same quotes, apart from one extra quote that Luke Edwards decided to omit: "It was Shelvey who paid the price as Bruce switched formation from 3-5-2 to the 3-4-2-1 employed by Rafa Benitez last season. 'Defensively, we looked sound,' said the 27-year-old. 'We need to work on what to do offensively with the ball, but that will come. 'We've had that instilled in us with Rafa, that formation, and the gaffer has picked up on it and it seems to be working." Edwards really is shameless in his pro-Bruce / anti-Rafa sentiments isn't he?

Are people watching this?

http://www.true-faith.co.uk/the-numbers-game-why-everything-steve-bruce-knows-about-football-is-wrong/

We've played one game and I'm already sick of hearing Bruce trot out absolute nonsense in press conferences. God help us.

Gary Neville contradicts himself at least 3 times in that article. Nonsense.

It's almost as if Rafa Benitez knew what he was doing regarding pre-season conditioning.

Appreciate the positive comments everyone. I'm hoping to write a few more articles as the season progresses, for therapeutic reasons if nothing else.

Did you write that? It pretty much nails it for me, like. Yeah I did. Found myself so frustrated on Sunday that I thought I'd write something to let it out! Glad you agree.

Thought I'd stick this in here: http://www.true-faith.co.uk/what-the-f-is-happening/

Almiron looks like he could be a good player but will be judged on goals and assists. Big couple of months for him coming up as he certainly needs to improve in that area. He looked absolutely knackered in the second half also. But Brucey has been running them into the ground in training for 4 weeks, they should be the fittest team in the league?!

Like his father, what Alex Bruce is saying there doesn't make any sense. Yes, it would have made sense to bring Willems on in CM as he has played there before. But he didn't, he apparently screamed "what the fuck is happening" when Willems went to CM, and he clearly then spent the rest of the game at LWB. Talking utter nonsense.

Yeah, wishes Steve Bruce, the players and fans good luck. Nicely done