Pilko

People sure are making a lot of the 3 keepers thing. We only get 5 subs that we can make per game, he's included 6 outfield players that he trusts (to differing degrees) to introduce into the pitch - given all 6 got on bar Parkinson, who had 25 mins at Bournemouth. He may well only trust the academy lads for short cameos or giving the senior lads a breather late on but he's clearly selected lads he can trust to do that rather than just populate the bench with lads who aren't ready and he won't ever use. Granted there's like an absolute fractionally miniscule chance that we manage to go through Pope, Dubravka, Karius and Gillespie in one match due to injury or red cards but better to have them all sat there than empty seats. Imagine if our injury/suspension crisis suddenly extended to the goalkeeping department and we had an empty seat instead of a registered keeper we needed to use? There'd be hell on if we suddenly had to hoy an outfielder in net. I understand there's a point to then be made about the depth/quality of our U23/academy if we can't scrape together another couple of lads who he can trust, but it's a long process to sort out the shambolic shell it was when we were bought 2 years ago and a lot of the promising ones are out on loan anyway.

Feel like I've said it so many times already this season, but yet again we've racked up goals with a bunch of different goalscorers. It's great how we're not reliant on just the strikers or one player having a purple patch. Great spread today - one from defence, one midfield, one wide and one striker.

Did really well again today, keep forgetting he's only 17. The assist was class, otherwise he kept it simple and tried to pass forwards as much as possible and he looked very assured. Players of that age in a central midfield position can sometimes be bullied or look physically off it but that just hasn't happened so far.

Get innnnn

That's twice Lascelles has done that today, proper circa 2018 play from him.

Shades of Siem De Jong v Aston Villa that header.

Harrison Ashby gone off after 10 mins for Swansea, the injury curse now extending to our loan players

Lascelles did shite giving the ball away, but it wasn't a foul for the slight tap on the shoulder from Trippier. Not sure my post was that confusing?

Lascelles shite. Not a foul either. Fucks sake man.

Schar in the warm up given how this season is going.

Who the fuck is running our medical department? What an absolute shambles.

And now the wall pushers equalise after they should have been 2-0 down. Of course. Cunts.

That's never a foul on the goalkeeper in a million years for fucks sake. It's not fucking netball.

Man City 3-1 Liverpool Burnley 1-2 West Ham Luton 0-2 Palace Newcastle 1-0 Chelsea Forest 1-2 Brighton Sheff United 0-2 Bournemouth Brentford 0-2 Arsenal Spurs 2-2 Villa Everton 0-1 Man United Fulham 1-1 Wolves

Calvert-Lewin deary me. We should see if Duncan Ferguson wants to come out of retirement or failing that see if Darren Anderton wants to get his boots back on and play as a striker.

I can just imagine his view on Schar, a central defender who could actually pass the ball and play. "Bloody fancy dan faffing about too much, needs to clear it, get it into touch, defend properly not lark about with the ball"

He was playing back threes with Schar on the bench, Clark and Krafth were in there ahead of him FFS

Apparently they have Rico Lewis as man of the match

I can't wait to get the Southgate era over with. Win, lose or draw its turgid, cautious shite.

That's the softest, shittest penalty ever awarded

this is a fucking terrible take mind. The Given v Pope thing has supporters on both sides of the fence but to suggest peak Shay wouldn't be able to find a place in this absolutely honking quality modern PL is lunacy.

Was looking at a record of normal time / in-game pens only tbf. His shootout record for us is definitely far superior to Shay.

Pope plays in front of a far superior defence, though. When you consider the absolute divvies Given had to share the backline with I think it brings it a lot closer. Both can't kick. Can't choose one Shot stopping pretty even, I'd go Shay but only just Pope susceptible to rush of blood running out of his goal Given susceptible to conceding long range shots Pope far better at commanding penalty area / coming for crosses Both got pretty poor pen saving records too - Pope saved only 3/29 (10.3%) in his career (one was against us - fucking Joselu ) and Shay saved 10/64 (15.6%). Appreciate this bit isn't just whilst at NUFC but Pope has an 0/3 record as we've barely conceded a pen when he's played, the knackers Shay played with gave them away virtually weekly at times. I think it's really hard to pick one for sure, I'd be really interested to see how peak Shay would do playing in Eddie's side.

I wonder if the "personal matter" might be Eddie doing that thing you can do on FM re: "set International instructions" and asking Southgate not to play him unless he needed him or maybe only for a half etc and then he goes and makes him do a 90 min stint against a pub team Wouldn't be surprised if we pulled him out on that basis.

I can think of one in the same city as them for starters who I'd say are way more deserving of it.