Pilko

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.

Every injury is fucking months as well, no such thing as a 1 or 2 game knock this season.

Those takes aren't mutually exclusive, though. His goal record is absolutely superb but he's incredibly unreliable in terms of availability, and when the other main striking option is also made of wet tissue paper you have to seriously question the situation as it doesn't feel long term tenable. I really hope Wilson can get to second behind Shearer this season and ideally put up 50 league goals for us, but we do need to look at the striking roster and consider his position come the summer.

Should never have pensioned off Big Derek Wright

I've been a fan for a while but I do think it depends on the guests they get on & they have a tendency to get people to repeat stories we've heard before. Also it gets quite noticeable that Parky basically has two questions only, 1) "I bet you had some good nights out though?" and 2) "What were he like?"

Hopefully Sky will replay that game over and over for years to come rather than Collymore closing in.

Surely goes down as an all time classic this game. Been absolutely mint.

Rodri is the new Gundo with his big game goals.

Jackson 3-3. What a game this is

What a game this is. 3-2 Haaland

Class ball there and great header from Akanji

Surprisingly entertaining game this so far.

Finally shirt pulling is actually punished

He's given a pen there I think

You'd think we'd have learned from last season that Isak and Wilson's injury records just don't stand up and that inevitably we'd be without them both for periods longer than the odd match. Can't believe there's an argument that we should have retained Wood but do think we should have either taken an older striker happy to provide cover (bit like when Llorente was at Spurs or even a PL-level Daryl Murphy type) or just take a punt on a £5-£10m young striker from the continent. Gordon playing through the middle means we lose out on his wing play and we're now reduced to bringing the 2023 edition of Phil Airey or Tom Heardman into a PL game as a sub.

Do admire the way he's refusing to use the injuries as an excuse as previous managers of ours loved to do. Fingers crossed the lads get a breather over the next two weeks and we can get Isak & Wilson back as well as having Bruno again after his ban. Tank looked empty today and sadly Bournemouth looked bang at it. The first goal the ball fell nicely for them (just like it did for Dortmund) and it does feel like absolutely nowt will drop for us at the minute as well as the injuries continuing with Almiron. The second goal however was absolutely shite defending whether you've got 11 players injured or not and incredibly disappointing to watch. The positive thing was the goal difference didn't take a heavy hammering cos I think a team with better finishers would have stuck 4+ past us there.

A decent side would have absolutely leathered us today.

Injuries or not, conceding from a set piece like that is fucking piss poor and pathetic. Not one of them reacted to that second ball, four men around Solanke. Crap.