Pilko

Liverpool one down as well justhookittomyveins.gif

And 1-1

Villa a goal down early on their Europa Connie League excursion at Legia.

Sunday at 6.30pm imagine getting beat in that slot knowing you've got work in the morning.

He was good I thought. He needs to be in the side in the short term, he's dependable and puts in the yards.

cheers. I may have overreacted when pissed, who hasn't done it?

The focus on him is bound to happen to some extent, he's the big signing of the summer and our main midfield addition. Don't agree with those writing him off like, that's just mental. It's not quite clicked for him yet but there's also been enough signs to show that he's clearly a very good player.

Kinda the same pattern as his Brentford performance for me, pretty anonymous early on but grew into it and by the end was probably pick of the bunch.

10/10 for grit, determination, effort, crucial big headers at the back and leadership. 3/10 for his distribution Well in Dan, what a night for him that must have been.

Don't want to put too much of a negative spin on a great result but I thought he was pretty poor tonight. Work to be done.

Delighted with that result. Yes it was hairy at times and a team with better finishers might well have stuffed us but some of the blocks, tackles, saves by Pope and the shift that went in are things to be proud of. I'd like to think that now we've got 2 clean sheets on the belt and a slightly more favourable run of league games coming up that we will start to see some more attacking cohesion and chances created. We've built a wee platform and we need to start clicking in the final third a bit more and hopefully that starts at Bramall Lane. Delighted for the lads and in a way it should be a confidence booster that they've not played anywhere near their best as a team there but still managed to take a point from the San Siro on our first game back at the big table.

Great result that.

We need to stop attempting these super ambitious through balls, giving the ball away so easily FFS.

As if the keeper is injured he won't have had a quieter night in his life.

Thought the ref was having a good game but last 10 mins or so he's given them every single marginal decision and then on the odd occasion we get up the pitch he's ignored two blatant fouls on Wilson and Almiron.

Of all the interesting questions they could have asked Eddie and about half of them were boring on about the slight delay to the flight FFS. "Could you talk us through that" Massive torrential thunderstorm and a plane is delayed, why do they need to even ask him

Burnley keeper in the book for time wasting after 10 minutes

Sad times. He'll be there Wednesday night saying "that's me, retired" like he has every job since Palace circa 2006 and then he'll pitch back up somewhere mid-February to successfully claw them out the relegation zone. Long live Uncle Neil.

Away game in a tough setting, there's no chance Almiron doesn't start for his work rate and defensive qualities IMO.

He was alright on Saturday, it was a physical sort of game lacking quality and whilst he didn't stamp his authority all over it, he didn't look out of place either. There was one excellent through ball to Barnes first half and he was generally tidy and combative and dependable. He'll have flashier and better games than he did at the weekend but he definitely showed Howe he can mix it and be depended on in a PL fixture.

Quite like the idea of two old timers telling each other to Google stuff. Shouldn't they be advising each other to look it up at their local library first thing tomorrow morning once the bus pass becomes valid?

Can't believe the state of that Chelsea squad given the money spent, tragic and hilarious at the same time.

Trippier's reaction to that was brilliant, the ref trotted the length of the pitch to check on him when the ball went dead to see if he was alright and a clearly in pain Trippier shook his head and waved his hand dismissively at the ref as if to say "fuck off, you waved the foul away before so why are you coming all this way now to see if I'm injured?"

I think it's quite close but I think Wilson is better as Ba played most of his games in a far superior team to Wilson. Wilson was basically 1-in-2 in that utterly honking Bruce side and then roughly 1-in-2 since despite being rotated with Isak and playing as sub a fair bit. A goal every other game (or just shy) in that Bruce side is absolutely ridiculous the more I think about it, we used to create the square root of nowt most weeks, sat back on the 18-yard line. Shows how clinical he is.

I thought he was outstanding today. He won loads of crucial headers and I can't remember him wasting a pass. He's an absolute warrior and whilst he may occasionally have a game where some pace merchant runs rings round him, I think his durability, dependability and strength can be underappreciated. We will in time have someone more traditional play left-back and I'm sure they'll contribute a lot more in the final third and be much more adept at carrying the ball. I do wonder however if they'll be able to lock down their part of the pitch as effectively as Burn did today - Brentford had very little joy down his side, one early chance apart. Definitely understand the cries for some more technical ability and pace in the position but I think whilst Hall beds in and gets used to the league he'll learn a hell of a lot about the defensive, gritty side of being a left-back by watching this fella.