Gottlob

I just put 'von de buttschlot' into Google and was told '"von de buttschlot" appears to be a possible misspelling or phonetic interpretation of Ursula von der Leyen'.

To me at 19 he shows good feet and makes smart use of the ball, his short passing tends to be on point and he's not easily ruffled. I'm a big fan and I'd be starting him most of the time when we're not up against a top side and want Joelinton to help turn the tables physically. I personally think it's ludicrous at this point to suggest loaning him out, and while he does sometimes play conservatively he has shown an ability to keep the ball in tight spaces and pop up on the end of chances.

He just strikes me as another version of Willock without the same dynamism or ability to play off the cuff. That might be okay if he was more durable, more composed with his passing or offered more grit and tenacity in the middle of the pitch and obviously Willock has been perpetually injured or out of form. At the moment though I don't see what Ramsey offers and if you were going to upgrade the midfield he'd be the one I'd be happiest to lose.

I thought he looked a bit more upbeat today and spurned a few opportunities but also got into some really good positions, including for their red card. He could have scored a couple had he dealt better with a pass from Gordon and had Wissa managed to find him late on.

To be honest this vexes me more than the conceded goals. I can take watching another costly mistake and might even find the humour in it, but what I can't abide is another closeup of his face.

Proud to say that he's turning into the player I thought we'd signed.

I remember when she was the nation's darling, partnering Jamie Murray to mixed doubles glory at Wimbledon.

Think this warrants further discussion. His time of 10.93 was registered by a Brower timing system, which seems to rely on a pair of photocells and is supposed to be quite accurate. He wasn't using blocks and an elite athlete with experience coming out of the blocks could be expected to run much faster out of the blocks than from a standing start. On the other hand he wasn't reacting to a gun and was arguably benefitting from more of a rolling start as he moved through the first set of timing gates. So if anything that time of 10.93 - not remarkable at first glance - might have been quite generous.

He has the physique and the technique to be an elite centre back and while there was plenty of talk about lapses in concentration at the moment he looks pretty much flawless. I didn't realise that he's also part Finnish.

Barnes is the best finisher we have and he also links better with the full back because he's patient, moves smartly off the ball and can find them on the overlap rather than just shuttling the ball back to them when he runs into trouble. The interplay between him and Bruno for our first was excellent.

I don't know if it has been discussed and it's probably incidental when it comes to us and our stadium plans, but there was an article in the New York Times yesterday saying that due to numerous missteps PIF is low on cash and rethinking the way it does business.

I mean you can start listing attributes... Right foot: Alan Shearer Left foot: Laurent Robert Dribbling: Peter Beardsley Heading: Les Ferdinand Engine: Rob Lee Je ne sais quoi: David Ginola Tenacity: Clarence Acuna Nippiness: Ruel Fox ...and keep going until the cows come home but at the moment there's really no other answer than 'Elliot Anderson'.

The one signing we made in the summer that I think was a mistake and am not hugely invested in. We would have been much better with some of what Sunderland ended up with, an experienced player to sit in front of the defence and a youngster with a bit of energy.

Not questioning his position, he's been here long enough and done such a good job that you'd trust him to get it right over the long haul (never mind the horror of having to look for a replacement) but the past two league games have been a clusterfuck and I think it speaks in no small part to a disjointed transfer window. Like I've said previously, I doubt Howe expected to end up with a striker who seems to necessitate such a wholesale change to our style of play, nor do I think the likes of Elanga and Ramsey were the right signings or potentially the signings we would have made had we known we'd end up with Woltemade. The wingers are support players who aren't good enough at cutting inside, sniffing out goalscoring positions and finishing their chances, there's nobody in the midfield who really excels at getting beyond the striker and we're just not coached to be a good side in possession. I'm sure the players at this point realise that we're lacking goal threat. Isak could break and get into the box, not to mention conjure goals of his own making in ways that Woltemade cannot. I personally think the fullbacks are a lesser issue - our best run last season came with Trippier and Livramento while Gordon enjoyed his most productive season by far largely playing ahead of Burn - but I'd absolutely play Livramento and Hall when fit, though Livramento hasn't been outstanding down the right and I'd like a more conventional left-back as backup. We could probably do with bringing Keegan in for a weekly five-a-side session. We're poorer collectively than we should be with the ball. I think we have a really good squad of players on their own merits but a lack of cohesion and I don't think there's an easy fix. Wissa might look like salvation but can you get him into the team to provide what we're lacking without a big change of system?

I think Hall's really talented and he improved rapidly last season and was having a strong campaign until he got injured. Then Trippier came back in and Livramento, who had been inconsistent down the right, started excelling down the left as we won the league cup and went on a good run of form towards the end of the season. Hall was coming back from an injury and wasn't match fit at the start of this season, but presumably could have played more if we'd needed him and my own sense is that Trippier and Livramento at this point will be our first choice fullbacks with Burn, as you say, possibly also preferred to Hall especially if Howe wants to keep it tight down the left. Anyway the gist of my point is that I don't think our patchy form at the moment can be attributed to Hall and Livramento's absence. There are other issues we need to sort.

Hall was in every squad from the beginning of the season but only started when we played five at the back against Bournemouth and as part of a changed side against Bradford in the league cup. To me Trippier and Livramento are clearly our first choice fullbacks and our bigger problems anyway lie further forward, with the shape of our midfield, our use of the ball and the challenge we face adapting our attack with a striker in Woltemade who likes dropping deep and wide players who are better in a supporting role. Wissa should help but I'm curious how we're going to fit him into the side.

Really don't get this argument which keeps cropping up about our fullbacks. Trippier has missed just one game through illness, Livramento has started six of our ten league games so far this season during which period our form was just as patchy, and Hall was comfortably behind Trippier and Livramento in the pecking order when fit. It'll be nice to have the two youngsters back but in my opinion it won't be transformative and they're not among the most influential players in our side.

Until we bag a major tech company my micropenis will remain soft.

Our form was still patchy and we didn't look like a different side when our fullbacks were available. The problem with Ramsey isn't that he's a bad player, it's that he's in a similar mould to Joelinton and Willock, a moderately attacking midfielder who has played pretty much exclusively down the left side, has injury problems and seems like us doubling down on a flat midfield. For me he's a solid addition on his own merits but he's not going to solve any creativity issues or be the player to make runs in behind Woltemade. And where does he fit in if we start using Wissa alongside Woltemade and adopt a midfield two? Personally don't think it's worth singling out individuals for their use of the ball or for our ball retention issues. It's a team-wide issue when our more direct style isn't working.

I'm perilously close to chasing his car if anyone's with me?

To me the players we have are more than talented enough to be comfortable in possession, and if we're poor in that regard it's down to our style of play, the gaps between our players or a lack of chemistry among the team as a whole because we don't work on that aspect enough on the training ground. We've been successful utilising a direct style of play with a focus on turnovers and discrete patterns. And while we kept plugging away over the summer and strengthened the squad at substantial cost, I can't believe that we got what we expected to get out of the transfer window because it seems to necessitate a major change of focus. With a player like Woltemade who drops deep to link with the midfielders, you can't stretch teams in the same way. If you're still looking to be direct, you're going to need wingers who are more than support players and who can instead drive inside or make runs over the top before finishing their chances. Right now we're starting to see some slick interplay in the midfield between Woltemade, Bruno and Tonali but no sign in my opinion of a greater focus on possession, even when we're sitting deep and trying to hold onto a lead and could do with relieving some pressure. If we're looking to Wissa as a potential solution, how do we accommodate him into the team? The easiest answer would be to play him out wide, but that takes him away from goal and we have four players in Gordon, Barnes, Elanga and Murphy who would surely expect to feature more often than not. If we were to play both Wissa and Woltemade centrally, we're either scrapping the wingers entirely in a 5-3-2 or more likely going with two in midfield, which changes everyone's role and hardly seems to suit Joelinton or Ramsey. And we'd be back to square one if one of the front two were to get injured.

We know at this point that Gordon and Burn doesn't work at least from a defensive perspective. Burn doesn't have the legs while Gordon likes to stay high and looks to run in behind, which we probably need him to do with this lineup.

We're a direct side who obviously work on certain patterns of play and we've been successful with it. Defensively we seem to like to sit in when leading. But we're poorer than we should be in our general use of the ball and struggle with keeping possession. Surely with Bruno, Tonali, Woltemade, Botman, Thiaw, plus Schar, Burn and the likes of Ramsey, Miley, Livramento, Trippier and Hall when they play we have the capacity to be a good ball-playing side. I don't think it's an aspect that we work on particularly.

It's the coaching not the players.

I only saw the second half and thought we were comfortable but it's great to be able to put out that midfield, change things up down the flanks and bring in some of the squad players while still earning a quality result. I had kind of written off Willock given the arrival of Ramsey and his ongoing injury concerns so it's nice to see him produce a performance.