ponsaelius

This is excruciating

About 80% sure the clock is not moving

Proper hate this cloob

Benevento conceding a 91st minute penalty

And game over. Done with this team like. We need a miracle.

Hamsik just broke the Napoli goalscoring record. Frees up his move to us.

It's always been 2 as long as I can remember. Sunderland have nearly always used this avenue but have never had more than 2 domestic ones in recent seasons. 09/10 - Benjani and Hutton 10/11 - Onuoha and Welbeck 11/12 - Bridge and Bendtner 12/13 - Rose 13/14 - Ki and Borini 14/15 - Coates 15/16 - Yedlin 16/17 - Denayer and Januzaj

We can only loan 2 players at any given time. Aye, only in terms of other Premier League teams though. Pretty sure loans from abroad are unlimited.

I think there's a bigger question around whether he can be influential in a poorer team or if he can only thrive in this Man City side. For England for example.

Perhaps, but I think that might just be down to the finishing standards of some wide forwards these days. Very few players are traditional wingers these days, and it's almost expected that players in that area of the pitch can finish like Neymar or Salah. Sterling does fluff his lines a lot, and his finishing technique isn't so polished - but his all round game has been fantastic this season. 15 goals in 23 games is a great return when you consider everything else to his game.

Surely it's clear this is the worst PL team we've ever had? Just so little quality, even when we put in a decent shift like today.

Errr, no?

He's a very limited defensive midfielder of the Tiote model, basically. I'm not really a fan.

Ritchie is looking really, really bad at this level. He's been pure Gouffran the last few games.

I absolutely hate that cunt Shelvey. He's fucking piss poor at this level at almost everything required of a decent CM.

Elliot actually isn't any better. Over the course of a season they're both shite and way short of this level. Darlow makes more inexplicable errors, but Elliot is the master of being an absolute pudding and costing numerous goals he wont be blamed for because he's not quick enough/low enough/high enough.

Lejeune gives me kittens every time the ball goes near him like.

Delighted mate Ideally all our keepers would be melted down for glue.

Not really a fan of us being both absolutely shit and massively unlucky. Bit of a toxic mix.

From Abu Dhabi, not Dubai.

Am gonna fucking cry with joy

Boakye looked guff against Cologne the other night but his record is good since he crash landed there.

The 4-4-2 thing is an absolute mystery. Last season we never, ever played 4-4-2. I think it occurred for the last 20 minutes a couple of times but never from the start of matches. It was extremely frustrating because like in 09/10 I think if we'd wanted to we could have got at teams a lot more and used a more expansive set-up to win more comfortably. However the saving grace was that Rafa was probably planning for the top flight where we'd need to be solid and well-drilled in a system ready for a struggle in the PL. Early few weeks of the season it seemed that way. We were shite but we didn't concede many goals and looked good enough to stay up. Since the terrible display at Burnley we've been playing 4-4-2 (and 3-4-3 at Chelsea) and looked massively open because of it. It's really odd. Now we're stuck in a bit of a hard place because the side have absolutely zero confidence, and reverting to type might dent it even further rather than sure us up. I think we have to do it though. This is fucking car-crash at the moment.

Fucking hell this is miserable stuff.