ponsaelius

Imagine if we don't beat Southampton

He's playing in a back three isn't he?

Feels like a total piece of cheating from Zirkzee to me, no idea what my commentators are waffling

This weekend has been so shit so far

Can probably scratch that one off.

Just got to write it off as a bad day allround I think. If we don't follow it up with a win at Southampton I'd perhaps read more into it. It feels like bad dropped points because it's Bournemouth (H) but that is genuinely a harder fixture this year than some of the away games we've won recently at Spurs and Man Utd.

It is not easy to find value, and it's always easy to look at the successful punts in hindsight with success bias. Mid-table clubs often sign a load of these kind of players and can end up going backwards in the short term but can absorb that because their goals are different. Khusanov sounded like he could be a value option but that fee seemed to balloon as soon as city were involved, so the type of club buying a player does seem to sometimes get charged at a premium too. Would be amazed if Juve didn't double the Huijsen asking price if we were involved (probably still have been a good signing).

We're possibly rightly scared of missing in the market TBF. Going for English players and expensive 'transformative' players has been a safer, if more expensive, bet. We can't afford to end up padding out the squad with lots of players who are relatively cheap but ultimately end up being swing and misses, particularly when we also struggle so much to move squad players out. Do think we need to be better at finding value, but that's surely the point of hiring Mitchell.

I don't blame him for not wanting to rotate though tbf. Our squad players are a bit hopeless for various reasons. We desperately need to refresh things with 1 or 2.

Kluivert was so bad for Roma. I swear every PL game I watch now has a former Serie A player turned into a world beater.

They didn't win at Chelsea but other than that you're right.

Can we never let Isak take a free kick again btw? Felt like putting his goalscoring run above the game outcome. Would have Tonali, Trippier, Schar and Gordon all take it before him.

Bench definitely an issue. It should have been our major advantage today from 60 mins on. The one bloke they had to bring on who is not a child had more impact.

Spanish managers never defeating the allegations like, how have they been running around like madmen for 90 mins with no bench

Looking forward to the huge overreaction to this as if we were going to continue winning every single game

Jesus how lucky

We look knackered

Second one definitely. Easy to forget that he's really not a very good goalkeeper anymore.

I did think I'd take a draw today. Bournemouth are really good but even aside from that I felt we're a bad matchup. Their physicality in midfield is capable of matching ours while the pace in attack is a nightmare for our slow backline. Even our quickest defender in Tino can't keep with Semenyo. The ref has allowed some really robust challenges away from Adams in particular which has helped them suffocate us. Second half he should not be able to do as much being on a yellow, and they don't really have any replacements on the bench. Like I say our best hope is they tire second half like they did against Chelsea.

I'd get Joelinton off half time. He's going to get sent off. Honestly the ref has allowed that to build up over the course of the game.

Totally deserved. Only hope is they tire significantly second half.

Could dee with Semenyo ganning off

I agree it's not fair to say that DCL is injury prone but he did have one pretty bad knee injury - and he's a player whose game was based entirely around a physical profile. Good leap, an aerial presence in and around the box and pretty quick. Not a technically accomplished player - indeed rarely seems to strike the ball cleanly. Don't think he's ever looked quite the same since the injury. He'd be a rebuilding job and not sure that's worth the hassle. Getting a player in whose happy to be back up CF to a guaranteed starter is difficult admittedly.

Obviously Trafford has issues that need iron out but he's clearly got loads of ability.

Just one regular day of Ebac Northern League, that's all I ask for