Stottie

Accrington CH has to cut that cross out. It looks like he half hesitated and went with the wrong foot.

Too early for Tonali. He's also lucky enough to be playing #6 with two ballwinning #8s. Makalele did not have Frank Lampard tackling and harranging defenders like our #8s. To his credit, Tonali was impressive against Arsenal with no Bruno in the team, so my hopes are high.

After the Ashworth debacle at Man U, you have to wonder how much of Brighton's success is down to their system, and that massive loan from the owner that PSR doesn't care about, not some wonderous performance by any particular individuals in their system. Potter took all of his staff to Chelsea but couldn't get a tune out of very good players. Even when Howe joined us and we were losing 4-0 to Leicester, there were still clear signs of improvement over Bruce. This was not necessarily the players instantly grasping what Howe's ultimate tactical destination would be. It was likely more stop-gap tactics to improve organization etc. until Trippier and Bruno arrived. On a similar tip, I think Klopp gets a lot of performance credit actually due to whoever out of the Moneyball bods said "we must sign Salah". He wasn't Klopp's choice.

I guess this is on an earlier page, but the final is Sun March 16. If still in Europa, Spurs would play three days before on Mar 13. There would be a CL game for Liverpool on Mar 11 or Mar 12. Assuming we get through, I'd rather face Spurs than Liverpool. Most of it is down to Mo Salah winning games on his own like a cheat code.

There are many examples of players who didn't get a proper chance at Chelsea, like Salah and de Bruyne, or if you prefer, Hall and Livramento. Their current star is someone who didn't get a chance at Man City. There are some great ex City players out there. Antony is ex Man U, and has been given dozens of games without producing. There are not many examples of brilliant ex Man U players. Chelsea sign or train good players but don't make the most of them. Man U's recruitment and academy are nowhere near Chelsea's.

Liverpool still scoring for fun, but that's 11 conceded in their last six games. After conceding about half a goal a game for the first dozen matches. We've tightened up and have conceded five in the last six matches, four of them to Brentford.

If we are fecked by PSR and can't buy a striker/RW, we need Barnes because Gordon is our second choice central striker.

Have a hallelujah! I reckon Salah is the greatest player in Premier League history, now above Henry. Salah deserves far more credit from the Scousers, some of which should be taken from Klopp. They need a Salah statue, not a Klopp one.

Its blunder of the season if Man City could have bought him for 80Mish last June, with PSR meaning we would have sold. What a complete shitshow those rules are.

I thought Tonali was a bizarre signing given our needs, our budget, and the limited record of Italians in English football, but have been proved wrong. I thought this because he played in a double pivot at Milan and didn't do something that obviously fitted our system when we bought him. He's now operating mostly as a single pivot, but with one press-resistant, foul-drawing, key-passing eight and another dynamic ball-carrying, ultra-destroying, former-striker one. It was not obvious that Tonali would thrive doing this, but its looking very good on the evidence so far. My overall theory though is that if you sign good enough players, you can teach em a new system. This also applies to barroom discussions of players from the past. The better ones would likely thrive in modern football too, but would merely learn different skillsets. They would not be stuck in whatever outdated role they did in the 1980s, 1990s, or whenever.

Based on previous league results in this fixture, this was probably the least confident I've been with us 2-0 up with 80 minutes gone. This is in spite of beating them there in the cup.

Wow, men against boys, in midfield, its geriatric old men, so far.

Salah can even score with a backpass!

Understat's expected points has them a smidgen above us. Man U are shooting somewhere between 5 and 7 below xG depending on the model. Bournemouth are massively below, but that's what you'd expect for a team with inexpensive players. Here's hoping the reversion to the mean is not tomorrow. All I'll say is that we should be going into it with a lot of confidence.

Tomori's only just turned 27, to save anyone looking it up. He's right footed. 6 foot 1.