Stottie

First lead of the season?

Kenedy. Great goal!

Manquillo? Praying he can make it till half time. He nearly didn't against the might of Cardiff. The rest sounds about as much as we can hope for. Good luck to Muto.

That's soft for a straight red. Harry Arter's against us was far more vicious.

This is almost like Trading Places the movie. It's as if Ashley is giving Rafa the worst possible hand just to win a bet without someone about what a manager with a pedigree can do with a shit team.

This story is probably bollocks. The sad reality is that a glimmer of hope on the ownership front would be far more important than anything that is happening on the pitch.

We look shit, and makeshift and reserve defenders are making all too predictable mistakes leading to goals. 3 -> 5

Meek. We don't know how good Leicester are because we let them win it at a canter.

Both hands on his shoulders

They've all given up. Man U have gone from the beating expected goals against by the biggest margin in the league (i.e., saving loads) to fourth or fifth worst.

Okazaki starts on the bench. We've been one of the few teams he scores against.

Muto and Perez might be a good shout today. Leicester are big but not blessed with speed.

He's doing really well. I'm sure Mike Ashley is enjoying the money we got for him too. It's true that Mitro has scored his five? goals so far from a combined distance of about 20 yards, from chances we are not able to create, but he can knock em in from the edge of the box too. Just give it time.

I don't see why they would score more than anyone we've faced so far. This could be a chance for our first meaningful goal of the season! Can we squeeze one in before October?

Good players raise the level of those around them, and vice versa. In our case, they would also allow the team to use a more expansive approach. So poor recruitment hurts the players, unless they are already playing above their level like Blob.

Well in ref. Spotted both the foul and the handball.

Yeah, in the big picture of somehow scraping together 40ish points, it's not a bad result. Painful viewing, but not a bad result. Rafa gets them on the training pitch for a few more days and then we try again. It's not going to be pretty, so by all means get yourself a second team or watch NFL or another sport. This basket does not deserve all your eggs in it.

Lots of Ashley songs. Game starting to really open up now.

60 gone. No sign of any quality on the pitch.

Him scoring a couple of the half chances he's been missing for about two seasons would typical Newcastle. So I take that as good news. Dave's team seconded. Finally a chance to see if Perez-Rondon can get something going with our best midfield behind them.

Still three for me. Five Thirty Eight have their predicted bottom three on at least 44% each after just five games. Their model has lag from last year, but its not preventing them from a pretty confident prediction of Burnley in big trouble. Look where they have Everton too. I'll stick it in here so we can check back in a few weeks.

Brazilian Ronaldo was the greatest I've ever seen at dribbling around goalkeepers in one on ones. He was the absolute master of it.

Hope we can put out our better players for this one. We are overdue a game in which we can judge where we are against our peers. On expected goals for and against, Palace are little different to us in spite of much easier fixtures, two of which they have won. Palace were good on expected goals last year, even when they were bottom, due mainly to Benteke missing more than Joselu and Gayle put together. It looks like they are not playing as well as a team this year. With Shelvey and Ritchie playing bit parts so far, we've not looked like scoring from a set piece. To survive or better, that'll have to change.

2-0. Great goal. In fairness to the Everton moaners, they saw off Allardyce and knocked him down a peg or two. No-one listened when we said the same things about him.

Did Wolves reach 30 shots in the end today? Starting to take shape at the bottom now. 13 Southampton 4 1 1 2 4 4 0 4 14 Brighton 4 1 1 2 5 7 -2 4 15 Fulham 5 1 1 3 7 12 -5 4 16 Cardiff 5 0 2 3 3 9 -6 2 17 Huddersfield 5 0 2 3 2 11 -9 2 18 Newcastle 5 0 1 4 4 8 -4 1 19 Burnley 5 0 1 4 3 10 -7 1 20 West Ham 4 0 0 4 2 10 -8 0 (Fulham's 3 points and 4 of their goals came at home against Burnley)