Stottie

I read this and thought "Yaya Toure" but looking it up says he was 27 and much more than 20M. From Transfermarkt, it doesn't look like City bought many impactful players over thirty. That was only in the Mark Hughes era and I think we have already surpassed that. We need to buy David Silva, not an ageing Gareth Barry. If we do want the latter, cough cough Jordan Henderson sounds like he's available.

FFP only makes sense when it is stopping unsustainable investment in the team, i.e., speculating with the club's viability as a club that has traditions simply to get short-term success. Its not about "fairness", such as a salary cap or something that would actually level the playing field between all 20 participants in the Premier League. FFP does not say Liverpool and Manchester United aren't allowed to continue profiting from historic success. If anything FFP ensures those clubs will be able to pay higher wages than anyone else. It enshrines unfairness.

Do Arse have FFP problems after buying a 100M player? Oh, the injustice of it. No players in for us and its already January 10th. When is the "Acceptable or not?" poll scheduled for?

Would Murphy have been a sell if he were fit? fwiw, I like him and rate him, but its too easy to imagine him helping keep a relegation threatened team up and that's worth a lot of money in the January window.

In case anyone missed it but the mackems managed 0.20 xG in this match. I watched an international feed and they displayed it as 0.01 xG in the first half. The match was effectively over 30 seconds later.

I hope NUFC TV can put up highlights with a Razor and Ando commentary. The rights people didn't let them for the Carabao.

Time for a separate JT appreciation thread on here? I couldn't find one in the first two pages. I think he deserves it. Even just a collection of him clipped from the victory photos.

13 now for the season in all comps, one goal per 117 minutes (one and a third games). https://www.transfermarkt.com/alexander-isak/profil/spieler/349066 Absolutely dripping with quality and makes it look easy.

Get in! Great win! Pretty much gifted to us, but our lads still deserve credit for keeping them at arm's length and not letting any typical derby-game madness creep into it. That meant it ended up as a walk in the park. Eddie gets a free hit for the rest of the season. Hope we finally, finally get an easy draw in a competition now.

Pickford in the crowd with a C on his cap. We all know what that stands for.

Steve McManaman initial reaction "that's a brilliant goal!"

A team, even one in a lower league, doing this for opposition corporate fans man. Their arch rivals as well. Absolutely pitiful. Yet more evidence of the game as we knew it having "gone". Never mind VAR or FFP. This is worth an extra verse on the monkey mackem song.

That's my impression too. I know its very different for folk who work alongside mackems but I don't care any more. My biggest concern is the potential (manufactured) over-reaction to this result, not the result itself. We are not far off self-feeding pressure on Howe. Huge scrutiny of everything he does. Its much better to take one step back than one hundred steps back. The straw that broke SBR's back was Hasselbaink punching the ball into the net. That's what little things can do. It set us back years.

Have any of the players been injured in training? Murphy was a freak fall in a match, Pope was an innocent dive for a blocked shot, Barnes was a toe injury when not fatigued, .... It is key to manage injury prone players like Wilson, but I don't think that applies to most of the lads.

Such a weak bench today. A stronger one and who knows. Must get bodies in.

Ha ha blatant dive. What scum

45 minutes of mostly not pressing, giving it straight back to them, and generally inviting them on. Some impressive last ditch stuff though to keep em out, esp. from Dubs. This is tough viewing, so I hope we do better second half. We need to win some challenges in the middle and string a few passes together. When we do win a corner, put it in the fucking middle.

The commentary will be, for certain.

If Sven Botman made the error he made against Liverpool every week, we would not have got into the Champions League. I see that error, and Bruno's, and the Alisson save, as much bigger factors in us not beating Liverpool at SJP than "Klopp knows how to play us". Liverpool have beaten us in the other games against Howe too, but the VAR check of the Isak offside goal has to be one of the least convincing so far. They didn't even bother to draw any lines. Had that been allowed, its 2-0 with half an hour or whatever it was to play. At full strength and refreshed, I'd fancy our chances. Based on recent form, we are not full strength or refreshed. So I expect pain.

The clubs around us have started beating each other, so it looks like whoever gets fifth won't need 70 points to do it. In the last 10 fixtures, we've gained the same points as Tottenham, one fewer than Brighton, and three fewer than Man U. We've had some very poor results, but its not a complete disaster. We need to tighten up defensively and start hitting a barn door instead of missing easy chances early in games. Both are things we've been able to do before under Howe. Fewer fixtures overall should mean fewer injuries and more time to regroup.

I thought Liverpool's win at SJP was flukey because a very rare Botman mistake and a not-so-rare Bruno one were finished Thierry Henry style by the least clinical striker in the league. Versus other teams has 2 goals from nearly 9 xG, a litany of misses. Liverpool with 10 men have a cheat code in the ol' hoof to Mo Salah, the best fast break threat going. He's fast as anything and strong enough to brush defenders off. I reckon he was the nail in the Cancelo coffin for Pep.

The SJP game was flukey as anything, and I wouldn't dwell on those particular 90 minutes. However Liverpool are the strongest team in the league in the second half. They've only conceded five second half goals in 19 games. They've scored 15 out of their 37 goals in the last 15 minutes. https://www.soccerstats.com/timing.asp?league=england We have conceded 7 in the last fifteen, nearly double any other 15 min period of games.

I foresee us losing this match in the most upsetting way possible, like the last game at SJP. I doubt it will be a straight incident-free 5-0 or the like. What I imagine is more like a crappy Szobo dive to get Bruno sent off, followed by some other shite, maybe a goalkeeping error, and a couple more on the counter. The result will then be presented as a glorious win by Liverpool FC who represent all that is wonderful about football.

Last six games we are top of the league in xG! 14.3! Unfortunately, those chances have only produced 6 goals. Insert your own comment about barn doors or cows' arses and banjos. We are also top of the league in xG against. 13.2, for 11 goals conceded. The lazy and predictable comment is that this could be another 4-3. Or us having enough chances for three but not scoring them.

Unfortunately, rating our window depends on how much you buy into the theory that "it's just Harvey Barnes". If you think he's meh, then the window is meh. If you think he's good, which better numbers for Leicester than Moussa Diaby has managed for Villa do strongly suggest, then he was a good signing. Aside from some short sub appearances, Barnes has only really played one full competitive game for us, the 1-0 home win against Brentford, You'd have to be very trigger happy to dismiss him for his performance one game. For whatever reason, he does seem to be a Marmite type player and until he's banging them in for the Toon, I doubt any naysayers will be converted. It should be obvious, but Sancho, Mudryk, and Antony prove that it is possible to spend a fuckton on a winger who does not produce very much. If anything, the surprise should be that Doku has hit the ground running. Most of them don't seem to.