Stottie

Well played Mitro!

We need to keep the ball for more than five seconds.

Wide open game now

Can't say I thought Schweinsteiger was particularly impressive fwiw.

Obertan booked so deffo get him off!

He managed to round defender of the millennium Chris Smalling....

Steamrolled for fifteen minutes, but the lads didn't concede and that's all that matters. Plenty of positives after that. Obertan off for Thauvin or Aarons at HT. Aarons might be a good shout just to show that Thauvin has competition. I'd leave Colback on for the time being just because we are so light on the bench in midfield and defence and Tiote will probably lose it just as much if he's pressed. He's been poor though.

Get Obertan the ferk off that pitch!

Ayoze close!

Terrible giveaway from Colback but Rooney too slow to launch a break.

Perez and Gini looking good. Man U too looking much better with Mata floating about and finding the ball.

Agree with this. Sounds good! Might as well give it a go. We're nowhere near good enough defensively to park a bus. Unlike Tottenham and Villa, a bit of shoot on sight might be worth a go against their new keeper.

A little different to the Man U version, though they should get our sympathy for the "not in London" factor. As possibly with Yaya to City though, I think you can get settle some of these matters by simply offering more money, which Man U themselves have loads of.

I like Mane too. He's really dynamic. He's also smaller and lighter than Thauvin, in case Rob Lee is reading this. That said, I still don't understand why a club with title ambitions and Man U's vast income is buying players (plural) from Southampton. Their rivals have players like Hazard, Alexis, Aguero, Silva, Costa, Fabregas, Yaya, etc. The big teams in the CL are way ahead too. Not least because they have players like Vidal who Man U have been linked with but have never got round to buying.

Shaw is starting to look solid at the back but he doesn't achieve much going forward yet. Lots of bluster but not much of the ol' end product. Less than Clyne, just to pick the most obvious comparison. Among full-backs, he mightn't even be in the top ten in the league when it comes to attacking. He may get in the England team ahead of Baines, but his delivery is nowhere near as good. Like Phil Jones, he went for a big fee based on potential rather ability. The contrast is with Rio Ferdinand who was 30m of world-class finished article.

That sounds all too likely to me.

The only thing awful about Cabella was his constant failure to not fall over as soon as another player came within 6 feet of him. One reasonable half against Chelsea that was it. On the subject of players falling over, in Jonas, we arguably had the best player in the league at drawing fouls. Winning freekicks was by far his greatest skill and most useful attribute. He wasn't much good at anything else, especially by the end.

From the Youtube videos, Thauvin looks like he could well be an upgrade on Cabella and should definitely be one on Obertan. We look a long way off a team where Cabella could thrive, so it's not a bad idea to cut our losses. I hope we'll see plenty of Ayoze and Aarons too.

You'd expect Rooney to head somewhere like MLS once he stops playing regularly for Man U. The only lesser Prem table you could see him going to is Everton, and that would be with a 70%+ pay cut. To break Shearer's record, Rooney will probably need to score the remaining goals for Man U. Given the likely scenario, Ancelotti/Pep/Klopp etc. managing Man U in two seasons' time is going to want to play someone else and will have anything up to 100M to get that player in. That's if Van Gaal doesn't do it first. Common sense says they should buy a central striker this window or next, and they can afford the best one available and willing to go there, whoever he may be.

They were shitter last season and still finished top 4, they'll sadly be fine. Possibly the biggest factor is whether Sturridge can get and stay fit. If he can, there's twenty goals in him and the whole dynamic of Liverpool's attack changes. Nine more points and they overtake Man U. Rooney looks very far off getting twenty on the evidence so far. I hope something happens anyway because Man U don't deserve an unchallenged run to the Champions League. If it weren't Van Gaal and Man Utd, the press would let rip for creating so little with the most expensive squad in Premiership history. Imagine if it were Avram Grant at Chelsea or Mancini at City. Juan Mata in particular looks wasted in the role he's currently in.

Towards the end of the game when Tiote was on, Southampton started getting lots of joy going straight through us up the middle. When I say they, it was mainly Mane on his own. Swansea are a throughball team, so we'll need pressure on Ki and Shelvey otherwise they'll pass us to ribbons.

Swansea should be much tougher defensively than the new/makeshift back five Southampton had out last week. The stats have them down as not much of a crossing team though, so they mightn't be able to exploit our most glaring weakness in the opening game. Maybe a low scoring game. 1-0 to them or 1-1.

The knives would come out in full force if Pardew were England manager. All he has is a career of false dawns followed by failure. He has no record to fall back on, like Van Gaal at Man U. Any tantrums etc. will be met with the pushing the lino, headbutting that player, and calling Pellegrini a cunt stories getting another airing. Whoever's up next also has the perfect banana skin of two competitive games against Scotland. At Palace in the meantime, their new keeper looked a bit slow getting across to the long ranger he conceded against Norwich. The lad in question, Alex McCarthy, couldn't displace Rob Green at QPR last year, so we might have some classic Pardew transfer logic (Obertan etc.) at play. With that clown that was here as goalkeeping coach, I can see them conceding a few more this year. Crap at the back is the easiest way to slide down the league.

Re: Townsend, I think he's been a victim of the big squad rotation and general instability at Tottenham in recent seasons. All the changes in manager and all the transfer ins and outs, esp. with the Bale money. Sigurdsson slotting back in at Swansea so well suggests that he wasn't used properly or given a proper chance at Spurs. Danny Rose may well have slipped under the radar too if he hadn't done as well at the Mackems. Some players have thrived at Tottenham, Lloris and Kane obviously, but it doesn't seem like the easiest club to have played for.

Gayle has 12 in just under 2000 minutes in the Prem, just over one in two. He might be a good bet for top scorer in the Championship.