Stottie

Pickford twisted and stopped that with his wrong hand. A stronger contact would have pushed it over and avoided the second chance.

After three goals and three assists in two games, Firmino is dropped for someone sent off for simple indiscipline in his previous game. I doubt Eddie Howe would do that.

Isak is the most expensive player ever signed by a non-Top 6 club. One or two more would have been nice, but the performances against City and Liverpool suggest our current players are better than we give them credit for, at least in the (clearly working) system we are playing. We'll soon get to see them against lesser opposition with Isak, Wilson, or Isak and Wilson in the team. Our form in 2022 is fourth in the league, with a tiny percentage of that playing time with either Wilson or Isak on the pitch. With Lascelles and Burn at CB and no Bruno in midfield, we held Liverpool to fewer shots on target at their place than Real Madrid did in the CL final three months ago.

Wolves must really hate Newcastle if the price to us is higher than it is to Aston Villa. It's like us giving the mackems a special deal.

If we miss the CL places by one point at the end of the season, the result last night will be relevant and regrettable. If we don't, then it's no big deal when placed in the context of us competing away at a Top 2 side with a makeshift team and a striker making his debut. There were so many positives in the game, too many to list here, that the result doesn't really matter. They'd already equalized, a little fortuitously I thought through Lascelles' legs, so what happened at the very end only cost one point not three.

That's grossly unfair to their fans. They screamed for handball at least five times when the ball struck a Newcastle player. I normally associate this behaviour with fans of promoted clubs, not ones who see their team win regularly.

BENT AS FUCK

YES!

Poor bugger, what a waste. After all that improvement he's made since we saw the back of Bruce. Ferkin spineless ref should have put his foot down as soon as that Tranmere player lead with his arm against Lascelles. It was clear as day what they were up to. This is an avoidable injury.

Add whatever "cards close to chest" and "Edwards - prophet of doom" discounts you feel appropriate to the above comment.

I suppose this depends on how much of a false economy we're talking here. If Bournemouth are way off, they'll have to accept the inevitable. However if its just, I dunno, say 20-25M of players to be competitive, the cost of relegation is far greater than that. The best players they have will all leave when they are relegated and the team will have to build again. Being in the Premier League is worth a fortune to the club. By contrast, I know some club admins see getting into the Europa League as a burden, but a large part of that is because it only makes tiny amounts of money, on top of the Thurs-Sunday pressure on their squad. Getting into and then staying in the Premier League is definitely worth it.

I'd play Fraser if ASM is out or needs a rest, and Manq if Trippier is. With Almiron and Fraser, I think our 4-3-3 should have enough to compete without going five at the back. I'd start Isak.

I trust our people on this. It's an unfortunate development but player power affects us just as much as anyone else. We'll have more to offer a backup keeper when we finish above Man United and get into Europe ourselves.

I'm not a fan of it, but note also that he scored the goal while playing as a central striker. That tactic did work this time.

I think Liverpool are lucky this fixture is coming now with us far from full strength. We'd definitely trouble them if we were. As its looking, just play the system with who've got and see how it goes. If it works, that's great, if not turn the sound off, because it'll just be the media fawning over them. The fake law of "bad decisions even themselves out" says we should get a penalty in this game after the non-awards against City and Wolves, but I fully expect all penalties and red cards to be awarded in their favour.

21 shots away at Wolves with no Bruno and Wood up front. We dominated possession and restricted them to under 70% passing accuracy for a so-called passing team. I saw most of Tottenham-Wolves last week and thought we handled them at least as well as Spurs, who were at home and had their main attackers on the pitch. The injuries have me worried, but the system looks like its working. In 360 minutes, we have conceded four goals, two of which involved the ball passing between a player (the largely blameless Willock)'s feet outside the box. Half of those minutes were against the teams in positions 1 and 2 in the league.

Still need two or three more.

I think this could be nail on the head. We bought players whose legs had gone several times in the past, Geremi, Alan Smith, Nicky Butt maybe, and Wood increasingly looks like another one of them. He shouldn't have been as bad as this.

A fine point in the end and unlucky not to win. For all the hype about silky Portuguese players who should be able to keep possession in their sleep, Wolves had no control in this game. They had one decent spell of five minutes that ended with a non-blocked shot that flew in. Despite being under the kosh for fifty minutes, the only counter attack of note they could manage needed a big bundle for them to create a chance. I thought they were shit and we would have won easily with Wilson/Isak and Bruno. The co-commentor sounded desparate to make Semedo MotM despite him pulling back Fraser for what should have been a second yellow. That was far from Joelinton's best match, he did try to up his game with Bruno out but is not a forward passer, but was still better than any of their midfielders. He covered more ground and was more involved. More injury woes and scares, so I think the chequebook is going to have to come out again. We have strength but not strength in depth.

Obviously wants a job at the Guardian. Hard to bear mate, but Squeeze Louise has some "I am a Palestinian refugee"(*) type blurb going on, so you'll not out-virtue her. (*) I do support the Palestinian cause, if that's what it was. I just don't need it from football reporters. The bar for them is set at "do you really respect the fans?"

GOAL OF THE SEASON! Pick that out you non-counter attacking overhyped CUNTS!

Interesting change from Eddie. Let's give it a go. Wolves aren't very good and there's a point or more to be had here.

Great strike. We're in this though, so don't let the heads drop.

First signing for Neil after ditching the mackems! Too beautiful.

I think we should react like Brighton did when we got Burn and Ashworth. We should basically let him go and not resent him going, but like Ashworth in particular, we should not be a pushover. They should have to pay the going rate. I don't rate Darlow, but I bet he will have improved somewhat with our new coaches and not that can't-be-arsed idiot we had before.