Stottie

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.

Haaland full beast mode for that third. A defender on each side of him and it made no difference.

Firmino hauled off after two goals and three assists. It won't affect us, but maybe harder for Nunez to get back in the team.

After all the praise we got this week for unlocking Man City tactically, its disappointing to see someone else get a two goal lead simply from two corners, while thwarting them by defending en masse.

Just on Paqueta, but West Ham do play 4-2-3-1. I quite like Fornals in it, so Paqueta may not be such an upgrade. My casual impression of West Ham is that Antonio needs to lead the line and not play as some Joelinton-wannabee box-to-box midfielder. It works for us because we have another striker playing striker in the team.

For me CF (at least as cover) and RW were the priorities. The strange detour for me was the pursuit of Maddison. Paqueta I could understand from his versatility and physicality, but Maddison is too dedicated an AM to simply slot into the team as we've been playing. He's a fantastic player, but I think we'd need tactical changes to accommodate him.

To save anyone looking it up, it looks like Lyon played a mix of 3-4-2-1 and 4-2-3-1 with Bruno on the right of a double pivot and Paqueta at AM. Whether that matches what Howe might plan to do I cannot say. We did bid for Maddison though, and he would bring something different to what we have now. Leicester do not play 4-3-3 either.

How much of the love for Paqueta is an extension of love for Bruno? Bruno is world class, but I think the jury is still out on his best role. It's a shame Shelvey is out, because he's our best other deep-lying midfielder. At the end of last season, the initial clamour was for us to buy a DM to replace Shelvey, not an AM who will force Bruno into playing at 6.

The link is just points per game in 2022. I think if you look at other metrics, goals conceded etc. they will also suggest we're near top 6. That's if beating Arsenal, nearly beating Man City, and being denied a clear penalty and probably lead at Chelsea away aren't enough for you. We have a number of easier home games coming up, so the near two points a game streak of 2022 may well continue.

It's a real shame for him, and I hope it is 3-4 weeks. The hamstring injury he had early last season was six weeks = four games. The longer injury after Howe came in was a calf tear.

This was obvious last night at Tranmere. They eventually cottoned on and started pressing him hard, leading to turnovers. Our lads should have done more to give him short options once Tranmere switched tactics. At that point, we were winning and simply needed to keep possession, not work it downfield to create chances.

I had to look it up but Darlow's nearly 32. I think its worth foregoing a few million to keep Dubravka as second choice. The gap between him and Darlow is too great. Gillespie is 30 too, so its hard to see him as a prospect.