Stottie

I quite like Shelvey. I think its a waste to play him though with no-one running in behind. One of Liverpool's most potent weapons is the long ball to Salah. It doesn't always have to be a complicated game.

Man U's position is weak and they are taking the piss. There is a real prospect of him downing tools, collecting his wages, and walking in the summer. Go back on transfer day and offer a deal with a bonus if he scores say 6 goals. After goal number 5, we stop playing him unless totally desperate. The idea of paying Man U because Trippier, Wood, ASM, Bruno (I hope), better organization, etc. has kept us up is ridiculous. We're already improving without Lingard.

Our transfers are doing more ins and outs than the fucking Hokey Cokey.

Remember that chart the other day that had Schar at the bottom left for progressive passes and aerials won? Dan Burn is in the top right (best) segment, next to VVD.

Plays DM but only 10 yellow cards in 3600 minutes in Ligue 1. No reds. He must be a cool customer.

This sounds like quibbling over a bonus part of the fee, not walking away. They're reporting that Lingard himself is up for it, which is the main issue here.

Someone said about 10 days ago that the marquee signing our owners wanted was a midfielder. This fella sounds like he'd qualify. Get Bruno, seemingly a world class DM, and Lingard and the relegationometer goes way down even without a CH. Play Lingard as false 9 if Wood isn't working. We'd still have a loan left and the ability to chip in 100k a week for anyone useful or tasty as the window closes.

As a final point, Lingard only has to do it against teams like Villa and Palace who'll be entering beach mode. With the bottom four so bad so far, most of the league can put their feet up already. We're not asking for CL level performances here.

Trippier will help get Southgate to our matches. Lingard has already scored more league goals this season than Jadon Sancho, who is off form and barely playing. You'd have to think that England place is up for grabs. In the PL, Lingard's 29 goals and 18 assists are more impressive when you realize they've come in 100 full games' of minutes (just under 9000). He has scored twice in 90 mins on the pitch this year.

Hitzfeld! Didn't Shepherd claim it was a betting scam?

Is it 10M plus Lingard's wages? The initial reporting was well out about how much we were paying for Trippier. Lingard's clearly better than Fraser, so he would improve the team. He can also play up front at a push, he did at West Ham for three games, if we are not going to play Gayle.

Just the mentions of Peter Reid, but the last time I saw him, it was on a televised away game where he was sat with a female companion in the first row of seats above an away end of our fans. I think he was Thailand manager at the time. Anyway, the crowd recognized him, started up with the Monkey Heed songs, and the camera zoomed in on him taking it all in his stride. However, about five minutes later, the camera zoomed in on him again, and he could be seen standing, shouting his head off, and vigorously pointing down over the rail at someone in the Toon end below. He looked very agitated and seemed to gesticulating along the lines of "You! Outside! Now!" just like Carver did that time. It was hilarious.

Certainly was. It looked like a fair tackle where the tackled player threw both arms dramatically into the air. I don't want to defend Bruce, but I thought it turned the game.

I don't know how they count these things, but he is down as having won 15 aerial challenges in that game. That's pretty good for someone "anonymous" or "bossed by their CHs". Wood is coming from Burnley's Orcball and is probably a bad fit for our Plan A style of playing. Wilson is really good with his back to the goal, and far stronger than he looks. As an established squad member, he also knows where the others are likely to be. So its not a crime if Wood can't do that job as well. Maybe it has to be Orcball-lite, but I believe there will be a Plan B for us where Wood will be useful. Refs not blowing up for non-fouls by him would also help.

Seems to be a grafter now and not much more. I think I'd prefer Murphy. If its just graft and tactical discipline we're after, I'd prefer 60 minutes of Ritchie if Wood is up front.

We still need incoming players, but things are looking up. Clean sheet, away win etc. I'll stick on 8 because we're still in a league where three out of four go down. Two good signings and it's down to six, even without kicking the ball.

"Great feet for a big man" is the classic cliche, but no signs that he has them so far. If anything, its been bouncing off him. He did contribute though, so let's give it time. I don't think he looks very fit and may be carrying a knock.

Win and a clean sheet, what can you say. A game to savour! We were denied a clear pen, but I'm also pleased VAR did not look at our goal too closely, because someone offside might have got a touch on it. Great fighting performance from the lads, and finally some positivity to build on. A first away win! We now have a break and lets hope we have some new arrivals during it.

Commentators are hyping the game with "why no goals so far?" but only one shot on target each so far.

Not bad first half. Their linkup approach play is better and Raphi is clearly class, but we're the team with a striker on the pitch and have worked set pieces the best. Wood got called for two non-fouls there, so maybe the ref is a homer. ASM put it in after the second of the two. Nice test of Howe here. It looks like there is a result out there if we play this right.

Alli got 8 goals and 4 assists in 20 games' of minutes in 19/20 under Mourinho. They're good numbers and that's not long ago. It looks like it was mostly as the middle of the three in 4-2-3-1.

Understat says we have zero goals from 5 xG when leading by a single goal. 50 odd shots. The failure to convert them is why we've lost so many points.

It's still Ashley-NUFC level to be concerned about this, but Dyche is not publically pressing for a new striker to replace Wood. There have been murmurs about Benteke, but it sounds like he's not keen. https://www.burnleyexpress.net/sport/football/burnley-fc/burnley-transfer-rumours-clarets-make-contact-for-ps10m-midfielder-crystal-palace-willing-to-sell-turf-moor-target-3532924 Without a new striker, it'll be hard for them to win matches. The stats say Cornet is just on a hot streak converting barely half chances, which cannot be relied on. Our best hope of staying up is getting new players, of course, but we also need the bar to finish above three clubs to be very low.

Great result for us, I thought. Watford have some decent players, but are not getting the most out of them. This defeat brings extra pressure, puts Ranieri's position in doubt, and keeps Dennis out of the next game. Norwich still look hopeless and pretty much fluked three goals off two shots on target. They won't get this much luck every week. xG was Watford 1.3 Norwich 0.9

We need to mash the panic-spend button to stay up, and sacrificing one more game to maximize the transfer pressure could be ultimately beneficial. Our best hope of going on a good run would be with much better players than we have now. Watford had a stinking run going into our game, which they were five minutes off losing. Its a hard call, but perhaps a result against Norwich that gets Ranieri off the hook for a few weeks longer may ultimately hurt them. I don't know if its Ranieri or not, but their form has been worse than ours. Of course, the replacement could be just as bad or worse.