Stottie

Statues against a corner routine, worked short then pulled back for side foot finish. Willems' man but he got blocked off and the guy ended up in acres.

Mystery point blank miss by Bournemouth, then go back up and good shot by Willems. Being cut open easily so far.

That should be a booking, it's dangerous play pushing someone into the keeper.

This game is mental!

This is like watching the Championship or worse. ASM just missed one-on-one!

Yeah, it's the "go to ground and you ask the question" one. When players are going for the same ball from different angles, there is also the possibility of someone appearing in a follow through who was not there when the attempt at the ball was made. Unfortunately, intent doesn't come into it, so if you end up catching someone, the red card can come out. Rather striking that we had a lot of the ball in that little period between them scoring and the red card. It suggested that we could have done more in the second half if we had made adjustments and actually tried.

Hmm, probably not a foul twenty years ago, but you can't slide with that body shape any more. Any contact on anyone and its red.

Far too passive. We've just let them take over with no change in formation or tactics.

Great header! 1-0 Fantastic delivery from Fernandez!

Schar a miss here. Lots of aimless passing across the back. It's got us winning the possession stat, but not going forward. Joelinton battling away but looking very isolated.

Young Rooney was an explosive ball of raw talent. The only debate is really whether it could have been allowed to burn as brightly as possible or whether Ferguson was right to mold him into a (still brilliant) intelligent team player who ended up as a kind of second fiddle to Ronaldo. He had the talent to deserve it, but a team was never built around Rooney. Man U were super successful during the Rooney years, so Ferguson was probably right. Football is a results business etc. etc. The flip side is that strikers with that mix of power, skill, and pace are exceptional, we are talking Mbappe or Brazilian Ronaldo level, so purist fans will want to see them go out and destroy teams single handed. Man U destroyed many teams with Rooney, but it was often with Rooney playing David Silva-type thoughballs, not bursting through like Mbappe.

I suppose the stars were aligned for Bruce, fallen giant coming off Europa League away on Thursday, but that was still shocking from Man U. Easily the worst team we've faced this year. Pleased for Shortstaff of course and ASM looks mint, but that game was about them more than about us. They're in big big trouble. Credit to our lads for keeping it tight and not gifting them anything, but it didn't look that difficult. We've somehow wangled eight points out of five goals in eight games. The omens are still very bad.

I don't like divine righters like Liverpool and Man U, but Liverpool's CL win was nowhere near as bad (i.e., excessively lauded) as I expected. Maybe the silly handball rule having a big say was a factor, I don't know. Even if Liverpool win the league, it's Euros the next summer with the semis and final at Wembley and a more than decent England team. The press will soon move onto that.

With VAR, there should be no need to dive. So every exaggeration of contact should be viewed as cheating.

As for the fans at the match, yes it smacks of vanity and is definitely self-defeating. Thankfully the Sir Bobby quote about the club being a symbol of pride in the city is not out there on a flag, because the club is now the polar opposite.

First rule of PFMs, never criticize a fellow PFM.

Under Rafa, one four-goal defeat and only two three-goal ones. Bruce has bettered that already in seven games. I can see the second three-goal or worse one arriving very shortly.

In fairness, they should also show the number of red cards awarded against us. Including the Pickford rugby tackle where the ref didn't even know the rule.

That free kick we took alone is worth +2 on the relegationometer. If that's all Bruce can get them to do, we're ferked.

He's finished. He looked knackered about twenty minutes in against Liverpool too. We looked so much better after he went off that I hope we won't see him again for a while.

We didn't make any fatal defensive errors. That's it for the positives to count, I'm afraid. Lots of empty seats, so I suppose that's one too.

I can't see us growing into seasons as we did under Rafa, so I think these early games are more important than before.

Liverpool in second gear and a shame we've made mistakes and given them goals. Krafth was piss weak for the first and then Dubs has to do better on the second. It was a Liverpool in second gear throughball. When weak teams roll over in this way to strong ones, the game becomes a non-event.

Shelvey looks knackered already.

What a hit! Very pedestrian from Liverpool though, like us against Norwich.