Stottie

The match started at 2:30am for me, but my half-asleep self thought we were out-thought and out-competed. Only one match, so move on, etc.

West Ham pretty neat with it and pressing high when they don't have it. Noble into the book.

Aye, it's not as if any of their players ever scored a hat-trick in a World Cup Final.

You'd expect to defend a loopy ball in that drops. With pace its more difficult, but that was hanging up there.

I'm not looking back for them, but I would like to retract any posts I may have made six months ago or earlier suggesting 4-2-3-1 was Rafa's system, what he knew and what he played. I reckon other posters will feel the same.

Well we certainly did well out of Villa (Clark, supposedly hopeless), West Brom (Rondon), and Swansea (Fernandez and Ki). Don't Manquillo and Yedlin have a relegation on their cv too? We should get loyalty points!

He doing great. He was understandably a little reserved in the first game or two, but now he's hitting so many confident forward passes. He also repeatedly wins the ball back high up the pitch. He's playing like he's been in the first team for years, not ten games. Just a little theory, but I reckon our season turned when Shelvey went off injured in that Watford home game. Ki came on and started playing 10 yards further forward than Shelvey had been. Unlike Shelvey, this allowed Ki to hit shorter passes to feet. Since then, we've been playing much better football, even when Ki went off to the Asian Cup. Lejeune has also come back and we now have Lejeune and Schar serving as deep-lying distributors, the main responsibility that had fallen on Shelvey. This means the role of our center mids has changed and it is now one that Longstaff and Hayden have taken to with relish. Given the holistic approach Rafa takes, I think it is fair to assume that our midfield is now getting to do what Rafa wanted it to do all along. The plan was never to have a midfielder take it off Cieran Clark or Lascelles and ping it somewhere with no-one to collect a second ball or offer an option to a lone forward with the ball.

As of last night, its time for Schar-denfreude about who the third team will be. Because it won't be us.

More like Joselunton I bet.

The most comfortable 2-0 win I've seen in years. Unlucky that it wasn't more. Bright spots all over the team, and great to have the feel-good factor back. That chip by Almiron was outrageous and so nearly worked. The suggestion with Huddersfield was always that Wagner overachieved by keeping them up last year. Their players looked very poor today.

Longstaff as well. Ferk me!

That was attempt no. 25 apparently.

Christ almighty! Hollywood football!

Nearly an Arsenal goal there. Unlucky!

There’s half an hour left, hold out They should tire more than we will.

Yeeessss! Lovely goal! 2-0

nah, rafa will have this at half time He deffo needs to have a word. Not that the lads can be blamed for not knowing what to do when facing 10 men. It's been so long.

Late to the party, but I thought that Mbappe goal had shades of the real Ronaldo the way he blasted past two of them to get to it first. Next up on the highlights though was the missed one-on-one. The real Ronaldo would have rounded de Gea and scored.

It's a foul. When not fouled, Dub's catching is impeccable, so he's not a keeper who punches.

Play till they score? What a joke. There was a clear push on Lascelles on the goal as well.

Look at it from Nov 1 and it's not as bad as that. We're fifth bottom in the goals for column and sixth top in the goal against one. Rondon, among others, is up to speed now, so the games before are not particularly relevant. I don't think you'd judge Man U now by their form under Mourinho In this period, we have only two fewer points than Wolves. On the season as a whole, we are actually equal in goals scored and against in the first half of matches. It is testament to how Benitez sets the team up. There is a huge discrepancy in the second half, 8 goals for and 20 against, but some will be the paucity of what is on the bench. The 3 second-half goals Liverpool got at Anfield were a blip and the Dubs door-opening errors against Man U and Spurs were both second half, making this stat worse than it should be.

Do that and you can miss the easy ones.

Fulham need 18 points from 12 games just to reach 35 points. Conceding a penalty like that was a fine example of why they won't get them.

Throwback flick-on on a near post corner. Commentators used to say they were "undefendable" in the 1980s.

I like Statsbomb but Darlow beating Dubs is total bollocks. None of the axes must be catching crosses, inspiring confidence in the team, or rushing out and putting the shits up everyone.