Lush Vlad

It really isn’t. His first touch is absolutely shocking for a player anywhere near this level. The same as his dribbling under any sort of pressure. Decision making and passing not much better. He is pretty fast, can strike a ball well and through volume and work. His goals and assists I’d imagine are pretty good for minutes played the last season or two. I’d guess he attempts more shots and crosses per 90 than most on our team. Which I am not saying is a bad thing BTW. Howe has done a very good job of turning him into an effective player for us. But his technical ability is nowhere near this level. It’s not even me having a go at him. It is just that he has massive limitations and they are magnified in certain games and moments.

Get Isak wrapped in cotton wool and Osula on FFS.

Can’t get my head around Murphy. Good against Liverpool in lots of ways and unlucky not to score. 2 assists last week. 2 goals and unfortunate not to have an assist today. Yet for large spells. He looks like a League One level player. Passing, touch and decision making all over the place. Humble pie for me. But with the players we have in the squad. We are probably a better team with him right wing.

Get Osula and Barnes on soon. Willock if he is good to go, too. Loads of games coming up and certain key players need protecting a bit.

Their starting keeper is decent. Danny Ward is shite. Fingers crossed.

Played really well by and large. Passing is a lot crisper, seem to be attacking with some intent and speed, moving them about all over the pitch. But it’s still only 1-0, they came back into it a bit, we’re seeing some brainless stuff from some of our players. It should be more than 1 and all. They look awful and have their midfield missing. We’ve had some great chances and openings. But pretty wasteful as per usual.

Bruno’s lost the plot here. Should sell him to Man City at half time.

Should be a second yellow after his pathetic dive.

That is a brain dead passage of play from our captain and talisman. Needs to be a lot smarter than that.

For all Isak is world class. He really does have a bit of a catalogue of bad 1 on 1 finishes. Massive dive from Bruno

Hahahaha. Right on cue.

Seriously. He is fucking garbage. Not his fault he isn’t good enough. But his quality is almost always lacking when it matters.

Murphy is absolute dogshit in a game like this. Game is passing Joelinton by and all. Not sure Gordon and Hall gel that well as a pair. Been really good other than those few moans.

Not that he knows anything. But Paperback is on Five Live now. All sounds a bit depressing at the minute.

Had a similar situation last season. Where Dubravka was consistently crap and plenty wanted Karius to get a chance. I think he came in for Arsenal away and was even worse. Albeit in a tough game to make your league debut for the club!

Superb GIF, to be fair

He’s a block heed cunt. His Twitter profile pic belongs in the punchable faces thread. Not sure a man has ever looked so pleased with himself before going for his best Chabuddy G ‘SMOULDER.’

I don’t remember him making loads of massive howlers. Apart from Luton or Bournemouth I think it was last season. When he let it under his foot. Plus two horrendous mistakes against Spain. I’m just regularly thinking he should be saving certain shots and he gets nowhere near them. He collapses all the while and that stat about shots to his right hand side was pretty telling. Throw in the fact we’ve had Pope playing as a sweeper since joining. That side of his game has been really magnified as a weakness, too. When it wasn’t an issue before Howe came. He was decent for us before the knee injury and before we upgraded on him/started playing with a different type of keeper. But I thought he looked rubbish last season.

I really don’t understand people blaming Wilson for getting injured or assuming some lack of professionalism on his part. He’s spent most of his career crocked. His body is just obviously not up to playing regularly at the top level. Blame the club for keeping him around when he is past it and can’t be relied upon, sure. But I don’t know why Wilson gets so much flak. It’s not like he’s deliberately injuring himself.

I mean, a draw would see a bad enough response. Rightly so, TBH. A loss would be nuclear.

Depends. Could just be a sprain or something fairly minor like with his meniscus or something? FWIW, I got told it was a neck injury in training. Which hardly sounds much better….

I mean. He does lie an awful lot in press conferences

This. Bit too coincidental that basically all of our players bar Hall and possibly Burn seem below their usual levels, stats not up to scratch and they’re wildly inconsistent. To balance it out. I do think Howe managed to mask certain players deficiencies and elevate quite a few above their level. But our big name, big money players haven’t suddenly become shit. But none of them are performing well. It is also this place after some bad results and performances. One week player X is one of our best signings of all time. The next he’s shit, past it and needs moving on.

Yeah, sorry. Worded that terribly. I know a few of them and played a season with his brother years and years ago. With that and from being round this way.it’s why I’m so biased about him. For all I do genuinely rate him.

I think it’s more that we’ll go back to even bigger gaps between all the lines again. As Dubravka isn’t confident coming out and sweeping up.