Smal

Think Eddie has really worked with him the last couple of weeks to get him to do the Burn role properly. Positionally it's a key part of our defensive shape and build up and we really missed it against Bournemouth. completed 43 out of 44 passes too. The only thing missing is that it's harder for him to pass to Gordon than it is for Burn because he's right footed and doesn't have that angle. Passing to Bruno instead isn't a bad alternative though.

the best thing you could possibly ask a player to do after a mistake is to keep calm, keep trying to play by the principles and then make up for it at the other end. He did all that. He'll have been here 10 years by August. Really happy for him. Hope he stays another year.

We do need more young players, agreed. We have one of the oldest squads in the league iirc. I think Phillips is a good fit medium term and should be happy to be a rotation option, mind. Howe would have the best chance of getting the Bielsa version of him back because the coaching philosophy and training methods seem very similar.

Trippier is 33, like. Footballers don't die when they hit 30 anymore.

that's Ghodoussi

proper blatant penalty. This ref is amazingly shit

the speed and ferocity that he ran at Silva with was amazing. Silva absolutely shat himself. It’s no coincidence we score plenty of goals like that.

how are referees this bad at their jobs, man. These are supposed to be the best in the country . I know they were all the weird freak kids at school but you’d think at least a few of them would actually be decent at their jobs.

thing is, the issue isn’t that we don’t have numbers. The squad is full… it’s just half of them are injured . We can de-register Tonali to free up a space and that’s about it. We can sign under 21s who don’t need to be registered for the PL too I guess.

He absolutely fucking bullied them today. Won every 50/50 easily.

back to his best in terms of value on the ball today:

extremely Argentine performance from Chelsea, this

fair play to Lascelles tbh. Made a few errors but at least he has the confidence to keep trying to play out.

Joelinton has been fine apart from a couple of Joelinton moments

he can’t play for a decent team, I’m afraid. Howe is trying to make us have more of the ball and the goalkeeper needs to be a reliable passing option. Pope is an absolute bomb scare.

Big Jo really can’t do sitters, like

keeper?

Jam trying to be Schar didn’t go so well there

‘kin hell, how’s Miley seen that pass

Miggy looks kind of knackered already

I don’t think Southgate would’ve told him to play like he has done in these two games. He wasn’t playing in any particular role or position… just walking around and fucking the shape up. Hopefully it’s the end of that experiment.

nowt wrong with that at all, like

Trent has just spent both games walking round doing trivelas and nothing at all of use. Fantastic player but absolutely cannot play for England.

He can stay fit if his minutes are managed. We haven’t been able to do that because of Isak’s injury.

Pretty sure he was just watching Vasco (who he supports) and commenting on this