Smal

Looked like it might have been a broken collarbone to me (common injury in cycling because of what you do with your arms when falling from a crash - looked like a similar impact), in which case I'd guess at 6-8 weeks or so. Some come back faster.

yeah. Willock coming back is obviously huge. Could've done with Tonali starting tonight but I can certainly understand why he didn't.

Longstaff played 90 minutes on Saturday and Joelinton 80 after just coming back from injury. Possibly something to be learned there because both looked unusually lethargic tonight. Can't really afford to have the two runners in midfield not on it against someone like Dortmund.

extremely frustrating game. Dont want to be too harsh because ultimately it just didn’t go our way at times, but I kind of expect a bit more from Bruno in a game like that. He had all the time in the world in the second half and didn’t create anything.

how’s it only four minutes

Feel like Longstaff has possibly been playing a bit high up. Maybe drop him back a bit for some more control and focus on getting our crosses in from the right to the far post where we’ve regularly had Wilson and Joelinton man to man with them in the box.

I think we’ve committed one too many player in attack, like. Their counter attacks have been brutal and made us look very open.

ref’s been all over the place like. Definite pen for us, Gordon clearly had his shirt pulled before he was tackled for their goal and he just played on anyway, and then blowing his whistle for half time when Dortmund had a pretty good chance. Glad it’s not just English refs who are shite.

something been slightly off with the structure all game. Dortmund have had a spare player every time they’ve gone forward. We look a bit leggy.

Big Jo gone super saiyan again

He does seem to pick up quite a few niggles

They'll win but Man U are absolutely rancid like

he's so humble

Spurs have had a fairly easy start, like. There’s only really Arsenal away where they picked up a point that I wouldn’t have expected them too. Potentially you can argue beating Liverpool at home was two points more than you’d expect too. Got knocked out of the cup a the first opportunity too I think. 1 game a week helps massively.

it's not even slightly funny

yeah definitely. I think you can sometimes just assume those kind of guys are jobs for the boys proper football men, but that age might actually be over now. You seem to get found out very quickly if you can't do tactics ie Stevie Me and Frank Lampard.

yeah, it was a bit on the too much side of "they are shit so we took advantage" wasn't it . Too honest.

Gary O'Neil has been unreasonably interesting on MNF

I think Miggy’s energy and running in behind will be really valuable for this. Murph can also do that like, as we saw on Saturday. Tough choice.

Andersen was so half-arsed for that goal.

you’d be fucked if he left right now but also I don’t think he’d be anywhere near as effective in a better team that doesn’t depend almost entirely on him.

unfortunately Bruno Fernansh is a cheat code in a shit side

I'm kinda looking forward to us going up against a Bundesliga defence. Have a feeling we're made for it.

I've noticed we've been playing with a bit more control this season. Saturday was the most obvious game where we deliberately played out from the back and having a look at the data, Pope had 100% pass accuracy from his 27 passes. Across the squad as a whole, last season's average pass completion in the PL was 78.1% and this season's is 83.6%. Most notable improvements have come from the back. Last season to this season: Pope: 69% to 82.9% Schar: 77.1% to 86.2% Botman: 86.5% to 92% Burn: 79.4% to 82% Trippier: 71.6% to 80.9% Lascelles is also on 87.5% this season. We are much more secure this season so far despite already playing 4 of the best pressing sides in the league in Villa, City, Liverpool and Brighton.

Villa are definitely a top 5 contender but I do look at them play and wonder when everyone's going to work their ridiculously aggressive high line out. I mean we did but we are ideally suited to playing against a high line like that; especially at home. West Ham were really sloppy yesterday and should've exposed it numerous times.