Smal

perplexed by this. He was the best RB in the world for about 18 months, had a tricky month or so last season and ever since it's felt like he's not really been in it. His leadership just disappeared. Then he played for England at the Euros and looked himself again and was barking orders at everyone. Something must've gone on, like. I'll be sad when he leaves. Been so good for us.

I’d still start Hall but he did lose 7/7 duels and was dribbled past 3x more than anyone else on the pitch against Southampton. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie sat him out for this one.

man I hope we've got something up our sleeve because it's looking like an extremely poor window for us so far

for the remarkable feat of making it to 25 years of age presumably

not sure about this. Lascelles and Trippier will probably be gone by next summer at the latest. Why not just wait until then to make him captain?

Joelinton probably told him that he's got this.

I think our press was good for the first 5 minutes, and obviously it’s how we got our goal too. Not sure what happened after the first five though. Either Southampton worked it out very quickly or we just backed off.

we were really poor, yeah. As has often been the case the past few years the issues are in possession. We are poor at playing out from the back, especially without Trippier’s ability to play out of tight spaces and progress play. More often than not we were just booting the ball up the line or into channels. We never got going in possession at all. We are definitely trying something different with our out of possession shape but I’m not sure it worked particularly well yesterday either. We were 4-4-2 out of possession with Gordon very high and narrow and Joelinton covering the left side until we backed off into our more regular 4-5-1 shape. We even kept this after going down to 10 in more of a 4-3-2. It was very easy for Southampton to keep the ball and we were just giving them it straight back. Result was great and we showed some important characteristics, especially from some individuals, but performance-wise it was a big disappointment.

Howe obviously trusted him enough to start despite there being other good options available. I think that’s telling. He’ll certainly have better games than yesterday, mind. The early yellow didn’t help.

If he can get to double figures that’d be massive. Got 8 in all comps in 22-23.

Love this bloke, like. Embodies the club for me.

he looked back to his best physically which I think is the most important thing for him. Was quicker across the pitch and faster into his tackles.

I saw this after 2 replays at the time. What the fuck is the point in VAR if it doesn’t pick stuff like this up?

the shithousing is back

Never seen Bruno run so fast

cannit watch Thank fuck football's back eh

fully fit Big Joe is an unbelievable athlete.

Craig Pawson def voted tory, like

be a small miracle if we make it through this

Proud of you Big Jo

We are not very good

it was only 35% or something before the red

besides all the other shit, we were absolutely shocking there like . Bunch of them didn't look ready to play, same glaring hole between defence and midfield as last season, basically zero possession against a champo side, zero chance creation, left back is a tackle away from it being 9 v 11.

VAR is absolutely shocking mind. It's taken be a couple of seconds of pausing that video to see Diaz leaning into Schar and going down like a tonne of bricks ffs

is it tactical that Gordon's doing Hatem levels of tracking back?