Tiresias

Great goal, what we signed him for

"Privately it is believed that Newcastle fear" that is the key bit of that sentence, it is not saying that newcastle privately fear he will lose, of course they fear it, it is not known whether he will win or lose, sensible to fear him being suspended, but anyway what it is saying that privately some third party believe that newcastle fear this. It can't be the Chron as they publicly believe newcastle fear the obvious. WHO SUSPECTS NEWCASTLE DONT WANT TO LOSE SHELVEY BUT WON'T SAY IT OUT LOUD

Slightly suspicious Sanchez drilled it through his legs in hope of such a deflection

Is there anything more annoying from commentators making obvious errors, thinking something that was a foot outside the box, and obviously so, was a penalty

Ranieri's achievement last year is one of the great management achievements of the last decade. Jesus christ though writing off Guardiola though

Also the west brom run recently was when he was about to lose the job, he'll play a bit more positively, get team safe and keep out of any danger of losing the job then revert to type

Very rarely pulis teams sometimes become fun, still direct but attacking, his brief crystal palace spell featured this. I kind of think though that this'll only happen at certain times when he needs points on the board, the palace run indeed happened when they were threatened with relegation with less than half a season to go. I suspect this West brom team will stop attacking altogether in January while they are in top half and grind their way to safety

I'm not sure anyone's worked out how to play this Chelsea shape yet, spurs and man city weren't too far off but the high press is such a high risk strategy against that forward line. A pulis all out defense may be only way to stop them at the moment, though hazard or Costa will still find a way.

I'm not sure booing our own player is ever constructive. I could understand it with players just sitting collecting their pay packets and waiting to be sold like Sissoko and Wijnaldum a bit but think Diame has just been struggling rather than actively not giving a shit. Could be wrong. Anyway hopefully he pushes on from this

Chelsea are definitely abysmal for player discipline, blamed that on Mourinho for a while really. The fracas there though was definitely city's fault, Chalobah I think it was ran over to remonstrate after that abysmal Aguero tackle but he only got a yellow (and rightly so) so feels slightly harsh that this should be what tips them over the edge, but makes sense from persistent poor behaviour point of view.

From the highlights looks like he finally showed why we got him, pace and power, beating men easily. For anyone who saw the full game, did Birmingham push up a lot against us? I only suspect one of the reason he has struggled is how deep a lot of teams sit against us and Diame wants to power into space behind teams midfields

Doesn't seem unreasonable to judge Mitrovic's usefulness on his performances when given a chance between now and the end of the season. He has done well at times but also badly at others. I would like to see him given a shot alongside Gayle at some point but know that will not be practical in premier league possibly.

Horrible stuff

To be honest does sound like Wenger

Very happy for him to prove me wrong and want him to stay and be given the chance regardless. Just if there's a proven more complete striker about wouldn't want us to pass it up. No point adding any backup strikers mind.

Meh he's a very good manager but it's not his team and he's clearly tried to move too far too fast. Also dunno what on earth he was doing, totally walking into it there, giving Mahrez so much space. Bad mistake sure, but he still built the best team I've ever seen at Barca (blessed with a golden crop too but noone holds that against Ferguson for instance). He will never recreate that team again probably and Bayern Munich was just too easy an assignment, but he's still a good coach with interesting ideas, and you know what, him, Conte and Klopp stirring up Premier League tactical orthodoxies (the boring as mud 4-2-3-1 especially) has done a lot to make it more exciting. Writing him off is dumb, he will take time. Too many people buy into the Sky Sports ethos that everything has to be brilliant NOW NOW NOW and if i't not it's CRISIS DOOM MANAGER OUT, one defeat makes someone an idiot but a million defeats make someone like Pardew a grizzled league veteran. Without the Guardiolas of the world we'd just be in a league of Pardew's, Pulis' and Hughes, do we really want that? (I grant that Mourinhou has long since descended into self parody, an almost perfect one man satire on the Sky Sports cult of the eccentric foreign manager, but you know he also feels part of the furniture now)

Not if he's scoring them. I don't disagree, if he can score like he has been no issue, if he's marked better, and he will be the defences in this league have been significantly worse than premier league imo, he may not help the team much. Not trying to be too negative like, he's class atm and great signing but lets not kid ourselves we're not playing against defenders of a standard we will be next season.

Ah not no wing backs, De Bruyne as a wing back wtf Seriously pep you're better than that

City basically seemed to have played without full backs or wing backs at all or something and just insanely open at the back, what were they thinking. Big fan of Guardiola but you can't just walk into a counter attacking team like that

I think the issue at a higher level is he doesn't offer anything else than goals and it's harder to carry a player like that

lovely goal for watford albeit terrible defending

I think it's a combination of a lack of emphasis on teaching tactics and stuff to youngsters in the theory that they don't need to know why they're asked to do something, and I think that at youth level we have a bad habit of underrating intelligence and quick thinking as opposed to pace, strength or natural ability with the ball. Having said that one of the very strong prerequisites for players breaking through has been how well they remember training ground routines etc, where to run etc etc. We value a sort of rote learned intelligence on the pitch rather than players who may improvise.

I dunno that's only retroactive really, damage may be done. Robust systems in place in a workplace where contact between young people and staff is well monitored. No shit like becoming 'family friends' or even just accounting for time spent. I work in a youth charity and we are expected to record and account for what we are doing every interaction with young people.

Bad attitude, clearly thinks he belongs playing at the top without putting in the work and would jump ship at first opportunity. The only things that stop me from discounting it is that Pulis is a cunt and Rafa may be able to teach him into better things

Good luck to him, was always going to want a full managers position at some point