Tiresias

I was excited about him lol, another on long list of exciting French talents we nearly destroyed

Well we have one good sign, i wasnt able to watch today live due to being social with non football supporting friend, and likewise i have a prior social commitment on thursday so won't be able to watch. Let's see if me not watching becomes a positive jinx, albeit that will kinda suck for me

Shelvey's an odd one, he fluctuated when he bought in he really did, but that half season when things proper clicked under rafa was almost entirely brought about because Rafa realised that Shelvey needed too much carrying in midfield, dropped him, went to 3 at the back and essentially made Lejeune and Schar the playmakers in the team. Shelvey sulked and was all for bruce when he came in because of this, then blew hot and cold cos bruce was never demanding much of him. I still will give him credit, he did step up under Howe when he was fit but he needs to feel the special one in the team.

Looking at the criticism of spurs players and others through the league it occurs to me more now following the bruce years how much players are improved or impinged by management. All the spurs fans screaming all players not fit to wear the shirt, I think of feeling the same about Longstaff who I thought may have just had a purple patch in a specific tactical formation, I never hated miggy (how could you) but thought he was probably just a likeable hard runner lacking anything close to talent required to succeed in the league and i thought Joelinton was hard working but completely ineffective too. It's genuinely distressing when you think about it how many players who I'm sure could have had great careers with right coaches but got written off because of waste of space PFMs and were at the wrong place wrong time. So much luck.

We're all so brutalized by the bruce years when basically any result had to come from one player actually doing something over and above, it's a proper fucking team now, everyone, not one or two, taking responsibility. Joelinton was a beast, as was everyone around him

(admitably it's probably easy to love a squad that is winning, but I think actually weirdly even in the bruce years the squad were a good bunch, following relegation we lost the mercenaries and rafa built a good unit, lascelles, ritchie, hayden etc all had character etc, just not quality. Still, all the additions all seem right good eggs

What a team spirit this guy has fostered, see wilson celebrating with isak after the game, despite Wilson i am sure feeling its a bit rough to be scoring goals and being on bench, but there seems to be so much buy in and love in the squad. This is by far the most likeable squad in my time supporting the toon, and as much as i look forward to new players i really love all this squad even fucking murphy right now

Well i can see that now see time advances quickly ffs

The issue is there is something in the rules about it being uninterrupted or something but it is just ambiguous enough

I'm wrong but i hate that run up

Rashford will miss and he public enemy number 1 again

Very good pens all round i still wish that if it went past all players the managers should take them then the mascots

0-0 wouldn't shock me but we should be turning over these guys. I don't even have any animus tbh sure to watching a lot of footy with Everton fan mate whom is in permanent despair

He's just howes football philosophy made manifest isn't he, relentless, doing the hard yards and getting up and at the opposition

I am in toon for once but chose to be social with a friend who doesn't do sport. Fuck him. Nice to hear roar from stadium though

Mount is good but it's easy to get rinsed for price and wages for these type of overhyped english players. We do need homegrown talent for sure but I am more than happy to buy smart, it's not any of them will be as good as Bruno already is and if we start giving people huge wages over the top of him? I am not sure you hire Dan Ashworth to do the kind of back page of the sun transfer shopping Man U do.

Isn't that every club? Also it's absutely mental that £8m buys you a football club or 2/3rds of Dan Burn. Crazy stuff.

It doesn't need the money though, Journalist gets tips off players agents to help sell the players, journalist's career is helped because he knows about transfers sooner than others so journalist gets rewarded, agent gets to put player in shop window, agent gets what they want, it's a win win for them. Agents don't need to send any money to any journo (who would be being profoundly unethical in accepting it and would have hoped put career on line to do so but doubt it), because if a journo says pay me money they can just go to the next journo down the line, there would be no need to spend money as there are an unlimited number of journos who would appreciate the tip for some exposure. What Romano probably has is a lot of long boozy lunches with as many agents he knows where he comes accross is a nice guy and they reward him with tips, and because he just reprints whatever spurious bollocks they keep going to him. Means he's right more than most but only out of volume.

It seems to be a thing now noticed with us too, some fans will just boo any returning player no matter the happenstance of their return. Some returning players deserve some stick sure but fairly sure a large section now would boo shearer if he was playing a charity game against us for some reason

Howay man they've been better than us in every position and had a goal chalked off for a 1mm offside, refs would have to be outrageously biased to make a difference in this match

Well that's that. Defenders could not cope with Watkins at all.

I have faith in howe improving him, knee jerk reactions are a load of crap, although I wasn't especially convinced by the signing writing him off is ridiculous

Poor performance but also villa have been excellent, really impressed with them, no need to wet any beds just improve, move on

Well deserved villa, we deserve that

that one will count, ffs