Billy Pilgrim

He does basic central defender defending better than any of the others and is probably the sort of player where legs aren’t the be all and end all depending on who is around him. I feel like I can rely on him not to do something brain dead stupid and he is a bugger to get around 1v1.

So far as I’m concerned he’s one of us whether he’s playing for someone else or indeed a dutchman.

I feel like he’s actually better suited to a sort of Fred role than he is playing upfront. But even so the best stuff from him the last few games has been effort, pressing, winning the ball back, getting involved. His use of the ball has been on average poor to alright. I am pleased to see him putting in performances like tonight and Brentford but equally I would prefer having enough good footballers that I never had to see him. That being said he deserves credit for the shifts put in since Howe took over.

Ran into the east stand at the end to give a bairn his top

His best game. Made one mistake that I noticed and it amounted to nowt.

One paced. Really struggled to gain traction over ten yards, with or without the ball.

Joelinton was basically playing CM for most of this game and did a fair job

Sancho is like when a 15 year old plays Sunday league football, Alonso might as well have a nap for all the danger Sancho is causing

It’s this really. I’m not being negative I’m calling it for what it is, not good enough so far. Brentford looked better than what we’ve seen previously but it still wasn’t enough to get over the line. His job is to keep us up and that’s what I’ll be judging him by.

I think the answer to Ritchie and Krafth is that they think they are in the best 11, which worries me deeply. If true well, the job is fucked. If not true, what is wrong with their eyes. Only way out of this is spunking money left right and centre, doing everything possible in the training and coaching time and hoping for the best. Too many of these players were barely good enough before they were past it. The defence is chronic, slow, accident prone, bad on the ball except Schar who is a fanny. There is nowhere near enough mobility all over the pitch and about 3 nothing footballers get minimum 70 minutes every week.

Down as fuck.

Exactly, nowt has changed. Like give him some time but this is just more of the same bullshit isn’t it? Playing people out of position, second to everything, this isn’t good enough at all like.

This has been shit like. Serious money needs spending in January. An entire new defence and midfield, bare minimum.

The dogshit quality of our transfer rumours has been one of the absolute worst parts about the Ashley era. Being linked with nobody exciting but getting repeat transfer windows of chat about Choudry is about as bleak as it gets outside of wearside.

Well he was a league one manager, so it’s kind of right, sort of, in a timey wimey temporal sort of way.

Jose Enrique when he had to go in goal

Dean Saunders

The French are absolute wronguns, there was some uefa cup game against Bordeaux or something and they were fighting with themselves at SJP

Wilson is great but I think Toney has gonna have a baller career. He was excellent yesterday, a total panic zone and the lad is built like a cathedral.

It was beyond a farce when they kept him on after a team of penalty takers in the europa league final. Michael Gove could come around and fuck your wife and you’d still have more testicular fortitude than Ole in that moment.

He’s got a long way to go but games like today show why he’s still a premier league footballer. In the right system, with enough time and space, he offers something most other teams don’t have. Just doesn’t have the legs to take it up a level or the brain for consistency.

Great finish, he fucking loves it man, straight into the gallowgate for a thousand cuddles

Miles better today. The 343 looked real good with shelvey pinging it side to side. Some decent upgrades in major positions and I think this system will do.

You can’t fuck about with keepers, send him straight to gulag

Was much better today aside from his two slapstick falling over moments. Went down like Prince hamlet at the end, seemed to take days.