Shadow Puppets

And as of August that was true. They were still living together and at the Southampton game they both seemed very much together. Obviously that’s now moved on.

I mean… I told you that months ago 😜

I thought we were outstanding from start to finish today, barring 10 mins after City’s goal where we lost composure. Great performance all round.

Dreadful news. Wishing him all the best, and wishing a full recovery. Puts everything into perspective a bit.

Massively disagree that injuries papered over the cracks. We had some good to excellent performances last season, with injuries too, amongst the painful performances across December / January. From memory we played well to excellent in decent chunks of all of these games… - Villa at home - much of Liverpool at home before and awful final 20 - City at home in LC - Sheffield Utd away - Burnley home - Palace home - Paris home and away - Man Utd away LC - Arsenal home - Chelsea home - Man Utd home - Fulham home - City home (despite eventually losing) - Sunderland away - Villa away - Wolves home - Everton home (then enter Paul Dummett) - West Ham home second half - Fulham away - Spurs home - Sheffield Utd home - Burnley away - Brentford away This season something different is happening… either we’re just not up to speed yet (which is a common Howe start to the season) or something just hasn’t worked in training / something has changed in training. Bunce’s influence perhaps leading to less intensity?

City were absolutely pish in that second half like. Didn’t deserve anything.

City are fucking boring to watch like.

Onside 👍🏻

Great run by Murphy. Great finish by Barnes.

I will say mind, I think Bruno has been easily one of our worst 3 performers all season. Needs to seriously up his game.

Absolutely dire this. Our energy levels are all off like.

No, why?

Good for the first 30 mins, shite after that. I will say like, our worst performers today so far have been Bruno and Isak IMO. Both have lost the ball numerous times, and Bruno was dreadful for the goal. Whole team needs a kick up the arse, and Tonali / Barnes need to be on. Potentially Trippier too.

Cronin (fucking “Geordie Journos” YouTube channel?) is one of the worst for it.

Did you watch the press conference? Howe said with a smile that he hasn’t spoken to Mitchell in 10 days but has had no need to. It really really sounds to me like the press are circling and asking as many leading questions as possible in order to get a less than pristine answer from Eddie in order to continue their clickbait. Hope plus a few others… absolute bellends.

Watch the press conference. It's nowhere near as negative as this spin. I fucking hate that bellend, honestly.

Things always seem different written down. It’s probably an interview we needed to see, to be honest, to stop the different personalities of the journalists (*cough*Craig Hope*cough*) clouding and framing specific quotes.

🤷‍♂️ But I know Everton wanted him in January.

Not sure if it was mentioned in commentary / interviews, but Pope picked up a minor hamstring niggle in training this week which could explain some of his peculiar movements today.

Right, not sure where to put this… but a few tidbits of info I managed to get today… - Guehi was repeatedly told by Palace that a deal was close and he was expecting to travel for a medical at any point in the final week. As speculated, it was the injury to Palace’s CB that put an end to it. - Regarding the camp being unsettled… I was told that no one has “had their head turned”, but there was a lot of general anxiety surrounding a few players futures because of the PSR issue and the knowledge that technically anyone “could” be sold, which led to a lot of disruption / speculation. Apparently Longstaff and Trippier suffered badly on that front 🤷‍♂️. Weirdly I think the players who were least affected by the speculation were those who have either just signed new contracts or have been deemed our stars and definitely not for sale (Bruno, Isak). - Miley should be back by the end of the month. Moon-boot off. - Trippier 100% never asked to leave, though he is/was a little unsure of his place in the team right now. Guess that can only be fixed over time. That’s about all, but thought I’d share to keep everyone in the loop.

It wasn’t awful man. 20 mins of it were awful. The rest was a pretty competitive even game, with us edging the first half (IMO).

First half I thought we played well for large spells. The linesman issue stopped our momentum a bit, but I’d definitely put us down as the better team first half and deserved to be ahead. The first 15 mins of the second half was bad… just couldn’t string two passes together and struggled to get out of our box. We rode our luck and were fortunate to not find ourselves behind. After the subs we were much stronger… scored a good goal. Felt under control (to me) for the last 15 mins.

I have zero respect for Craig Hope (as I’ve said a few times). Even if some of what he says may be true in that article (🤷‍♂️), when he then puts in pieces that I know to be 100% factually incorrect / misleading (the unsettled Gordon story), I lose any faith in the rest of it being correct. But it’s the way he writes / speaks, as if he’s the oracle on the subject that pisses me off most. “Fans WILL turn their angst on Eales and Mitchell…” … well they will if you shape an entire article / multiple articles to make out they’re the “bad guys”. He writes with an agenda. He doesn’t report the news, he reports his own take on things he’s been told / made up.

Such a prick.

Understand your frustration on Miggy / Murphy (although I do think both are good squad players), but re: Krath… we’re not looking for a CB better than him. We’re looking for one better than both Botman and Schar.