Shadow Puppets

And Joelinton wasn’t a CM. I think Howe is aiming to play a front 3 of Isak, Wilson and Almiron, with Isak given the freedom to link up as second striker. He said they’d be playing together.

He has played left and right before, most of his good play so far for us has been him coming from the left, and Howe said he envisaged Wilson and Isak playing together.

Surely the plan is to have Almiron, Maxi and Isak battling it out on the wings?

Fucking hell

If you can name the players you’d start in their place, considering we have a cup quarter final in 3 days, be my guest. Ritchie played fine, as did Anderson. Wood, Lewis and Murphy were dogshit though.

Get a grip. The starting 11 was absolutely fine, barring Lewis.

It is what it is. Sometimes these games just happen. The starting 11 was good enough to win that game, but there was a few too many poor performances and an offside goal. What can you do. We have a tremendous opportunity coming up on Tuesday so today’s team selection was right, but it’s just highlighted what we already know… that the squad is not strong enough to compete on multiple fronts.

Maybe he’s injured? Maybe he’s not starting?

Sounds like a bunch of rumours stemming from one shit YouTube source to me

The back 5 were superb to a man!

I thought he was absolutely woeful!

He did exactly the same against Bournemouth on Tuesday. Celebrated a tackle like we’d scored.

Just realised that I’ve never heard Messi talk, until today! ?

Watching Messi play is a real treat like. I think I’m going to go out of my way to take a trip to Paris to watch him before he retires. He’s my favourite ever player, for sure. Even as an older player, he’s one move ahead of everyone on the pitch. Loving the little bursts of god mode, followed by a minute or two of strolling around waiting for his moment. Love him!

There's some incredibly thick people around like... the reaction to that goal last night. The only 2 angles we've seen from directly above the ball show quite clearly that the ball in touching the line / still in play, but thousands of Sounesses the country over are foaming at one still image taken at a completely irrelevant angle.

Fantastic save. The, softest, most ludicrous penalty decision I’ve ever seen.

I think people don’t give him credit because he’s a little shit… the most dislikable player in the league other than Richarlison. A true twat.

What a fucking team! Unreal atmosphere pre match, and when Willock scored I don’t think I’ve ever heard it that loud. Insane. Stellar performance all round!

I’m hoping Saturday’s game could have the atmosphere of an end of season game… like the Arsenal game. I don’t know if it’s planned or not? But the flags / sheets on every seat for the Arsenal game last season helped create the best atmosphere I’ve seen in years.

Pope Trippier Schar Botman Burn Longstaff Bruno Willock Almiron Wilson Joelinton

It was largely a poor performance but we still found a way to win comfortably. Great sign.

I think it'll be hard to maintain our levels every single game... this is exactly the kind of game I could see dropping some points in. I'm going 2-2.

?

Nowt like getting ahead of yourself ? Long way to go, but if we can keep people fit we have a chance. Remembering where we’ve come from, I’d still be happy with a Top 8 finish this year.

I HIGHLY doubt the it’s intentional and is likely just being saved for later in the week / the home game? They’ve not put a foot wrong on that front, so to purposefully not take part at all between now and 30th would be out of character.