Kid Icarus

Judging by their reviews, by charging people £60 after their £1 period (even though they'd cancelled as per t&cs) then refusing to give it back. It's why I stopped paying them, they seem a bit dodgy tbh. https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/theathletic.com

Football's supposed to be an escape from this sort of shit.

It was Shepherd's high watermark of backwards 'statement' signings, without question.

Hassenhutl's been on the brink for what feels like 4 years, yet always seems to hit a weird run of form.

They just signed far too many. Imagine if you're the first left back they signed, then watching them go and sign another 4 left backs or whatever it was What does that do for the togetherness of the squad when you do that in multiple positions? Absolute lunacy. Maybe we'll end up with Lodi after all. There'll be some good players available if they go down.

Forest are an incoherent mess. Can't get over the stupidity of their signings.

Maddison's the only good player out there it seems. So many players nowhere near being on it.

Ahhhhh, that's what's different.

The thwack when he hits it

I got around to watching the full match yesterday, so I have to do player ratings, sorry. Pope: 6 Trippier 7 Schar: 7 Botman: 7.5 Burn: 7.5 Bruno: 7.5 Longstaff: 7.5 Willock: 9 Almiron: 10 Wilson: 8 Murphy: 7

I think it'll come. He was a Wilson tap in and a very good save away from scoring on Saturday, and still bagged a couple of assists. If this is his supposedly poor start and we're due for his form to pick up in the second half of the season then I'm looking forward to it.

No one likes smurfing, especially from someone on a team that contributed more or less nothing to their success and towards a well-liked player.

I find it mad that year after year people fall into the trap of thinking Arsenal's form will last for a full season. They've been great and they've improved massively, but it's very early days.

It all depends on context for me. If we have it really bad with injuries, or 7th to 10th is filled with teams that have picked up loads of points and we've picked up 60-ish then that's still a very successful season for me.

and FWIW I don't really want to think of us as being favourites for this that and the other. Coming out of the Ashley era where we didn't even try to compete at the most basic level, then going into the mindset of thinking we can be the best of the rest the very next season is a huge dynamic shift like. I just want to enjoy watching Newcastle and seeing us compete and I'm definitely getting both of those things. That alone not being enough and having loftier expectations can wait a couple of seasons. I've waited 14 years for this, I'm going to bask in it for quite a while.

I know, I'm talking about our finishing position. Teams tend to have injury and form problems at some point and other teams will go through good and bad form as well.

Was pretty shocked how bad Wolves were last season and this season considering their line up. They barely barked let alone bit going forward and were just annoyingly good at blocking everything defensively.

N-O is bipolar depending on our last result like. We've done really well so far, but 7th means us staying injury free for a decent amount of time, which so far we haven't.

Reminder that last season Mount scored or assisted in 2 out of every 3 games on average. I hate Chelsea but Mount is absolute quality when he's not playing for England.

Worth it just for the half season of games he plays tbh. Incredibly consistent and makes us much more coherent going forward, he's the complete package as a striker imo.

Likewise if they show a substitution it nearly always means they score.

Jenas's problem for me will always be that he has no credibility as a pundit. Aside from his lack of quality, I can't take any criticism he has for players not putting the effort in or not tracking back or lacking character seriously when the main problem I had with him for us was that he was spineless.

90 points with 46 of them being Haaland. Madness

Points total is what I'm looking for rather than position like. I'll be delighted with anything around 60 points.

He's not wrong that it just moves the line though, or that the margins are any less fine. It should make spotting offsides easier though I imagine.