Dr Jinx

Had a similar argument with a cretin on Facebook about Rafa over the weekend. He did the very best with what he had, remember, we had nothing down the left. Had to loan Kenedy and got half a season out of him. Made Lascelles look like Baresi and turned Diame into a powerhouse midfielder. He built things methodically, you could see how things changed once Almiron was added, all we needed was a goal scorer then and full backs of his choosing. He was dialled in here, 2 seasons of total confidence from the supporters gave him the time to gain that insight. He’s not got that at Everton, they’ve been on him from day 1. Our current squad is overall better now, aside from losing Lejeune. We should be doing better. Hopefully Howe can see some of our squad are just shell shocked at present and need to be taken out of the firing line.

I’d say he’s seen enough of Lascelles now to know he won’t be starting for a while. Basically both goals Arsenal scored he was looking right at it and did nothing. Good chance for Fernandez to step up.

Can’t bring someone in for that kind of planning when we’re staring relegation down the barrel of a gun. If our fortunes are better by then (January) they’ll have people lined up. If not they’ll have to put that off until after we get promoted from the champo.

Could tell Eddie Howe was pissed off. When asked if he thought the players switched off he didn’t defend them, said “you’ll have to ask them that” I think they reverted to what they were doing before which will have annoyed him more so. The manic pressing from the very start isn’t sustainable throughout a game so they need to learn to contain teams in the first 10 minutes without knackering themselves. Fitness did look a bit better though. ASM looks like he needs a rest, even just to the bench for next game. And Lascelles.. at least Ritchie you can make excuses for not being his position but that second goal, Lascelles was looking right at that player ghosting in and stood there like a statue until was too late.

He had a life threatening trip to the hospital yesterday, still found time to make a video about it though, for his fans. True Geordie started out total cringe as well, he just used to rant incoherently about how shit we were (under Pardew) And now he’s probably got a house out of it. It’s a strange world.

Fraser picked ahead of Murphy, who I thought did well let week. He must be pulling his weight in training now

Our bench is aids ?

It’s a game nobody is expecting us to win so despite our position in the table, the pressure is on them more so.

You would have thought proving PIF are influenced by MBS would have been a slam dunk, but it wasn’t, proving some company or tourism project isn’t directly linked/related to PIF would be even more difficult. The temporary ban is also an obstruction of free trade etc.. none of this would have a leg to stand on in court.

George Best gone 16 years today

They were actually the better side against Liverpool for the first 20 minutes maybe and played some lovely football. As soon as they went a goal down it all went wrong for them though. We can’t sit back against these but we can’t overcommit either. Their left back might still be suffering ptsd after Salah last week, maybe ASM can keep that going another week.

Absolutely shameless.

Ashleys loan was covered in the 305m buying price, once that deal was concluded he cut his ties.

that was my first thought. I’ve been in the changing room a few times, I don’t recall there being that space just vacant, the away team room, the refs room, the room for drug testing and just off it is the press conference room (which is quite large) I can’t really remember the full layout of that level though.

And Nokia were the biggest phone manufacturer in the world. Poor management from the top will see even the biggest of organisations falter. For Man Utd, they’re revenue is still very good, but how much of that are their owners filtering out? There’s a parasite element similar to Mike Ashley with them.

Man Utd’s problems run way deeper than whoever their current manager of the club is. As was mentioned before, Ferguson ran the place like a shop steward, total control from top to bottom. Since he’s left, all of that has disappeared and personalities have come to the fore, whether it was Pogba was his mini battle of egos with Mourinho, or whatever. They’re in a cycle now if when it’s not working, they down tools. Putting everything on a manager and nothing on themselves. They (the club) knew who they were and now they don’t. The people at boardroom leadership who have been there for years didn’t have to do all that much when Ferguson was there, they were successful and money rolled in. He requested a player and they got them. It ran itself essentially. Now they don’t know where to start. Whoever manager they choose will not work out until they fix the structure going on at the club. So they may as well hire a pleb like Bruce. Makes no difference.

I think our situation going into January will depend a lot on the timing, if we’re out of bottom 3 and things are looking better, it’s a case of forging ahead with long term plans. If it’s not looking good they may well defer things until the summer. Eddie Howe will have a list of players he thinks would get us safe.

Steve Bruce’s Portugal abode must be football’s equivalent of Jeffrey Epsteins paedo island. Its the only thing that makes sense.

There's an article up there about him banning biscuits from the training ground..

His willingness to get the ball back for the team was fantastic. Like i mentioned before, this guy will be Diame mkII (with extras) I have to admit, i started to doubt him over the last few months, i did always think there was a player in there but doubted we'd see it. My doubts were misplaced, as we're going to find out slowly but surely, a lot of this team were sinking to the bottom of a river with a Steve Bruce shaped cement block tied around their ankles.

He’s just regressed massively, a loan out of here in January is much needed as he needs to rediscover whatever it is he likes about being a footballer. The pressure of having to play at a certain level is obviously causing him massive problems.

Yep, journalists and agents. A whole micro industry of clicks and getting better deals for their clients.

An Amazon mini series, Keane appointed and the cameras there just in time to capture Maguire’s face when he takes training for the first time. Make it happen.

That stumble at the end was literally down to lack of fitness, his studs got caught in the ground and you could see his legs just go to jelly, he was done at that point. Like a car running on fumes. They all were really. I’m not going to blame him for that, today was by some distance the best he’s ever been for us. He was a handful from the start, especially tracking back and regaining possession. Clever footwork to make space in midfield and strong on the ball, good defensive work at the back. Total all round performance. He’ll get some amount of confidence from that. Another few weeks of better training and we could have a totally different animal on our hands. Just begs the question, just how unfit did Steve Bruce have this squad?

Second half he wasn’t great but there were individual mistakes creeping in for almost everyone at that point. Fitness still isn’t quite up to scratch.