Abacus

I reckon he saw Arne Slot was an anagram for Earn Lots. Doubt there is any sporting pride in him. He's clearly playing half fit and rusty, his own fault obviously. Expectations will be huge with that price tag, though, for him to improve fast. It's when he's fully up to speed and playing at full tilt several times a week that we'll see if he keeps getting knackered on 60 minutes and getting various groin / hamstring type injuries after some proper sprints that then keep him out for spells, like he was with us even when he was trying. Rinse and repeat the fitness cycle until he's carted off for glue. A particularly weak glue, like Pritt Stick. Hope so, obviously. And that he gets booed until his daft head falls off. Ekitike doing well, but I'm not delighted with that. Apart from coming across like a twerp, a spell out of the team for him and letting the weasel Isak and Wurst try to carry that expectation on their own with Dr Eggman losing the plot would be lovely.

Thought I'd clicked on the Newcastle vs Arsenal thread for a minute, my bad.

Slot defensive and graceless in his interview, talking rubbish about VAR 'interfering' as well. Whinging about time wasting and the amount of extra time. Your team were just shit m8.

This is why I watch other PL teams in Europe. Pure hatred.

Unless you're PSG

In fact give Isak a yellow card for no reason for getting his decision wrong.

Haha, take that yellow card away as well

I don't much buy this. I think we wanted Ekitike either as a foil to or a replacement for Isak, not sure which. Didn't work out, but not for want of trying there. Woltemade is an interesting one. I don't think he was a desperation move though I see it could look that way - he described how he had been given a clear route to being the main striker, which isn't something you just think up on the fly. Wissa being injured has probably turned that plan upside down for now, but then you have to play the hand you're dealt. With Woltemade, I think just everyone not just us assumed he was off to Bayern and were caught off guard that he was available. He's a development project for sure, but an exciting one. £30m or so like Bayern offered or a free next summer would have been a steal for them from what I'm seeing so far. As for a direct Isak replacement there isn't one and never was, with Ekitike maybe the closest. It'll take us a while to gel, that's all. But if you lose a top class player (which I'll admit through gritted teeth Isak was), you're going to have to change how you play.

Probably hasn't had many shots to face.

Looking forward to this! Few pints in town first then smash this lot to pieces

Not only that, you're suggesting you didn't have the right players for that system. So everyone knows who to target as well, pretty baffling.

Amorim to do his press conference to the soundtrack of The Cure.

Cracking goal, but it was at the right height for the keeper to do better.

Made up for it, shit pen 😆

That's a pen. Kelleher being useless in the first half has really ruined everyone's Saturday.

Glad we told Frankfurt no, then. We'll need him even for 30 mins in a lot of games, and that could be the making of him. Loans with options always confuse me. If say, he went on loan with an option and had a stormer, then presumably we couldn't say no if they activated it. In which case, darn right we say no. I suppose that option (for the selling club) is essentially saying "this is what we reckon he'll be worth in a year but he's not in our long term thinking so you can have him for that". The club didn't agree to it anyway, but if the club wanted a buyback instead it suggests we do suspect he could be in our long term thinking. It's almost the opposite statement - "we'll send him to you to develop but we'll likely want him back if he does what we think he can for a fair price" which is far more of a vote of confidence in the player. Like a loan with an option the other way around, if I'm not rambling too much. He's definitely got something, really like him.

Really is sod's law that both he and Wissa are out till the international break. The squad looks SO much better with both of those in. What I'm taking from Howe's comment is that if he's back earlier it's a bonus. So I don't expect it, but it suggests to me he can be training hard during that break, like a mini preseason, ready to fire when he gets back. Hope so, anyway.

Neither Villa nor Bologna have looked much cop this second half

Embarrassing play acting by Watkins there.

Decent finish from McGinn. Interesting Emery has dropped Watkins. Well, unless he's injured or something, then it's much less interesting. Good start from Villa though.

Yeah, I was about to say Gordon didn't have the best first few months before putting it all together the next season. Already seen plenty from Elanga - was superb against Barca for one - to think that it's just a matter of playing and training regularly to improve his consistency. I think there's also maybe something to be said for the whole forward line needing time to get used to Woltemade instead of a more traditional striker too, which will come. More wondering when Gordon and Barnes will hit form than wondering about Elanga.

It was a penalty. Had it gone against us, yes I'd have thought it was soft, but would have had to admit eventually there's no real arguing with the facts of it. It was a clear attempt to impede a player from getting a shot away and not really trying to win the ball. All for a contact sport but that was a foul. PGMOL apologies mean nothing and aren't for the likes of us. If Howe mentioned it, and he doesn't normally complain about refs, you can be sure he thinks the same.

For me, Gordon should be at LW with Osula up front. Gordon has looked out of form so far and has obviously had a spell in the sin bin as well, so maybe this would do him good for match sharpness. Saying that, I'm assuming Bradford will sit deep, so actually a bit of craft from Barnes might be better as you'd assume the running and press wouldn't be quite so important.

Emery will probably have them playing well again, they're still a very good team but as pointed out here the financial constraints have them bumping against that class ceiling again, especially when their gamble last year didn't work. It was an odd reaction by him after Sunderland, but still they need to realise that changing managers won't fix that fundamental restriction. Even if that's on the cards, which I doubt, as it would be madness after a handful of games. On a different note, though, the sporting director leaving is interesting. We fondly imagine that a DOF or equivalent is for your long term strategy, so managers can come and go. But it seems quite a few, even those highly regarded, move on every few years and are largely unaccountable for what happens on the pitch. When you've got a decent manager like we fortunately do right now, it seems to me the DOF should be there to support them by taking stuff off their plate. From the outside, our last one just seemed to cause more problems instead.