Nine

You can see why we were so keen on him, seems to have that elite mentality built into him already. Won’t over react after one incredible performance but this kid is potentially our future starting RB and so far has shown all the reasons why.

Win/win

The momentum builds

Sensible approach I think, we don’t need these extra fixtures this season.. the squad just doesn’t have the depth in quality yet.

A lot of our fans seemed to have had their mind made up before even signed.. a lot of negative emotion came out because he’d been a shithouse against us before, ugly etc It really felt like a lot of us were just waiting for their chance to label him a shit waste of £40m. Glad he’s proving the doubters wrong, his assets were always clearly a good fit for our system and squad. Think I said back in the summer he was the player I was most excited about developing here, something along those lines. Can’t quite claim my ‘I was right’ badge just yet after only 6 games but I have a feeling he will continue to win everyone over.

Only 30. I was surprised to.

8 away from home with 8 different scorers is just unheard of obviously, it’s absolutely unreal I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse home performance at this level though, and it will probably cost Heckingbottom his job. I think the most important aspect of today was not only how we put a tactically dysfunctional side to the sword, but the timing of this beat down is perfect. Dump city out on Wednesday night and we’ll be in that kill mode going forward I feel, key players will be returning to full fitness over the next 14 days as well. Exciting couple of weeks ahead.

Well, what the fuck What a perfect moment to get a massive momentum booster result like that after the sickener against Liverpool still sticking in our memory. On to Wednesday night.

Wheres the Gordon doubters now???

Killed it with set pieces, impressive stuff even if they had some very slack moments defensively. Expect us to step off and make some earlier than usual subs now, keep as many fresh as possible.

Hopefully that’s just a calf tweak for Barnes, achilles would be the worst possible outcome

Hojlund looks a way off from being an elite striker so far to me, all the physical aspects to make it but he’s not there mentally/technically yet

What a fucking header

Apparently Chambers, Lenglet and Diaby had proper stinkers tonight for Villa

Wait no one’s actually calling for Miley to start PL games yet are they? In the league cup maybe yeah, I could see it. PL absolutely no way.

To go away to that ground against a side like that and take a point in our first CL for 20 years is amazing work and I think most of us would have taken that before kick off. It had to be said though, the performance tonight was slack in many areas. We were fortunate to come away with that point, there has been a lot made of this game and perhaps the players went in nervy because even after we shifted to the mid block in the second half there was hardly any composure that you’d expect from certain players. We lacked mentally tonight imo. Maybe we grow into this competition and maybe not, either way I’m here to enjoy every single game we get.

A long time coming

Who knows what he could become, but he has 12 in 30 for us after one full (injury included) season. You wouldn’t get 100m for Isak today. I know, I know - Caicedo and the like. But I don’t feel Isak would demand that kind of fee yet.

While I’m not saying that story is true, I feel it’s a matter of time until we sell one of key ‘untouchable’ players if the offer is right. Not only would it be hard to hold onto a player that is wanted by a Madrid or a Barca, but a big fee would open up so many doors FFP wise and long term could make a lot of sense.. imagine how well we could reinvest 80-100m? If you take the emotional attachment to our best players out of the equation then it feels like it could be very good business for us. Be ready for that eventuality is all I’m saying, wether it’s Isak, Bruno or whoever. It’s going to be a real possibility that we cash in on one of our consistent high performers at some point.

Wouldn’t judge until he has a left back behind that he can benefit more from

One of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen

The first 20ish was sloppy but we’ve been fine since then, albeit lacking that creativity which is very hard to come by anyway against a low block of Brentford quality. I think we’ll get a goal from somewhere.

That does not mean he is fit to play 90 PL minutes at all, hes also a young kid who only just arrived at a huge club in a new country so it could be careful man management as much as it is fitness related. Twisting about that substitution is just looking for an excuse to moan imo.

One will always impact the other, not sure you can be to picky over Hojlund being taken off as he’s clearly not up to required fitness to do 90 yet. McTominay was subbed for a 21 yo 6th appearance for you, and Casemiro for a 20 yo 5th.

So was it the missing player list or the selection that was the main issue today? Can’t really have it both ways.