TheBrownBottle

There’s some jerking of knees, but generally speaking it doesn’t seem that crazy. It is all about context. Yep, Man City are a much better side and are miles ahead. But we spurned several gilt-edged chances and conceded two comical goals. We played well but were undone by concentration lapses at the back and dogshit finishing up top - the same as pretty much every game for a couple of months. Knee-jerk would be indignant fury and calling for Howe’s head on a platter. I’m not seeing that.

Ashley signed us up to long-term deals on bad terms

Yes, they were able to write off the losses during that weird period where they were for sale but not yet sold

According to the papers, but no-one in the top six in the PL is going to loan anyone to us anymore, so it could only be from abroad or with a guarantee to buy clause from what I can see

That does feel a bit ‘no idea but we definitely would be better if we’d done something better’. I’m not convinced that there was a lot available for that money who could just drop in and improve the side - and I think some of the issues we’re seeing are the result of the rest of the PL figuring out how to neutralise the way we play a bit.

Chelsea partially negated it by offering insane eight-year contracts - they also have an income about three times larger than ours

FFP meant we had roughly £50m to spend - I’m genuinely curious, who would you have went for / which positions? Any change would mean Gordon not coming in of course.

This used to be called ungentlemanly conduct

Murphy puts some good balls in. I like playing non-inverted wingers

Yep

Yep - it’s exactly what Howe said pre-match; everything between the two boxes looks spot-on. Our finishing is fucking diabolical at the moment though - Man City haven’t really turned up here

Lascelles for me today

The team that I would have started is now playing

Bruno channelling Pope

Both have been mediocre to poor for a while, too. Certainly since January.

Still feel like if we can score in the next ten mins there’s a chance. Yep, I’m that daft

Fucking Trippier again

Baaaaaals

Isak looking fucking good mind

Look a million times better

Yey

Longstaff lucky there, farting around

There’s still something in this for us

Two game ban for big Joe

Joelinton just looks so good in LCM