Ellis H

Haven’t watch it yet but he’s good with his analysis.

It’ll be interesting to see who gets/takes the blame for this if it happens. If it is purely about the money then Howe would surely be in the clear.

He was a good finisher under Ancelotti, a manager who knew how to use him. Cannot stress enough how much a manager matters to a player. We’ve seen it here with Howe digging at least half the squad out of the grave that Bruce put them in. I also dread to think how Isak would get on in that Everton team. Any half decent attacking player should steer well clear of them.

Carlo Ancelotti absolutely loves DCL which is enough for me. He called him a “complete striker” and said he was better than Inzaghi in many ways. It’s worth reading some of his quotes. It’s hard to really judge him on last season because Everton scored the second least amount of goals in the league almost by design. We scored over twice as many so you’d expect a higher output from him automatically.

Seems to be a bizarre amount of own goals in this tournament.

Almost all of the tricky games until January are at home so we’ve got a real chance to be in an excellent position at Christmas. That also means we’ve got plenty of winnable home games in the second half to keep the momentum up. Ideally, the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham and Brighton (and Man Utd) will have kneecapped themselves with bad appointments and Villa struggle with Europe.

Commentators suggest they aren’t “The referee felt the Brazilian knew what he was doing there” “He should have had one in the first half actually” “Booked for persistent infringement”

Upgrading really good players with potentially better ones is such a massive sign of intent. It was just under 3 years ago that Ashley wouldn't pay a £1million loan fee for Hamza Choudhury, a player Bruce desperately wanted.

Palmer did a lot of heavy lifting for them tbf. In the league, he had 35 attacking returns in 29 starts while Chelsea themselves scored 77 goals, just over twice what he contributed. They’d have been firmly bottom half without him.

Should be Liverpool, Man Utd, Brighton, West Ham and Chelsea having new managers next season then. All rivals in certain ways so let’s hope a few take themselves out of the running with bad appointments.

Klopp just did the guard of honour thing then ran back to the front to do it again.

Being on the lowest rung of the ladder will be good for Howe to learn how to deal with European football without the huge spotlight on him as it was this season.

Desperate to get into this now. For the first time in 20 years I actually like watching us and want as many games as possible.

2.4 goals a game in the league.

There's this quote from Keegan talking in 96 about signing Tino which implies Cole didn't have the best attitude even before we signed him. "I've seen what other people say about him. They think he's a good player and warn about his temperament. But if I had signed players on the basis of what I heard about them, David Ginola and Andy Cole wouldn't have come to this club and the fans would have missed some great players." "You've got to have the courage to look at what you need and get the very best available. That's what I did. What other people think of players has never worried me. You listen to the talk, but you've got to make your own decisions. It's on the field where it really matters." "The crowd will love him. He's a match-winner, he's a goalscorer and he's an entertainer. He's a real Newcastle player - quick, works hard and has flair. Faustino's the sort of player that Geordies love. The players they talk about are just like him. They should sit back and watch this fellow."

On another day we win that quite easily. Haven’t had the chance to say that about us at Old Trafford much in my lifetime so I’ll try to take tonight as something of a positive. Games like this just make me think about how good we could be with some key upgrades and fewer injuries. Even in defeat we’re usually scoring a few and could/should have scored even more. 100 goals in a season is a very real prospect.

Howe said in that Overlap interview that he'd rather go forward from the back in 1 or 2 passes instead of 5 or 6 and wants to progress up the pitch as quickly as possible. Doesn't want 10 passes in our own box etc. On Pope, It's hard to say what he's personally responsible for but his numbers for us are fantastic. Just in the league, he is averaging about 2.5 saves a game, which is low, and has conceded only 46 in 51 games with 20 clean sheets. If we can do that with him (and a fit defence) then he's probably not a priority upgrade just yet if money is tight.

Joselu > Kane. Took many, many years but now we know for sure.

Are you playing as Hall?

Plenty more of that on the way next season if Southgate is in charge.

Ohaha strikes again.

Sir Jimmy getting rattled about somebody’s desk not being tidy bodes well for some spectacular overreactions after games like this.

Looks like it's only really this season that Olise has struggled with injuries due to a bad hamstring injury last summer. He took part in 40 games last season.

Fernandes rumoured to be out tonight.

On the player of the year award, how utterly degrading have most of our winners been in the last 20 or so years? Only 2 attackers (one of which was on loan) since Shearer in 02/03 says it all. https://imgur.com/r7IT4qw