Checko

Such a Joelinton goal. Just power, hustle and aggression and their guys didn't want any part of it. I feel he's definitely at his best when he's allowed to channel his inner Miley Cyrus and just go full wrecking ball.

The 'Championship'/'2nd division' is actually the 'first' or 'top' division of the English Football League, so I always refer to it as the EFL Premier Division. Don't know why anyone would do differently tbh.

Thought he was impressive: looked good technically, put some tackles in, wanted the ball. Definitely looking forward to seeing him getting more game time.

Yeah, he's our one CM who's actually really technically proficient, consistent and can play under pressure. If you can't control the centre you struggle.

While my man can trap a ball further than many can kick it, he is very good at stopping the little ball from going into the big net.

Yeah, & quite a few had a bad game today tbf. I don't mind players having a bad game, that happens. It's more longer-term issues with the systems/way we play that interest/concern me. It'll be interesting how things go with some fans - We've been well-exceeding expectations for that last two years. Easy to keep morale high when that's happening. Now we're struggling a bit in the champions league and I think chances are we'll have a step back in terms of league results this year (which is fine and expected IMO, particularly with the injuries). We've got the the point where we're not so used to losing so it's extra annoying again!

Dreadful performance - Bournemouth very good today. Obviously players missing, tired etc. Still, same issues that often affect us eg. Milan, Dortmund, Arsenal before things got tasty: if teams push up the pitch we struggle to pass our way out of it and give it away, or try and play a quick ball upfield too quickly and lose it. We rely too much on counter attack and transition after we win the ball back [and we are generally good and well-coached at that]. Today there was no intensity in the press so we never looked like winning it high up, just let them come up the pitch. But, If we’re not winning the ball and countering then we need to be able to keep the ball and pass through them to get into their final third: we’re just not good at that tiki taka, quick pass and move stuff. Basically, we desperately need to sign more really top technical players for the middle of the park. Enough obsessing over signing tremendous athletes. Top teams have top technicians who make the opposition run. We need some more of those. Don’t think Howe had a great game today tbh. Big Joe up top clearly wasn’t working, no idea why we stuck to it for so long. Could of brought Tino on instead of Ritchie. More of a 4-4-2 might have worked better if we’re just going to play direct, give the striker someone to interact with. I do think there is a general lack of variety and flexibility in our approach. It's always that 433. I feel like we could have other set ups that we could switch to when that's not working.

Positives: Miley looks quality. Pope is a really good goalkeeper. Negatives: Everything else! Main problem is the same things that affects us a lot: We're just not a very good possession team. Everything's built around quick transition. But when we need to take pressure off or just get up the pitch we struggle. If we end up sitting back we then can't get out, can't do quick passing and interplay, particularly in the middle, so we end up constantly trying to look for quick out balls with isolated one player up top. If Longstaff and Willock want to be England players they need to start taking charge of games like this. Our 17 year old first time starter looks far more accomplished. We need real technical ball quality in the middle of the pitch. A few nice touches here and there isn't enough. They need to start trying to run games. They style we're playing, think we'd be better off going more 442 with say Big Joe and Gordon up top. Would give us far more threat cause we have nothing right now. Or go more 4231 with Willock behind the striker and 2 cms deeper to control posession more. Hopefully Eddie puts a rocket up their backside. Here's to a better second half!

Glad Hall's been given another game - I think he looks talented and just needs to get that first team game time. With Burn and Targett out makes sense. That said, suprised Tino's not starting at LB but sure he'll be on as Howe seemed to have him ahead in the pecking order. He's probably the only one of our substitues that would normally ever get a game Looking forward to see how Miley gets on. Some inexperience, some areas where people won't be familiar with each other. Be interesting to see how we get on.

And was he limping and muttering 'Ahh my fucking hamstring' under his breath?

Ah, don't think I've seen that one. Any deliberate strike to the head that's non-negligable is a sending off. Depends on how hard negligable is I guess.

Gordon just needs to keep it up and he'll get there. He's only had a dozen odd games playing at this year's level.

Though I agree with their conclusions, surprised only 3 out of 5 thought Bruno shoulld have been sent off. That looked pretty clear to me.

Agreed.

Fair enough, can't say I've watched them this year. Hopefully they wait till the international break to start getting their shit together.

Premier league definitely feels tougher at the top and as a newly promoted team I agree most games would be seen as tough for them. That said I'd say they've played probably 7/8 sides I'd expect to finish top half in the first 11 and most of the very best teams. Even taking that into account it's still probably not been a paticularly good start for them and I would have us as favourites still. But I think there is some reason to think things aren't quite as bad for them as they look right now. Weren't there a couple of Bournemouth fans on here? Be good to hear their thoughts.

Can't wait till Neves has his contract mutually terminated and we sign him for free!

Lost to Liverpool, Spurs, Brighton, Arsenal, Everton, Wolves, Man City Drew with: West Ham, Chelsea, Brentford Beat: Burnley Tbh looks like they've had a really tough start to the season, played a load of top teams. Losing 3-0 to Everton looks like the only really bad one [edit: few hidings to top teams so bad GD but that can happen] Seems from the one article I read about them they play quite an attacking style and can be a bit open at the back. Hope we stuff them and then they do well the rest of the season.

With the handballs, I acutally think Maguire's was a penalty, don't think the second one was but that one's even tighter. First of all the rules: With accidental handball it's only penalised if: 1. you score a goal straight off your arm [irrelevant here] 2. you score yourself immediately after it touches your arm [irrelevant here - Note you can pass to a team mate to score after it hits your arm eg. Gordon to Longstaff] 3. It hits your hand/arm while it was making your body unnaturally bigger. "A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised." Whether there was an advantage gained or distance to the ball etc. is irrelevant. Basically if your arm was up because of natural movement then fine, no foul. If it was up because you were being a dumb motherfucker then penalty. So it hits Varane's arm but that's down by his side. Definitely no penalty. Then it goes across to Maguire. Look at what he's doing. He has both arms up out in front of him because his instinct is to get his arms round the striker. He didn't need to have his arms up, it wasn't natural body movement causing that so I think that's on him IMO and a penalty is correct. Again comes down to subjectively whether you think his arm position was natural for his movement. For me I would say it wasn't. Only zombies move with both their arms reachin out in front of them naturally. You may fall the other side of that, that's fair enough, but I don't think it was a bad decision. One of those that could perhaps go either way, in which case you can't blame the ref for choosing one of those ways. The Copenhagen one is same reasons. I think this one was a bit harsher because the defender's turning and then jumping so I think it's natural for his arm to come up in that situation. Possibly given because ref thought he kept his arm up too long, though trying to replicate the movement I don't think he did I think he's counter-balancing. As usual, looks worse in slow motion. Again though, just comes down to whether subjectively you think the position of his arm was justified by the movement he was making at that point.

Perhaps he modelled his technique on Football Manager animations.

Oh yeah, forgot he'd been ill. Probably not likely to be starting then.

If Wilson's out for Bournemouth and Gordon has to go up top, wouldn't be against putting big joe on the LW and having this kid playing the Bruno role. Feel he has that technical-holding-midfielder-Pep-likes look about him. That said we've only seen snippets of him so he may be a little way off ready for that.

love those guys

I'd say Jammy L is a solid premier league defender with an excellent mentality. Can't say I could expect more from a reserve right now. And after his Brucing and benching it's good to see him back performing well again. He's about to turn 30 & I'd be happy for him to sign an extension for another year or two, but if he does leave for first team football when his contract's up it's nice he can go having shown what he's about again.

To be fair the comment was over 2 months ago, well before Tino, fullback of Newcastle, showed his quality.