Ayatollah Hermione

Thought we were excellent there. Draw was definitely a fair result but I thought that was more like us. Hopefully we can keep it up.

Don’t want to jinx it but Gundogan is having a bit of a nightmare. So he’ll score

Classic case of beer fear. In this case, it was a secondary school gossip getting excited spreading word around Science and now he’s feeling a bit of guilt about it. I, for one, still think he can take his moon face somewhere else

Hopefully he makes a full recovery. The fact he’s staying on until a successor is appointed, which I imagine takes a decent chunk of time for a role like his, hopefully suggests they’ve caught it early and he can continue to keep busy

Watched that latest Blade Runner on the flight back and thought it was tremendous. Pacing was excellent and was visually stunning. Can see why they got the director for Dune so I’m all over them

Which Longstaff? If it’s 22/23 Longstaff, it’s party time

I do fancy Marseille one of these days. Flights are cheap from London, it just depends on if I’m going to be bankrupted by the trains. And then if they bother to turn up

TBF, I had considered doing a few days in Belfast but something along the lines of what has been suggested seems more likely. I’m about 5 years away from being a total social hermit anyway so I’ll look at Wales/Scotland/The late 1970s

They wouldn’t pay 500k for Hyypia, I believe. Or they wouldn’t pay £1m and offered 500k. Something like that anyway

Fuck it, we’ll just go to Greece again

Looking at holidays for next year in this immediate post-holiday depression. Anyone been to Madeira? It’s tickling my fancy when I look at the area and food and the hotels aren’t pisstakingly expensive where we can get a good, smaller hotel and not get our eyes ripped out. Expensive when you’re there etc? Also, anyone got any unheralded places to stay in this British hellscape? Not necessarily in the sticks but coast towns/smaller cities that I may not have considered. Fancy a few days away somewhere in February

Just buy a load of Chicago Town Pizzas and send someone to McDonalds for chips

I imagine the former will be the plan but our lads are well off the boil. Barnes can score from anywhere atm but Isak and Gordon, who tortured you last year, haven’t got started yet this year

Not sure why Pearson is complaining, the club are footing the bill for his stay anyway

It would take an almighty turn around in our form for us to get something on Saturday, I wouldn’t worry

I see no sign that we want to be a possession based side tbh. I think the plan is to get up the pitch as quick as possible, either by breaking the lines with Schar/Trippier or by hitting teams on the break. That’s why it takes roughly 3 seconds of impatience before Schar is smashing 70 yard passes about the place. It’s go-go-go all the time.

Cacapa I can maybe halfway believe Allardyce with that one.

Didn’t we do all our business really early that summer too? Sure we already had the likes of Smith in when we went abroad for pre-season

Played on worse than that before ffs. Might mean some of our players can get their first touch right too

Kyle Walker What a tit

Mate, I want him to start as well but he did absolutely nowt to help us get a grip on the midfield

That hot dog (?) looks like some sci-fi afterbirth

Not having Tonali looking good when he came on either. He overhit a simple ball down the line to Murphy by about 15 yards and he was under no pressure. Nobody comes out of this looking good

I’ll always have confidence in us getting results even with dodgy performances at home tbh. All the home comforts aren’t there when we travel, obviously and it shows

It’s all well and good him getting his subs right but he is routinely setting us up badly. Whoever said he doesn’t know his best team is probably onto something. Feels like we need to move away from 4-3-3 into something else but fucked if I know what