David Kelly

Don't fear this lot anymore (which is down to both us and them) but you still have to respect them as one of the better teams in the league. I fancy a draw.

When you consider how far backwards as a club Souness took us, for Bruce to be more hated by anyone than him speaks volumes about the bloke.

Murphy is still mostly awful mind. I'd love him to prove me wrong and turn into a player because the lad really wants to do well for us. But he's not got the football brain or the skill to be a decent premier league player. Fortunately having players like Bruno and Wilson around him make him not dog shit. It's when he's playing without those players he looks well below premier league level.

This is exactly right. His ego won't allow him to go any further down the league even if any club had the money to throw away or the desire to employ a dinosaur like him (lower league clubs are more willing to give younger managers a chance anyway). The only hope he has of another job now is some championship club in a desperate situation wanting someone in short term and that is surely incredibly unlikely after his performance with West Brom. I expect to see him stinking up BT Sport's coverage shortly.

A hard fought 2-0 and no sign of Murphy would do me nicely.

First away game I've got to in ages and it was well worth the effort and extra expense of a two night stay in two separate hotels. Totally dominant performance from start to finish. I can't remember the last time I've been so relaxed and confident that we were going to win and win easily. Of course the sending off helped but the level of complete domination can't be overlooked. It might have helped them somewhat if their manager, players and supporters (the few that stayed past half time) had done anything other than accept a hiding once they went down to 10 men but that's their problem not ours.

I like the way that post is suggesting that's it's better to be 5th in the championship than 10th in the premiership. Any normal set of fans would be happy to have had their start this season rather than dragging up a tweet from a year ago. Strange bunch never does cover it with them does it?

I thought it still couldn't be more obvious from the angle that was shown. The only excuse I can think of is that the ref only looked at one side of the screen.

I think the argument about taking the decision out of the onfield referee's hands a flawed. In cricket they've realised that sometimes umpires make mistakes because not every decision is easy from the view they have. Apparently umpires were initially not happy that it highlighted their mistakes but they soon got over it when they realised they weren't punished for making errors that were in many instances unavoidable. The same would be the case in football. Of course this wouldn't have helped us in any way on Saturday because clearly Mason thought it was more likely than not that the ref made an error with his orginal decision. So if the decision had been left up to Mason he'd have come to the wrong conclusion either way. Which is no surprise after seeing his refereeing for years.

I'd be hoping on Murphy personally. The kids absolute dogshit. But Fernandez is clearly nowehere near the team these days and was linked with Stoke yesterday.

Would Anderson need registering?

If we got down to it, would Schar not be an adequate option for cover at fullback? I mean I'm all for having three players to cover every position but when we still have starting eleven positions that aren't locked down I'd rather see that addressed first.

Well I do think they've signed him as they think he gives us a potential option there. At the price we've paid for him you have think they expect him to be one of our best players and we already have Wilson who is one of our best players so if they both only play as a striker then you could only play one of them at a time. Obviously Wilson is injury prone but you'd still have large portions of the season where you'd have one of them on the bench. So it makes perfect sense to look for a player who can play as a wide attacker. I don't know whether Isak is that player as he doesn't appear to have been used in that way before but that would seem to be the option.

Are we all writing off Manquillo as cover for Krafth then? I know Krafth has improved a lot under Howe but for me at least he was way behind Manquillo prior to that. I'm not so sure we need to bring anyone else in for that position. I mean I've got absolutely no problem with bringing in this youngster from West Ham if he's a good prospect but I'd certainly still be focussing my attention futher up the pitch. I'm not too convinced we'll sign anyone else though. The remotely credible links have dried up in the last week since the Issak news broke, and while the fact that deal came out of nowhere offers some hope, there is very little time left now for someone to appear out of the blue. If this is it for this window, I think we've made some excellent moves but I am slightly disapointed we've not addressed the midfield/wing situation. Had we done that I think we could have potentially gave the top six a shot this season with the world cup and number of games before it potentially hindering the teams in Europe.

Aye erm whatshisname and that one who is canny and does McGeady still play for them?

That was a superb finish man. He knew scooping it over the defenders outstreched leg was the only way it goes in.

Apparently Potter has denied he only has 12 months of his contract left.

It's great to feel disapointed at not winning that yesterday. A year ago if we'd lost 4-3 I'd have been happy if we'd just showed a bit of anything against a team that good. But now we're actually having large spells of the game where we are the better team. As their support sung though, that's why they're champions. Players like KDB and Silva are just so good they can create out of nothing, and as LondonBlue said, they do keep going which one of the most impressive things about them. The thing I do disagree with LB about is that it was never a sending off. There may come a day when they decide a professional foul like that is worth a red card but that's not what the rules say now. Trippier knew what he was doing and it's the kind of fouls the top teams do every week because they know they won't be sent off for it (unless you're Rangers of course). I was furious with Longstaff for not doing something simiar on the edge of their box right near the end when they were breaking. I've not read this whole thread and I'm probably just echoing what others have said, but I thought it was easily ASM's best game for us and Joe was fucking unreal. Bruno showed his quality by keeping his head and not getting sent off playing for so long on a yellow and still being able to maintain the agression. I read Diego's opinion on Trippier costing us with dropping back and playing their scorers onside and while it's hard to disagree with that, it's also noticeable that it was BDB who lost his man on both second half goals. The second one for sure could be due to him playing a less familiar position but I guess Haarland's movement was just too good for him on that one. Regardless though, it's great to see that we no longer have anything to be frightened of with anyone anymore and a couple more signings will hopefully only renforce that.

Was agressiveness the problem or was is that we just have too many sub standard players who were playing against a very good pace attack? For me it's the latter. We are just trying to play in a way that makes use of the skill set of the players we do have. I totally agree with Alex that Stokes is wasting himself playing the way he is though. Him and Root are about the only players who are quality proper test batsmen. And if he'd played the way he is now back then, we'd have never seen that Heddingly innings against the Aussies by him.

Man Utd are a completely mental club these days. There seems to be absolutely no strategy at all to there appointment of managers or going for players. None of the players they are being linked with fulfill the same role. Been after De Jong all summer and when that seems to be gone they go for Rabiot until his mummy tells them to fuck off and now they turn their attentio to Pulisic. Completely different types of player. It seems they are now very firmly in the asking agents to just tell them possibilities mode. And no one seems particularly interested in signing for them. The least said about signing a five foot nine centre half the better.

This would be my concern also. Of course it's all if's and buts at this stage but the supporters, players and manager will all be expecting improvements in our attackers and if that doesn't happen then it will be a bad look to everyone.

I think there will be a lot of people trying to convince themselves that it's for the best and they don't want us to have the piss taken out of us by other clubs and agents if we don't sign the two attacking players that we need this summer. Whatever they come up with wouldn't be able to hide the fact that this transfer window will have been a pretty big disapointment if we were to finish it with the same squad we have at this moment. Yes we've signed one of the top up and comming centrebacks in Europe but our defence was excellent in the second half of last season against all but the very best attacking outfits. It clearly wasn't the area in most need of improvement. That said I can't believe that those looking after these things aren't acutely aware of that fact and I'm confident that they will be working on addressing this before the window ends and that whatever funds needed will be available. I would have hoped we would have the players in by now, but January proved that we are prepared to wait until the very end of the window to bring in the players we need.

Isn't the loan we've taken out just a refinancing of the overdraft from Barclays, who Mandy doesn't get on with these days, to HSBC who PCP use?

I watched the England Spain match last week and I was impressed at how much improvement there has been in the few years since I last watched a womans match. The keepers had even improved and from what I've seen of her the England keeper looks very competent. The lack of height is always going to be an issue and probably even more so with the standard of outfield players improving. I wonder whether there may come a time when smaller goals may be necessary to stop games becoming too high scoring. I agree the crowd puts me off a bit too. It's like a league cup game when you're surrounded by qpr's who are mainly kids who don't have a clue what they are shouting in singing about. In the womens case though I don't think they will grow up to being the regular match goers as happens with mens games. And I can actually see that being preferable to a lot of the people attending as Tom says. I went to watch a Newcastle Eagles game a few months back that was similar. It's a much more of family experience but it just doesn't fit with football for me.

I'd work my arse off but I'm not a premier league standard footballer either.