OTF

That's a foul on Lascelles, useless ref, if it's the other way the whistle is straight in for the penalty.

What a ball there and great run

Lascelles time

Shocking from Trippier there, the way he lost the ball with no pressure.

In particular I'm not looking forward to Lascelles trying to play out from the back against this lot, especially when one of options is Dan Burn. I'm expecting we'll still be trying to push a high tempo press so if we're going to get any sort of result from it we'll need to utilise our bench well. Wilson is a puzzling one honestly, he's not been at the races in games where he should have figured yet keeps his spot here.

Not downplaying concussion, but hopefully that's what it is and not some other longer term injury. Either way I hope we see Targett get on here and Burn deserves to play in the centre of defense. One thing Lascelles will bring is an improved threat from set pieces versus Schar who often manages to get to the ball but not put it on target.

Haha yeah, bringing in a defender who hates to mark players away against Man City is going to be..... interesting. I'd have thought shifting Burn in and bringing Targett in to start would have been a more palatable option. When did Lascelles last play a full match?

A bit old, and a bit dead.

Eddie's hoping he'll power through, but for mine he needs a rest to recharge his batteries.

Don't know what you're worried about, 39 year old Jacob Murphy will be hot property on the market. #Business

Miggy won't be dropped for this IMO, but Eddie may want to bring in Gordon and/or Willock depending on how they are training. ASM had one of his best games ever (attack wise) against Man City last time, he'll be keen to repeat that and is in solid form. Wilson definitely needs a rest. Is it risky playing Joelinton when his next yellow sees him miss two games (against Wolves and Forest?) We'd definitely miss him here....

And shite at deciding when to make challenges also, a terrible combination.

Aye Casemiro's shoulder is in front of any ball playing parts of our players? Wilson's boot according to VAR:

FYP

Did very well given the circumstances having not played a competitive game for so long.

It's ridiculous how similar Howe and Ritchie look.

He's Swiss, but otherwise wholly agree 😁

I'm not as disappointed as I thought I might be. I think that's down to our recent form (and theirs) tempering my expectations. Can't take anything away from the lads for their effort, just couldn't take advantage of that effort where it counted which has been the story for several weeks now. A suspect free-kick, suspect defense for us from that free-kick and suspect offside decision on that free-kick and once we were behind we were chasing. The second goal.is down to noone picking up the run of a very inform forward and then a huge piece of luck turning an off-target shot into a goal. Howe will be reflective about this, there's so much value in the whole event given our trajectory. This isn't some one off only chance but part of our transition. The relief now hopefully comes with somr weight lifted off our shoulders for the remainder of the season.

Are you forgetting the wave?

Only 5 minutes, surprise surprise.

That was fucking close from Murphy... the movement there was crazy

Fat head finally gets a yellow when it means nothing.

They've been time wasting like noone else and I'm expecting us to get 15 seconds of added time.

We don't get any meaningful decisions going our way.

I'd say distraction rather than drag, but yes.