OTF

Can't see Rafa changing his tactics for this one, particularly as it has become increasingly important that we get something from it. As much as I'd like to think we should be able to play a more possession based game against opponents on similar levels the reality is otherwise. Maybe when we have the likes of Ki back for a while that will be possible. Having won three straight league games they'll be confident. They've got a strong defensive record as well but won't be used to attacking in compressed space and hopefully won't have the quality to break us down. They tend to have the ball more than we do, so there's no reason to expect that to change at their home ground. Given the return to availability of several players it will be interesting to see who starts, in particular whether Longstaff and Hayden retain their spots and whether Ritchie continues as a wing back. That will all come down to how Diame and Ki have been training. I'd expect at least one of them to come in for (hopefully) Hayden. Longstaff IMO deserves to retain his spot, he's been without flaw.

Another notably good performance from Longstaff. Great engine on him and a very good head for his age and experience.

Absolute legend of the game. They misnamed a major central Australian highway after him in anticipation of how great he was going to be.

Struggled to get down fast enough. On the handball in the headup from Llorente, think it's nullified by the nudge from Schar.

Real shame after the game we've had.

Hacked?

That's his official title.

And wonder how our away allocation could sell out when there's loads of seats. But then I've never bothered to look into the way away allocations are.... allocated.

We've got Tim Sherwood who delights in slagging Rafa and Newcastle off at every chance. Probably because we routinely beat them when he lucked into the managers role at Tottenham.

Dubravka should have held onto that. Got a bit lucky.

Can only hope we can maintain our structure and discipline at the same time.

Aye, Schar way behind the defensive line keeping them on side he can thank his lucky stars they didn't score.

Almiron amusingly compared to Gareth Bale, amusing mostly because when they said Bale I heard Barry.

Eagerly anticipating this one with a nice early kick-off down here (11:30PM). So we're nailed on for a terrible performance and loss.

We'll find out tonight, live! Plenty of football to be play tonight! And beyond. Live! Actually it's the morning for those of us on the other side of the world. Will be going for Leicester in this one fo' sure. Pep didn't seem in the mood for staging a title push.

Listen to you sour bunch of discontented pessimists. The rest of us have found the golden nugget* having beaten the unbeatable and with our record signing on his way** * in the continual unrelenting river of shite ** pending no resumption of regular service

Unbelievable result. Well played team, well played Rafa.

My favourite bit was when they were saying it was clever play to catch the defenders off guard. In reality it wasn't clever and the defenders weren't caught off guard. Apart from that they were spot on.

We started really strongly but quickly fell apart once we came out of the tunnel.

Knee or shoulder?

Let's put a positive hat on for a moment and be glad that we've not signed someone with a pre-existing injury/condition on a short term loan. Taking it off again this means that noone else will be signed in his stead, and let's face it, it's a pretty dire circumstance to begin with that all we've had to be buoyed by, in a critical transfer window, is the potential loan signing of a wing back who seldom starts for his italian club.

Pards laid the groundwork for this one. Three or four more left sided backs in and he'll be champing at the bit to return as king of the north. Think of all those match changing substitutions he could make....

14 stone.

We'll need a core of quality to go with our peripheral players to get past a Blackburn side in hot form having not lost all year and averaging 2 goals for every 1 conceded. Anyone reckon there's enough time to get some quality in before the match?

Speaking of, I just watched the highlights we get here and the Atsu penalty incident was not even shown yet we got to see two angles of Shelvey's bad tackle and a pointless off target Pogba shot from distance.