qwertyell

He can't dive. Covers no ground at all. Short of stature. No spring in his legs. Saves most (not all - see the Palace game) of the shots straight at him, as you'd expect, but otherwise the opposition don't even need to find the corners of the net to beat him quite comfortably. I don't see anything in his game to suggest he has the potential to be a top class keeper. Gunn had more to him, and he wasn't nearly up to scratch.

They will in training.

With what?

That's really deflated my luftballons.

If they're following the same "data driven" approach that ended up with them going for Jones (5th best manager for outperforming budget), then Kjetil Knutsen of Bodo/Glimt (number 1 manager for outperforming budget) is surely a strong bet. Actually plays 4-3-3 as well, which would be nice.

Sure, why not? We've only signed four left backs in the last 18 months. Keep em coming, I say.

Solakadaisical.

Dud. I was worried when his numbers in Scotland weren't even as good as Elyounoussi's. At the price, I don't knock the club for taking a punt. But he's absolute shite. Slow, unenergetic - just a plodding passenger who has seemingly hoodwinked a few into believing that the rare occasions where he doesn't get tangled up in his own legs is some kind of technical mastery. Where does he belong? Can't play on the wing, too slow. Can't play as a 10, creates fuck all. Can't play in midfield, doesn't tackle, run, pass, or really get involved.

Pretty messy, but there's something there for us today. Fulham haven't been very special. Scored with their only shot. Adams has missed a sitter - of course - and Elyounoussi scandalously refused to play in a clean through Aribo and instead take a speculative shot. We should have two goals to our name. Don't look like much of a team, and our play is totally incoherent, but we're in this game.

And we were so impressed that in the intervening 5 years, we signed Guido Carrillo, Danny Ings, Che Adams, Theo Walcott, Takumi Minamino, Armando Broja, Adam Armstrong, and Sekou Mara (and gave Shane Long a contract extension) instead. I'm being facetious - I think he looks half decent. Certainly compared to what we have.

Hmm. Walker-Peters off? Livramento nowhere near returning to fitness? And/or off? Djed Spence would be a solid move, I'd think, given his Spurs career is going nowhere. Loan with an option perhaps?

Unlikely. He's got 18 months on his deal. Gone in January or in the summer for around about what we paid for him.

With our recruitment team, we'd forget the "class" and "nearly" parts and end up giving Cardiff £20m Emiliano Sala.

Don't know why anyone thought he'd basically be replacing Romeu like for like. Never ever been that kind of player. We loaned him as cheap and nasty cover for both full back flanks until Livramento gets fit again. That he's had to feature so often in midfield is simply an indictment of our ineptitude in balancing the squad this summer.

Nathan Branfoot really wants us to play the only tactic he knows, with a back five.

Never wanted him. Nothing about the appointment or our supposed six month or so pursuit of him felt right. Lower league clogger who couldn't hack the step up to fucking Stoke. Having seen his tactics up close now, there's nothing there. Just aimless long balls. We didn't complete 100 passes in the first half. As the home team. We got it, we hoofed it away. That was all we had. £4m we spent on him and his staff for that shite. Could've had "Dave" from literally any pub team in the country to shout "get rid!" for 90 minutes, probably for a couple of bags of pork scratchings. There's no hope here. The squad might be poor, but this chancer won't squeeze any extra out of it.

Aimless hoofball. We haven't completed 100 passes. This is Brantfoot-esque. No hope of survival with this set up. Our better players will already be instructing thier agents to plot an exit strategy in the summer - if not next month. Bleak.

Incredibly, there are people here who think Bazunu has been fine. We had the worst number one in the league over the last few seasons. We still have.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! It gets worse. This squad is fucking useless.

Ha ha h ah ah ha ha. Fucking hell...

Relegation fodder, if the manager's looked at all our squad for the last month and decided that's pretty much the best we can do. Ah well. Should be enough to see off Lincoln, you'd hope.

I think it depends on the type of player. Those that rely on explosive acceleration seem to return more limited. Your bog standard centre back who never really had any pace to begin with seems to get back relatively unscathed. Don't know if that's borne out by the evidence, but that's how it appears to me: mobility never quite recovers, but that's more noticeable in some players (wingers, strikers) than others.

Who wouldn't be at the prospect of spending any time in Burnely?

Still think we're less than the sum of our parts under Southgate. But we played better against a proper side tonight than we have in previous tournaments under him, so I guess that's progress. If we could find a couple of CBs that aren't 4th choice for their clubs, bed Foden into a more enterprising midfield three with Bellingham and Rice, and get a bit more pace up front down the left, I think we'd be a terrific side. Certainly haven't seen anything this WC from any of the other countries to suggest we're light years behind them. Quite the opposite - they're mostly one or two players carrying a bunch of ringers.

Terrible penalties. Minamino and Yoshida's barely reached the goal.