qwertyell

Curious as to why - big talent though he's hyped up to be - Carvalho hasn't featured for England at any level above U18s, and not since 2019. You'd think the FA would be trying to fast track him into the U21s and making him feel important, knowing Portugal have a claim on him. It's not like they don't pick loads of other Championship players.

Matt Jansen was a legitimately brilliant prospect, to be fair. It was terrible the way his career ended, when he was on the cusp of breaking into the England team. Bit of a Sliding Doors moment. If he hadn't pulled out of making his England debut in the lead up to the 2002 World Cup with illness, he would've almost certainly made the final squad. Instead, Sven picked an extra defender, and Jansen had to make alternative plans for the summer - which ended up with him crashing a scooter in Italy and suffering brain injuries that his career never recovered from. Cadamartari was dogshit, mind.

Well, that rumour burned brightly for about three hours. Good times.

Loftus-Cheek vibes from the way he strides powerfully through the midfield. Whether he can so easily brush aside fully grown men remains to be seen. An interesting proposition at the right price.

According to the official website, he's a lot older than he looks. https://www.ctfc.com/teams/first-team/defender/will-armitage/

A cadaver on wheels would be an upgrade on Elyounoussi..

Blimey. We can't moan about decisions today. Could've/should've been a penalty and a red card in the last two minutes. Very lucky escapes both times.

That cross to the back post has been on all day. I don't know who our defenders are marking in the middle - City have only got three tall players and they all hang out at the back post. Tough to hang on for a point now.

I know the only way we had of winning this was scoring early and hanging on, but it's bloody agony to watch. Salisu having a storming game. Forster excelling at, well, being a big fucker. Not convinced we can hold out, and I'm sure there'll be a game changing penalty and/or red card (Bednarek the hot favourite) in the pipeline, but we've been really decent so far. Redmond still looks underpowered to me after covid. Doesn't look like he can break into a sprint. Fingers crossed for the second half, I guess. Not sure what else we can do.

I see the Man United manager has realised 4-2-2-2 is rubbish in a proper league and has completely abandoned it moving forwards.

Disappointing if we're letting him go, having spent £1m signing him from Birmingham at 16 - allegedly from under the noses of lots of PL clubs.

Burnley have requested another postponement of their game tomorrow vs Watford. They're already five games behind schedule. Mad.

Welp, we made a game of it. Just lacked the quality up front to take our chances and defended a few situations pretty sloppily, and that was the end of that. The first two Wolves goals were a catalogue of errors. Tella losing the ball, Bednarek making an untidy and uncalled for lunge when all he needed to do was poke the ball out of play for a corner; the marking disasterclass and goalkeeper walkabout that led to Coady's goal. All very avoidable, but evidently not for us. Not sure I've seen that referee before, but he was hopeless for both sides. Didn't have a fucking clue what a foul was or wasn't. Let loads of physical challenges go, and then rewarded dives and booked people for shoulder bumps. The penalty could've gone either way - we would've screamed for it for our side - but the fact the referee missed it and had to be told what to do by his superiors was the least surprising moment of the match. Take it on the chin - Wolves are a decent side - and move on to the next one. At least like that Le Tissier vs Blackburn game in the 90s, we can forget the result and just remember an absolute howitzer of a strike from Prowse, who never hits free kicks with that technique normally. He's expanding his repertoire.

How did Bednarek even manage to fuck that up? He had it - just had to poke the ball out of play - but somehow failed to do so. Another self-inflicted wound. Was an even game until then, although Wolves were starting to look more threatening.

Man United went 4222 against Wolves last week and got played off the park. Absolutely dominated in midfield.

Yeah, boyyyyy. Nicely done. Needed a win or two from the Brentford and Newcastle games before we collide headlong into a difficult run of fixtures. Obviously Newcastle ducked us, but tonight's three points puts us in a relatively comfortable position, making those upcoming games something of a free swing. Defensively a bit all over the shop, but I like the midfield three - the manager needs to find a space for Diallo more often. He's got bags of potential. Good stuff.

We'll need a third to take this one. Getting serious Burnley vibes from Brentford - very effective pumping the ball forward and playing physical. They'll create another big chance. Diallo doing well. Nice to see a midfield three not getting totally overrun for a change. Come on, bring it home.

Low quality game, this. Lot of kick and rush - that Brentford seem better at than us. Lyanco sloppy as fuck so far.

Bednarek must be getting towards double figures for own goals now. Absolute donkey. Elyounoussi makes it 2-2. Extra time is already more interesting than the entire game has been thus far.

Better to lose in 90mins than be dragged through extra time. The manager again hasn't adapted to the game not panning out exactly as predicted.

Liability as usual. Brains of a rocking horse.

Hope it doesn't mean Crocker is out. He was showing promising signs of turning around the youth set up.

Fantastic effort. Can't argue with that. Played very decently when it was eleven vs eleven, and showed plenty of heart to guts out a point playing 10 vs 12 for nearly an hour. Imagine Yan Valery, playing CB in a back four, keeping out Harry Kane and Son - funny old game, Saint(s). Definitely a bonus point in the bigger picture. Norwich and Watford losing makes it a good day for us. Beat Newcastle next up and we can breathe a little easier for a while. Everyone put in a shift. Including Frannie Benali, probably.

Absolute disaster, that. This game should've been a free hit - just get through it without any injuries or suspensions and focus all our energies on Newcastle, which is a key match. Two suspensions (so far) out of our back line is the antithesis of what the doctor ordered. Yan Valery at RB against Saint-Maximan? Yikes. Salisu wasn't lasting the game regardless of his second yellow for an obvious penalty - he was reckless all half; there was a shocking all-or-nothing lunge on the halfway line that he was lucky to get away with just a minute or so earlier. It's a pity, we were playing pretty well. But there's nothing there for us from this game now. Just dig in, maybe get a heroic point - but more importantly, don't pick up any more injuries or suspensions. Anthony Taylor has been about as one sided as any official can be.

Thought we were a bit of a rabble, to be honest. Two brilliant pieces of individual skill glossed over a very disjointed, disorganised, chaotic performance. There was a 10-15 minute period at the back end of the first half where we looked like a side that vaguely knew what they were trying to do (after a terrible start to the game), but in the second half it was all last ditch defending, panicky clearances, no composure in possession, cheap turnovers, and waiting for the inevitable Palace equaliser. We didn't create anything. The plan, if there was one, was to hope Tella could sprint the length of the pitch on the counter attack. Oh, and the inept long throw routine from Salisu that keeps threatening to catch our opponents out with it's comical shiteness. Still, a point is a point regardless of how messily it came about. We don't look like much of a team, though.