qwertyell

That was absolutely pathetic. Outplayed in every conceivable way. Somehow we've contrived to have no midfield AND no attack - where are the players hiding? Gabbiadini, Ward-Prowse and Boufal must've touched the ball five times between them all game. Chalobah and Doucoure are walking all over us. Quicker, stronger, more purposeful - frankly, better. What happened to the high press? What happened to the industrious hard work? What happened to attacking football? Wasn't that what we were promised when Pellegrino was brought in? Just PR fluff to try and deflect from our failure to get Marco Silva? Who knows, but this is garbage. ZERO shots. At home. Against fricking Watford. We're in big trouble this season, make no mistake.

Watford dominating the midfield. Quicker, stronger, more purpose. They look the most likely. The Romeu Davis axis has never been convincing, and the early signs today aren't promising. Boufal invisible so far.

So are we trying to stockpile left backs for a reason? If this deal had come off we'd have had Bertrand, McQueen, Targett, this fella, Wood, and Vokins off the top of my head.

It's okay, he'll slowly shuffle back and forth three or four times, giving the manager plenty of time to prepare for the onslaught, before meekly delivering less a strop more a whispered grumble, that comes to nothing and will be everyone else's fault.

So, asthmatic walking pace on both wings? How ever will their full backs cope with such thrilling dynamism? Presumably just by standing still. Sent from my F3311 using Tapatalk

An absolute masterclass in choosing exactly the wrong decision every single time. He's richer and has poncier hair and more Instagram followers, but has otherwise not developed one iota in the six years since leaving us as a promising League One player. Sent from my F3311 using Tapatalk

Boufal played a game for the U23s last season and was the worst player on the park. His attitude was terrible - didn't want to be there - he lost the ball every time it came near him, and was in danger of getting himself sent off after getting embroiled in a running feud with some kid or other. The coach dragged him off at halftime, and I don't think he's turned out for them since. And that's the trouble with Boufal. On top of being unable to play for the team, he's temperamentally flawed - I think he got something like four red cards in his last season for Lille. Far from convinced this investment in the new Adel Taarabt is going to pay off.

Lemina seems a good fit in midfield. I've no idea if Hoedt is any good or not. Preventing another mass exodus of our best players has to be considered a positive - tempered by the the fact that our steady downgrading process over the years has left us with very few players these days that are worth coveting. Holding onto Van Dijk might be nothing more than a pyrrhic victory if he sulks all the way to January and leaves for less than we could've gotten this week. In my opinion our weakest area last season was all in the final third. And not only have we done sweet FA to strengthen it, by selling Rodriguez and loaning out Gallagher, allied to a long term injury to Sims, we actually have less options now than we did at the beginning of the window. So I can't say it's been a good transfer window, because I don't see how we're going to score enough goals with the tools at our disposal that proved utterly inadequate last season and have shown no flickers of encouragement that things will be any different in the early stages of this campaign. Generally, I feel like contract extensions for Forster and Yoshida coupled with the refusal to address our attacking impotency seems more like a commitment to mediocrity and standing still than any sense of the club pushing to improve and demonstrate some ambition.

Wouldn't be cheeky so much as pointless, as our window for incoming transfers is closed until January.

It's just going to rumble on all the way through to the January circus when he'll probably pull the same crap to try and escape. Hope I'm wrong, but I think this suffocating cloud of negativity surrounding Van Dijk will hang over the club all season.

Maybe the bellend Twitter warriors who've spent all summer engaging with their Scouse counterparts will be a laughing stock, but I doubt anyone else in the footballing world will care any more than the numerous other times we've caved over transfers. They'll shrug their shoulders, concede that we probably didn't have much choice, and say we got paid well over the odds - and then get on with their lives.

He's totally deluded. He wants to join someone who'll let him play in his self-declared "best position" in central midfield (disregarding the fact that he can't pass, tackle and has no interest in defensive duties). Chelsea want him as a wing back. But he's not going to get in the Liverpool midfield either. The only club gullible enough to give him a regular gig in the middle of the park is the one he's at now. Yet even Arsenal, who play right backs at left back and left backs at centre back and strikers as wingers, think it's a bit risky to play him in midfield. Even Arsenal. If he was serious about his development, he'd lower his sights and join a club more befitting his current ability, where he might be able to develop, but he thought 30 games in League One made him a Champions League player, so I'm not sure humility is his strong suit. Wasting his career. Made some money, got plenty of Instagram followers and sparkly earrings, but has barely made any progress as a player in the six/seven years since he left us.

Option B for me. Van Dijk has played his last game for us, regardless, so we might as well try and turn this unsavoury situation in our favour as best we can and try to address the glaring issues in our team. Selling him isn't the outcome anyone wanted, but he is leaving - either in a few days, January or next summer - so why not draw a line under this ugly saga and move on.

Not sure I'd use the words fast and dynamic to describe Slattery. From what I've seen of him, he's more likely to make the grade as a Michael Carrick type of steady, deep lying midfielder. If he makes the grade at all. He hasn't stood out as anything remotely special thus far.

Did we wrangle a sell on clause with Arsenal for Oxlade-Chamberlain? It was rumoured Cortese insisted on all kinds of clauses when the 17 year old with one season of League One under his belt declared that he wanted to play Champions League and condemned his development to seven years of stagnation.

Us.

The extra time was justified. The board didn't even go up until the 91st minute because the referee and 4th official were busy intervening in a prolonged squabble between Pep and Howe. And then once play finally got underway Adobe got injured, received treatment and needed substituting. There were easily more than two wasted minutes to add onto the "minimum 5 minutes" first announced. Probably wasn't a foul, though, but robbed is a bit of a stretch.

Who the hell wants to sign Tadic? He's been garbage since Koeman left.

Not sure about Southgate as a coach, but dropping Forster, Ward-Prowse and Redmond at least suggests he's paying attention.

I don't think Tadic has played well since Koeman left - and the insufferable prima donna hated playing for him. Probably because Ronald wouldn't put up with his crap. He was supposedly happy to "finally" be playing in his "best position" at 10, under Puel, but he was predictably disappointing and soon started complaining about being substituted all the time for being predictably disappointing. Frankly, for the one or two good games he might give you per season, he's just not worth it. In my opinion.

Going to be a long season, folks. We couldn't have had a much easier start - three home games in a row against relegation fodder, 10 men and a Championship 2nd XI - but we've struggled in every match. I wouldn't be confident of that trend changing away to Huddersfield (another soft fixture) at the weekend.

Bank the points, thank West Ham's incompetence and Lee Mason's generosity, move on. I guess. Not sure what the positives were to take from that. West Ham were more dangerous than we were with 10 men. It never really looked like we had a man extra, so slow and ponderous on the ball were we, so easily hustled out of possession. The Swansea game at least showed some encouraging signs - we pressed enthusiastically (didn't today) and consistently got into some good positions. But, as evidenced by their feeble capitulation at home to United earlier, Swansea are going to be bottom three this season, which should put our "encouraging" 0-0 draw into context. We were poor today, right across the pitch. Our defensive frailty in the air is so painfully obvious it's scary. Why isn't our giant sack of potatoes of a keeper coming out to try and help his beleaguered centre backs? Full backs not covering around. We can't carry on like this. Lemina did all right, Prowse had a decent cameo, Gabbiadini kicked the ball twice - one goal, one brutalised crossbar. That's about all the positives I can note, aside from the very fortuatous result. Has Redmond been linked with a move away? He phoned it in today; didn't fancy getting involved at any point.

The ball travelled so far and deep that a stupid person might expect a 6' 7" goalkeeper to come and help his teammates out... Sent from my F3311 using Tapatalk

Unconvincing, but thanks to agent Fonte and Arnautovic's idocy, we were well in control - until a really poor concession on half time. Romeu was too easily turned, Forster pushed the ball back into danger, and Hernandez reacted quicker than Bertrand - which was a trend throughout the half: their attackers got inside our full backs way to often. I can see West Ham's aerial dominance yielding another goal, so we can't rest on our laurels in the second half. And Lee Mason (a consistently awful referee) will probably be on the lookout to even up the numbers, so I'd take Tadic off right away. Speaking of Tadic, how is he still on penalties? After squirting another garbage spot kick in today, the question still remains. Isn't Bertrand one from one from the spot for us? Wouldn't Gabbiadini (I know he missed one last season), with his finishing quality, be a better bet? Anyway, hopefully we're refocusing and can get an early goal to put this game to bed.

West Ham were just as crap last season, yet contrived to easily turn us over at St Mary's in one of our worst performances under Puel. Best not count any chickens. Who even knows if we'll ever score another home goal?