Baird of the land

Exactly my thoughts if he wanted to stay in championship and not drop down league. Can't see them having turned him down if he was fit and had sane expectations.

I take with a pinch of salt the stuff about signing an understudy. Think it's likely fluff to go alongside a contract renewal for our current first choice. Hardly likely to come out and say next season we'll replace him.

Am i the only one laughing at the no offers stuff. I'm assuming that's no offers at his ridiculous expectation and wage level.

Makes sense to extend McCarthy and then be able to focus on getting a first choice keeper next summer.

Shame we didn’t go back for him in 2015. He went to west ham in August and we went out and bought Austin in Jan.

If we’re caught up in a relegation dogfight it isn’t going to be caused by the goalkeeper situation alone. Neither are great and club would undoubtedly prefer to be able to fix it but the finances clearly don’t allow it after solving the more pressing areas.

Don’t see much logic in starting long.

António murdered soyuncu. Hoping he has his usual hamstring strain by the time we play them.

Leicester haven’t got a leg to stand on in their complaints over that red imo. Sure Perez was offbalance but he was deliberately going for contact with west ham player.

Zouma at 26 seems to be at his peak valuation wise imo. I don’t really see him at 28 being worth £20m more, even if we had the money(we don’t) or could afford the wage(we can’t)

Yawn he’s not clearly the better, they are both very mediocre with different strengths and weaknesses.

He changed his mind because he realized the ball wasn’t going to reach him so he understandably tried to backtrack and unfortunately ended up tripping. He ended up in the net because his own players put him there in their attempts to clear situation. On the whole he dealt with balls in well unlike the cb’s. the goal I do think he conceded was soft but it was a complete mishit.

Very interesting listen. Puts his struggles at Torino into some perspective. Still curious how good he's going to be aerially.

Mccarthy is in the team because he comes for balls in the box(which is pretty important given our lack of commanding CB's to do it), as well as being slightly more comfortable with his feet.

Definitely added steel to his game. he’s still got the same issue he always had, which is that he switches off at times and gets himself in bad positions.

Except free isn’t free.

Hope there’s a lot of changes Forster kwp bednarek salisu perraud romeu diallo redmond elyounessi broja tella

Thought he did book him in the end for his relentless backchat

Keeper is a position i feel we'll have to live with this season, as are the multitude of erratic attacking mids. DM and CB are the 2 positions that concern me. Not sure if Lyanco is meant to fill both. If that's the case my worry would be about his aerial ability, which doesn't look prominent in his highlight reel. If we're going to play 5-3-2 a bit more this season we're a bit light centrally with (soon to be 4 CB) & (4CM)

Clear big clubs(klopp/Solksjaer) want to get the refs interpretation changed, so they are going to lie about being kicked. Hope they don't get it but probably inevitable some big player will get an injury and they'll get their way. Thought Pogba's pre-mediated foul on Adams at the end in response to adams daring to tackle Fernandes was probably the worst of the game.

Amazed Cedric is still a premier league player. Amusing watching him standing yards behind Arsenal's offside line for that goal.

Think he's playing because he'll come for crosses(which he generally did ok again today) and given our defence that's a must. He's slightly better with the ball Very annoying goal to concede. He should be saving it even though it''s a complete mishit that doesn't go where greenwood was aiming it.

That first half run where he basically outmuscled Fred was absolutely gorgeous. He'll be back at Chelsea at some point you'd think the basis of this. Hopefully we can keep hold of him for a couple of seasons at least and opportunities he is gettign will help us keep helping us grab other disgruntled talented youngsters

I thought the changing point was the Diallo move in stiffening up the midfield. Going to 5 at the back gave pogba a bit more space as he demonstrated in build up to their goal.

I'm glad we've got a while before we play Burnley.