Dr Gloom

We’re bossing the game but not really creating enough with it. Fulham happy to defend it out for pens

We’re so much better with Murphy down the right

we won't know if it's a good score or not until both sides have batted. spoiler: it is. england will bazball their way to 200 at best

finished malice. it was alright. watchable enough but not exactly original. i also struggled to take whitehall seriously in his role. 5.5/10

i'm a couple of episodes in and am enjoying it so far. i was wondering if danes gets typecast because she's playing exactly the same anxious character she did in homeland but then i haven't seen here in anything else.

wouldn't surprise me if he starts gordon up front.

the hard bastard

I binge read Flesh by David Szalay ove the weekend. Best book I've read this year

People warned me I would never get over my obsession with Phil Collins. But take a look at me now

if howe doesn't see 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 as a viable option (even when chasing a game) it raises questions about the woldemade signing as it looks like those systems would play to his strengths. there was one moment yesterday when someone played a lush line-breaking through ball for him but he was nowhere near getting onto it - he's just not that sort of player

not even in the sort of game where the 4-3-3 system has consistently failed? i'd rather go down swinging than with a whimper.

yeah, bruno is the only one who tries to make things happen. no one else seems brave enough to pass the ball forwards. it's all sideways and backwards passing when we're confronted with a low block.

I thought it was the type of game that would suit Elanga. I was wrong. he needs space to run into to be effective and the unwashed didn't give him any after they scored. Agree about his football IQ. He seems quite limited technically when he has to run at defender with the ball at his feet.

i can understand why he would set up that way in the first half - game plan was probably to contain their early press then have a go in the second half as they tired. problem was sunderland had already scored by then, fucking up the game plan entirely. the second half was the time to go for it. it was the perfect time to try wissa at number 9 with woldemade a number 10 for half an hour in the second half. sunderland were offering nowt going forwards and were looking to contain. we were just devoid of ideas at that stage. maybe wissa wasn't fit enough to try that, i dunno. i suspect it's because howe doesn't fancy trying 4-2-3-1 howe is still the man for me but you have to be critical. he is overly loyal to certain players and his tactics are quite rigid at times. subs are almost always like-for-like - he rarely changes shape during the game. in woldemade we have a striker who looks tailor-made number 10 to help unpick a deep line. will howe ever use him in that role?

agree but that can’t be an excuse forever. The big clubs find a way to do it. Emery’s doing a great job at it this season and narrowly missed out on the CL places last season despite going deep in that competition. This is Howe’s second season in the CL. He has to figure out a way to make it work quickly for his sake

Howe’s not above criticism. He was out of ideas today against a hardworking but limited Sunderland side. His tactics are rigid and he sometimes favours certain players who have done it for him historically, even when they’re underperforming. I’m nowhere near doubting him. He has loads of credit in the bank. And there’s mitigation. He was stiffed by Isak in the summer, the league has been more competitive than ever the past couple of seasons and he has to cope with additional fixtures which leave him with no time on the training ground where he does his best work - tbf to him he’s trying to rotate the squad. In some games it’s worked, in others it hasn’t. The majority of fans still back him. I’m not sure the owners will be as patient if we stumble to a midtable finish and miss out on Europe again.

He’s a Mackem. Don’t feed the troll

That was turbo shit. The unwashed played like we used but without the quality. Pressed us and shit housed really well for the first half hour then kicked us off the pitch. The really depressing thing is we had no answer second half after they went ahead. They rarely threatened but neither did we. Devoid of ideas really. Piss poor

Up to seventh if we put a couple past these today.

chick flicks don't usually win the palme d'or

wtf you on about? it was absolutely brilliant

Anora is probably the best film I've seen this year. 9/10