Dr Gloom

no it isn't. i end up silently seething when others are successful and i inevitably fail again - it's about 18 months since my last ballot success. been relying on mates and ticket touts ever since.

the studio with seth rogan is v good

he turned the comments off on his social media posts because of the shit he was getting. some of our online "fans" are absolute helmets

agree with that. some of nick's close control is superb - he links of up play so well and is a genuinely exciting prospect - and it didn't matter last night that he wasn't in the box when the ball came in because the wingers were getting beyond him into dangerous positions. we need to learn to adjust to play around him - it was almost a 4-3-1-2 formation at times after he came on, so the signs there are good that his teammates are getting used to how to play off him. miley had his best game for a while. it's much easier to play more forward passes when you're up against a team as easy to play around as bradford, but hopefully it will do his confidence some good after some of the ridiculous abuse he's been getting online. we absolutely have struggled in games such as this in the past so it was pleasing to see us dispatch them with ease. it was a stroll in the park, as it ought to be against this level of opposition, but i thought 4-1 flattered them and it could easily have been 6 or 7-0. shout out to gordon too. he looked lively and should have had a goal or two. put one great ball into the box which osula really should have done better with. good game for osula too. hope he kicks on from there but you have to take into the opposition into account - they really weren't very good. but i hope we can take some of these attacking patterns into the game against arsenal. it's the best we've played as an attacking unit all season.

Osula looks good at this level

have to say that i called ekitke. i knew he was going to be class when a fair few on here were turning their noses up at him becuase of his dodgy attitude/agent. pretty gutted we missed out on him as i reckon he'll do really well in the PL. doesn't mean woltemade won't be just as good. they're just two very different players

he was great before he did his knee after playing like a donkey for the cabbage. he didn't look out of place against psg and seemed to be another one that had benefitted from the eddie howe treatment. he should be fine for a game such as this.

he is a league cup asset, as are krafth and oslua - these are the players who won't get many PL minutes but will give the first stringers a rest. eddie has rotated heavily in the early rounds of this competition before when we have come up against lower league opposition. i expect he'll do the same against bradford

i think we're going to see heavy rotation. this is a league one side. it's exactly the sort of game where lascelles, krafth and osula should get minutes. we will keep the big guns on the bench in case we need to win the game in the second half but the important match game is on sunday

------------Ramsdale Krafth---Lascelles---Botman---Hall ------Miley----Bruno----Willock Park Seung-Soo--Osula---Gordon

we are significantly stronger in defence, gk and midfield. it will take a while before we know how successful each signing will be but i've already impressed by thiaw, ramsey and elanga in spells. and it's a long season with a lot of fixtures because of CL football - something this squad looks much better equipped with to deal with than two seasons ago. time will tell if woldemade/wissa is an upgrade on wilson/isak. at the moment it doesn't look it is because isak put up the numbers in two consecutive seasons, we haven't been creating or scoring many goals since he left, wissa is injured (also disappears for a month to afcon) and woldemade is new to the league. but wilson was crocked for almost all of last season. i wouldn't be surprised if wissa and woltemade match or better isak's goals between them. wilson scored, checks notes, no goals in the league last season. it might also take time to adjust to a new way of playing when woltemade is the lone striker. one goal in two games isn't the worst start however and i love how good his close control is. we have often been slow out of the blocks under howe. doesn't mean the new signings, including the new strikers, can't go on to do great things for us this season.

when we play Sunderland, probably

I like it - that’s a pretty strong second string selection. I think we might see one or two kids thrown in. Miley could do with a confidence-boosting performance. Get him trying more probing forward passes

it’s just not the way we’re used to seeing Howe send his teams out, other than against the very top sides. Perhaps this new pragmatism will pay off across the season. But it’s going to take a while to get used to seeing us set up with a five man defence with a safety first approach against teams such as Leeds and Bournemouth. We might have a better chance of getting all three against them with a more positive game plan. Of course that more attacking approach away from doesn’t always work and you increase your chance of losing but it’s a risk/reward thing and Howe has mostly been a brave manager. At Leeds I would have liked to see us go with a more attacking 4-3-3 approach. At Bournemouth, a more dangerous team Howe has struggled against in great form, it was more understandable.

yeah, the reason we haven’t is we don’t have enough players to afford that luxury. I think it could have been better for his development though. Kid is only 19

He seems to be playing it much safer than when he broke into the side. I don’t know if this has been coached into him but he played with much more freedom a couple of years back. He seemed to want to turn and pass back most times he got the ball today. Perhaps he’s worried about making a mistake. I wonder if a loan spell would have been good for him this season. It was the making of Eliot Anderson.

Positives: Botman and Thiaw were superb, though Thiaw was lucky not to pick up a second yellow. Looking forward to seeing them get more game time. I don’t think those two and Burn lost a defensive header all afternoon. Negatives: Eddie set us up to not lose rather than win, which is unlike him. We barely threatened them in the second half other then the penalty that wasn’t given. We had options such as Bruno on the bench but didn’t use them. Before the game I would have taken a point but the football was pretty turgid. Not quite as bad as the Leeds game but the lack of goalmouth threat is a concern. Perhaps understandable given the seven changes, defensive set up and striker who is still getting used to the pace of the English league. Wissa’s injury has fucked us

Thank fuck only 5 minutes added time. This game has been shite

Great save Pope

Can’t believe he’s given handball for that

We should be down to ten

Our final ball has been shit this half. Every cross too deep

On a knife edge this like. Could go either way