Dr Gloom

no, and you wouldn't want anyone else taking pens. he's ice cold in those situations. but his all round game has definitely dropped off in the past 4-6 weeks though. it's just not about his goal scoring. he doesn't seem to be moving around the pitch as freely as he was in the run up to the cup final, which to me suggests fatigue or he's carrying a niggle. we also have history of continuing to start players when they're managing injuries, so it wouldn't surprise me. i have faith in the medical department since bunce has come in. we have had way fewer injury problems this season but i wonder if they have weighed up how important isak is to the team against he lack of viable options on the bench and decided to defer his rest or op till the summer.

two of those were pens though, right? not scoring is fine. There has been a noticeable drop off in his energy and mobility. Might just be fatigue but I wouldn’t be surprised if DK’s source is ITK

any suggestion as to what the op is? hopefully nothing too serious given he's still playing

I think there’s something else going on. He’s lost that explosive burst since the cup final. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he’s managing an injury. He’d probably have been rested if we had a viable rotation option.

i genuinely think that's what happens. eddie has a week to prepare and legohead is his rabbit

yeah. you can argue over whether there was intent but you can't argue that botman took an elbow to the face and that is an automatic red. it also looks like he sized it up before the contact was made, which didn't help his cause.

2-0 to Eddie's shithousing mags

What a game or two halves that was. Absolutely bossed it first half against 11 men. Looked nervous and sluggish second half, the performance feeding the anxiety in the crowd until the second goal. I had an, erm, interesting end to the match. I jumped up to celebrate the second goal, tripped over the seat in front of me then ended up sparking myself out as I landed head first on the concrete in the row below me. Ended up spending the final minutes of the game being checked for concussion by doctors.

If we win 2/3 we’ll do them on GD

Villa aren’t fucking off are they

And fucking paddling pools

Puff piece but does what it’s designed to do: keep fans happy knowing he’s settled and not about to move back to Italy. Good PR from the club and a million miles from the ice bucket wheelie bin days

The staff of life!

Keto diet going well then? Bread looks superb mate.

lets face it, if it's anything but turbo shit it will have exceeded expectations, but honestly, who really cares?

Gemmill will love his pronunciation of Mbomo

that's one tough paper route

i don't see isak moving to arsenal. his next move will be to a super club with a history of winning the CL. if we finish CL it's a sideways step. i don't think arsenal are that far ahead of us.

no one in this board. I can’t remember the last time I slept in past 7.45. An 8am lie in is dreamland. It’s the middle aged curse. I used to be able to sleep for England but it doesn’t matter what time I go to bed now, I’m programmed to rise early. On the flip side, I’m the daytime nap master these days. Never used to be a thing as a younger man.

Where are we meeting? I’ll be a couple of pints deep by the time you get there

and the rest

pretty much played football around the clock until i was about 13 then got into weed, music and lasses and it all changed. spent most Saturdays hanging out at volume records at the galleries, buying tickets for gigs before going to town to hang out on what was then known as the hippy green, drinking cider, punctuated by the occasional trip to warner brothers cinema or metroland. later on, we just used to wander around the second hand clothes shops - flip was a personal favourite. not sure if it's even still going tbh.

Trade deal with the US incoming, though sounds like it will be limited in scope and ambition (cars and steel with the 10% "global baseline tariff" remaining in place)

he won the xG argument