Dr Gloom

He’s on course to hit the same impressive goal contributions as last season. He’s already almost equalled ASM’s best ever season for us for goals/assists (5 goals, 5 assists) at the half way stage of this season.

Oh my days fam geezer rightly opening proceedings

we’ve got a weird way of getting under the skin of certain managers. This is like Arteta all over again

the bloke has lost the plot. On any other day, on a level playing field, they win, apparently. And it’s unfair on his players. Wtf is he taking about? The handball in the build up to our goal? Even if that is disallowed, it’s still a draw at best for spurs. They created next to fuck all for 90 minutes after the goal. What was it - one shot on target, one off the post and one flashed wide by Maddison?

Already looking forward to the “oh my days, fam” geezer 🤣

💯 we can beat any cunt at home

Dazzler till I die

3-1 to us. Goals from Sol Campbell, Joe Willock, Issac Hayden and Andy Cole

yeah, we lost control in the second half but it felt tactical, to conserve energy and see it out. A bit like the Man U game. Not always the easiest watch but we restricted them to two shots on target and Madison’s chance that flashed wide. if I’m being hyper critical, i’d have liked fresh legs on earlier. A few of them were running on fumes for the last half an hour or so

Scrappy opening 20 minutes but we’ve been in control since then. There are more goals in it for us. 4-2 to us, I reckon

it does feel weird being this confident. Makes me feel uneasy

What’s Shearer saying? 4-0 to us I reckon

I’m surprised a lower-end premier league club doesn’t fancy him at £5m. He could do a job for one of the promoted clubs.

it is? Looks like a mixture of reserves and youth players to me. More then half their usual first team are out. I don’t know much about most of that defence or the keeper. Werner isn’t the best (watch him score now)

doing a Lineker

We should put a few past these lining up like this

Apparently Botman starts

that’s bait

pope has loads of great attributes but passing out from the back has never been one of them. i would say i think he is absolutely fine for where we are at the moment and he walks back into the team when fit. i can see us buying a new keeper in the summer. whether it's someone like trafford to compete and replace pope in time, or someone else who is more likely to come in and start straight away, i don't know. dubs coming back in has highlighted the weakness in pope's game, but he isn't the answer. he has weaknesses of his own that we saw last time he had an extended run in the side, and he's, what - 35, 36 years of age? it is worth noting though that all the teams that regularly qualify for champions league have keepers who are comfortable with the ball at their feet. it's the modern way of playing and pope is kind of an outlier - is there a worse keeper in the league at passing out from the back? i dunno tbh, but i don't imagine there are many worse

aye, exactly. two totally different things. have you not watched how we play with him in net? he's shit with the ball at this feet. what he is good at, is rushing out of his box and getting to balls in behind/over the top of our defence and kicking or heading it into touch. this allows our back line to play higher up because they know they've got pope sweeping up behind them.

pope's lack of ability with his feet, as frustrating as it is, is mitigated to an extent by his sweeping ability. we were a lot worse last season when dubs came in for him and the defensive line suddenly dropped back to the edge of our box because dubs was always rooted to his line. so far in this run, that hasn't been the case. agree we could do with an upgrade that combines both of their best attributes.

they're the second top scorers in the league though. they're definitely vulnerable with all their injuries and ange's suicidal high line but it will be a tougher test than man u. i fancy us to win but wouldn't be surprised if it's a high scoring draw. we just need to make sure we're switched on defensively.

We looked gash when Dubs replaced Pope last season and we lost Pope’s sweeping ability. The defence dropped back by 10-20 yards and a massive hole appeared between our defenders and midfield for teams to play through. That problem has been completely absent this time around and yet I don’t remember Dubs being called upon to sweep up at all. Perhaps it’s Tonali in at number six that has encouraged our defence to hold its line, or it could just be we haven’t played anyone good enough to play through us and get in behind during this run of victories. Pope is a much better shot stopper and sweeper keeper for me. Dubs is definitely better with his feet, but then who isn’t? Pope is probably the worst in the league with his feet. We could do with a keeper who combines both of their better attributes. Probably one for the summer window