acrossthepond

Such an incredible effort, what a motivator. Only half a billion pounds worth of personnel on hand, he's canny at getting the best out of what he works with.

You're right, I was just commenting on how everything done by Shelvey in particular and us in general is a heinous crime.

Retrospective ban incoming for Shelvey.

100% penalty, arm extended, no attempt to play the ball. Why was there no appeal for that?

A bit harsh on Lejeune since he's just returning from injury but I take your point. The team selection has been baffling as of late. I'd like to think Rafa is making a statement including the utterly tragic Hayden, and Kenedy's form in his second spell here has been extremely questionable, but the rest...Atsu, Ritchie, and Diame work very hard for the cause but are ultimately limited. Perez has about 50 minutes every match before he begins throwing a strop and gives up completely. Surely Muto and Murphy can't be any worse...?

Time to take Perez off, we've reached the point where he does nothing but flail his arms about in disgust that his teammates aren't producing perfect passes to him every time. Happens every game around this point.

Excuse for no worthwhile spend in January sorted. Fuck me, this mug needs a new routine. It's like a broken record.

And a seat on the board, let's not forget that.

This game went when we took Ritchie off, I can't get my head around that decision.

Their WBA shirts are called "West Bromich." Their Roma shirts are called "Rome." It's the exact same shitty design for every club. How is this meant to be "bespoke"? It's the same dogshit template repeated over and over again. They have no licenses obviously so the only thing they print is the name of the city/town in question in a font that's an obvious and pathetic knockoff of Supreme. All in all, the only use for terrace idol tshirts would be if I was caught short in a Sunderland Tescos after a bad curry or three.

"How's it gan", fuck me. Hello fellow humans. It's rare that I would say this but this is absolutely a case for Stevie.

Well done. I didn't agree with the defensive subs but Atsu did well as an outlet at the end and Clark did make us look more confident at the back. Rondon looked class, like the player we thought we were getting. Hopefully it will continue.

Great goal.

Ritchie deserves credit as well for playing on while injured. He never shirked a tackle, very committed performance from someone who's had a bit of stick for his lack of end product.

Get in!

He'll win us many more with tactical nous and inspirational leadership. The Man U and Arsenal home wins last season come to mind. We'd have lost the Arsenal game 0-4 if Pardew had been in charge, as soon as Lacazette scored it would've been open season.

Not only is that not even the same media story from yesterday (the equally bogus claims yesterday were that Lascelles himself objected to being played on the right of the 3 centre-halves) but it's absolute bullshit, not to mention that Rafa's defensive formation worked exactly to plan. They scored from a nothing penalty and a deflection. We nullified them completely for 75 minutes, then scored a great goal after their BS penalty. The goal was scored by a Rafa signing and substitute who's got dog's abuse but has scored two good goals this season - no mention of "working magic" with Joselu though. Finally they got a jammy deflection that is the sort of luck that football matches are sometimes decided by. So we lost to Chelsea, who had a net spend of 87m to our -28m. Chelsea, who could bring on players from their bench worth more than our entire starting XI's transfer fees. Now it's the end of the world, Rafa is rubbish, we're going down again. How short-sighted, how ignorant, how unmindful of last season can you be? As for fucking Mitrovic, I'll say it now. I don't care if he scores 20 this season. It wasn't working out here. It was never going to work out here. We're better off shot of him and we certainly got good value for selling him. It wasn't Rafa's fault that Fat Mike wouldn't spend the Mitrovic profit. He scored a couple of goals against Burnley and fluked one against Spurs and now he's the second coming of Shearer. Righto. We'll see how many games he lets pass him by at Fulham, standing in the centre circle with a petulant look on his face because he's not getting the ball played into feet. Or maybe he'll be a brilliant success at Fulham and their attacking talent (that they spent 68m on) will light up the league - once again, how will that be Rafa's fault?

HOSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Never, that ref wants shooting with shit for that. What a disgrace.

Muto is on the bench, isn't he?

I can't even with the thing on the right. Meth zombie barbie and orange buffoon with abominable toupee are bad enough - that fucking froot loop on the right defies rational explanation. Those glasses were MADE to be punched off someone's face. I would also guarantee he has no prescription need for eyewear.

Not just managing us but spunking something like 60m. I would wager without seeing the numbers that that was more net spend than any other manager in Ashley's time was ever given. Ultimately Fatty got most of it back (profit on Wijnaldum and Mitrovic, approximate parity on Mbemba and Townsend, some loss on Saivet and that worthless donkey Thauvin) but Benitez hasn't seen a penny of it. Spendthrift with one of our worst PL managers ever; tightarse with one of our best PL managers ever. The Ashley way.

That was worthy of a red, dirty bastard.

Conveniently that range excludes the barren summer where we signed only Anita. It also includes the January 2014 panic buying and the inexplicable error of judgment that was giving McClaren the amount of money he did over two windows. How's the net spend been since relegation? How about previous to January 2014? Anyone can fiddle with numbers to try to prove a point.

Sickening. "We didn't try at all in the transfer window, we banked 20m profit, but here's a shittily-written piece of trash that states otherwise, so glad that's cleared up, please don't protest as your precious team might get relegated again for the third time during my flaming car-crash of a tenure, but of course that would have nothing to do with my continuing mismanagement of the club and lack of investment. Fanks, Ashley."