The Fish

Partly it's a tactical/personnel issue: We've attempted to switch from a high intensity, high pressing side towards a more possession based side. Isak, Elanga, Gordon, Barnes... these are all players best suited to a team that wins the ball high up the pitch, or devastates on the counter. We're more and more facing teams who play with a low-block. We can't rely upon a predatory striker like Isak (unless Wissa is that answer) to snaffle up a half chance. We're not even making the same kind of half chances. It's partly form - nobody is really playing well. And not just having their form restricted by the strategy, there is a fragility throughout the squad. Bruno is up for the fight, so are Joelinton and Burn, but unless it inspires the squad it's just noise without focus, y'know? It's partly fixture congestion, Howe is not or can not get consistent performances out of the squad when he has 2+ games a week. It's partly injuries/suspensions to key players at key times - Gordon, Wissa, Hall, Livramento, etc. What we need is a spell of favourable fixtures with key players fit and firing. So Wissa, Woltemade, Gordon, Hall, Livramento, Bruno, Tonali, et al We need to play quick passing triangles between Bruno, Tonali, Hall, Livramento, and ultimately Woltemade. We need widemen either joining those passing shapes, or be the recipient of the final ball. I think we're equipped to play that and a high pressing game.

Absolutely. Ashworth, Mitchell, Eales, Isak, Owners, Howe, Wissa. All interconnected, all overlapping, all messy, all avoidable.

I won £35 on the derby.

I want to be clear, I'm not saying that we had a good window, just that this wasn't a window of scrambling around for random targets in a panic. We definitely will have bought players that we hadn't planned for pursuing yet, and maybe gone for players further down the list due to Isak's departure. But Elanga, Ramsey, Woltemade, Thiaw were all long term targets. Ideally we would have kept Isak, and bought Ekitike, Trafford, Thiaw and maybe a couple of others.

No, we haven't. Not really.

Elanga has been on our RADAR for a long time hasn't he?

There's a junction near where I live. Dunno what it is, but the lights, the traffic, whatever. Anyway it's a nightmare and whenever I drove through it I'd get properly pissed off. You know what I do now? I avoid it. Go a different route and the drive is so much more calm. Not sure what made me think of that.

I'm not sure that's the right way to describe it. From what we've read we were interested in Nick at the beginning of the window and it was only when he became available towards the end of the season that we pressed ahead with it. I'm sure the plan (Lol 'Planning') was to add more depth to our Isak-supply (Ekitike/Elanga). Then when that shitstorm made groundfall we looked to replace him. If Isak hadn't acted the cunt I don't think we sign Woltemade this window, however when it was clear to the club that he was going we went for him, Sesko, Pedro, etc. By then Elanga was already joining. And had Woltemade joined at the beginning of the window I don't think we sign Elanga. Honestly to get the best out of Big Nick, I think we'd need one or two players who are closer in profile to Cole Palmer or Wirtz ( style of play not renown or valuation). Rather than Gordon or Elanga or Barnes, to be honest.

My twopenneth. Howe set his team up not to lose. So did Le Bris. The expectation was that the threat on the break from Gordon and Elanga would make Sunderland reticent to over commit. Hopefully we'd kill the game and quieten the crowd. We'd look to make chances on the counter or from set pieces. As did they. They fouled and imposed themselves physically. Without Joelinton and losing Burn meant we didn't have that physicality on the pitch. I worry without them we're too nice. Where have Eddie Howe's shithouse mags gone? Where are the arseholes? So the aim was counter-attack. Trouble is Elanga is a massive let down so far and Gordon's promise has evaporated. Also there is a fragility to our side at the minute. A lack of the confidence needed to see out games. That's been the case in every game away from home so far. Questions need to be asked of Howe (repeating the same approach regardless of the opponent or the form). Fwiw I genuinely think Elanga was bought to feed Isak and that Gordon's best form came when the defenders were stretched by Isak's threat. Now, because Woltemade is a different kind of forward player Gordon isn't getting the space he was enjoying and Elanga is playing off the striker in the way he was intended.

They do win the Palm d'Dave though.

I think he's having one of his funny turns.

Jings, you'd have utterly destroyed my argument if I'd only mentioned social media followers.

I have faith in my ability to prove that I was talking about Thunderbolt Ross

I don't think we can dismiss the fact that he is playing for Liverpool, in the PL on Sky. That is part and parcel of his appeal. The Premier League is the biggest league in the world, Liverpool are current Champions and arguably one of the biggest clubs on the planet. Which is why any player plying their trade there will have greater renown than one playing in the Saudi league (Benzema e.g. ). Salah has more Instagram followers than Manchester United. He's massive.

I for one am looking forward to him shitting his keks on national tv, slipping in the brown puddle and cracking his head open wider than any sniper's bullet could manage.

Salah is probably the most high profile Muslim footballer like.

I can't tell if I'm being whooshed or not? FIFA have been corrupt, self-serving, rapacious cunts long before Trump got into politics.

Whatever actually happens we'll be assured that it wasn't.

I wonder what it would take for him to erase the noise around the transfer debacle and his form since? Would he need a 15 goal haul from the second half of the season? Would he need a full season at Liverpool as the main man? Would he need a new manager? Or will it take him moving clubs again?

I don't have a fucking clue. 1-1, a red card or two, fighting in the stands, a blood moon and the Singularity.

Man City are away to Crystal Palace this weekend and Chelsea are hosting Everton. I can see both dropping points.

I'm not sure we do, by the way

It is, isn't it? They all look the same to me.