OTF

Agree that it wasn't too bad. No doubt given his professionalism he's also been working hard on that good lad.

It was a depressing and traumatic miracle that we weren't relegated under him. The truth is the suffering of watching us with him at the helm (bullshitting results on the back of some individual runs of form) was worse than relegation because we had to listen to 'pundits' singing his praises.

It's not a red, he was busting a gut to get back to try to put some pressure on Lukaku. Lukaku knew he was coming, and that he was going too fast to pull out so stuck his arm out to protect his space, which he is fully within his rights to do, and bam contact with no chance of Konsa getting the ball.

If his english was a bit better I'd have no problem with this.

This is a good comparison, feels silly saying it but not many others compare with the physicality and athleticism that he's bringing lately. Cabaye and Tiote are not bad shouts positionally CT just that Cabaye never had the physicality and Tiote never had the attacking impetus, neither had the aerial presence of Joelinton either. We can only hope that he maintains this level of pressing and involvement.

And honestly for one of the first times this season we had a good and fair refereeing performance. Funny that it coincides with one our best games of the season despite it being against vastly more fancied opponents.

It's frustrating mainly because what they scored was not even a good goal, it was Lascelles ball watching instead of marking and then a badly scuffed shot from the rebound.

The players and Howe are obviously in a good place right now which is impressive, attitude wise we were heads and shoulders above Manure. We have a good run of games coming up - Everton, Southampton, Watford, Leeds, Everton again then Aston Villa, but with Wilson likely to be out for the bulk of them we need some scoring reinforcements as noone else we have is a consistent scorer.

Reporter to Joelinton: "Can I be completely honest - I didn't think you were that good" Then Sean Longstaff gave him massive props saying he's the best player in training and you always want him on your side and it's disrespectful the negative attention he has garnered.

I haven't watched it yet but will. The effort from the players out there was impressive but don't think they'll be able to turn around in a few days time with Wilson gone and have the same level of intensity.

Aye, don't listen to Gemmill, perhaps he needs a new hobby if he wasn't on the edge of his seat for this.

It's remarkable. Not what we were told we were buying but it really highlights how destructive Bruce's tenure was.

Well that sure had the heart pumping. It would have been a famous victory were it not for some lax defense. On the balance of play a draw is a frustrating result but in the context of our season it's still a key result and a nice place to build some momentum from. The crowd was fantastic and the stadium has not looked this good and this lively for some time. There's a sense of excitement with January days away, a few key signings in and we could string some results together. And yes we absolutely need to buy ourselves a covid inspired break now as with Wilson down and ASM potentially with some sort of strain we need the time. Evidence in our favour is our bench for today's game, third AND fourth choice keepers both on the bench and no defenders.

They didn't have an answer for Lukaku. Do you mean the fullback (Target) of the second defender (Konsa), I think Target could have been sent off but the second defender has bot done much wrong, Lukaku was probably out of gas and rather than give the defender any chance of a play on the ball he stuck his elbow out and gave the defender nowhere to go but into him. Well played Lukaku, tough luck to Konsa but no red. Possibly Target could have copped a red but because Konsa got near enough to foul him probably got away with it. The irony is that Target should have moved in front of Lukaku initially I think he may have thought he'd have enough pace to get to the ball but by the time he realised he didn't it was too late. Impressive show of athleticism by Lukaku.

I'm mixed as to how I feel we should approach this game. Ultimately the expectation is that we'll lose, but do we set up defensively compressed to try and stay in the game or try to attack and spread the game risking exposing our weak defense? On the surface the latter sounds like it has more of a potential to be entertaining, but not if Manure run up some goals and hurt our already suffering GD. Either way, or someway in between I should probably avoid watching, but sadly I won't.

You missed the third option, that being past it and on huge wages phoning it in

Imagine being thumped 6-0 by a Newcastle side featuring Alan Smith, James Perch, Mike Williamson, Wayne Routledge and Xisco. But then that Villa side did have Ciaran Clark....

Merry Christmas to you all. Santa has been here so I can finally go to bed.

The distinction was Kane was going for the ball where-as Robertson was a Shelvey'esque kicking out where he was clearly just kicking the player, really stupid stuff. Kane is a prick though, remember than Lejeune tackle? So even though I think a yellow was ok for it I would have been happier if he got a red.

After these games it's difficult to say that we shouldn't have adopted a Benitez style pragmatic approach, focusing on closing down the space to limit their ability to score. Try to hang in there to be in a position to get something from the game in the latter stages. It's turgid painful stuff to watch but with a team like ours you can see why a manager tasked with keeping the team up rather than the supporters entertained would opt for the less visually appealing.

Against Leicester we looked every bit a side that got thumped.

Weigh up how shit we currently are and the strategic manoeuvrings of the incumbent self-appointed big 6 (and the league) and it can't have been an enjoyable start to this part of the journey for her.

Agreed, even losing this 1-3 has a very different feel to 0-4.

That was the one time I think that ASM probably should have just shot rather than fed Wilson with two defenders and a third bearing down on him.

Aye, it took a tackle on ASM to get the ball back to Fraser.