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A solid enough start and a comfortable win for the new boss. The second half was great, that was what I expecting from the start but for 45 minutes we were crap. Passive, toothless, lacking in any kind of direction. I can’t remember us even creating a chance. They didn’t create much either, but it was still more than us and they were marginally the better side. Given how slick we looked for much of pre-season I didn’t see that coming, but I suppose it just highlights the difference in intensity when the real thing starts. Sevilla came over for a gentle kick around last week, whereas Ipswich were enjoying their biggest occasion in over 20 years. There’s the difference. They had three players booked inside 20 minutes, but it was more down to over-enthusiasm than them being dirty bastards. I don’t think they’re going to be kicking fuck out of teams this year, I just think they were bang up for what was their biggest game in over 20 years. And according to Slot, we didn’t match them. Their crowd were rabid as you’d expect, but the ref took the wind out of their sails a bit with the yellow cards. Not that he was wrong to do so. Every yellow he gave was pretty clear cut and if anything he was too lenient, as he could - and indeed should - have sent their right winger off for a deliberate handball when he was already on a booking. I’m actually ok with him not producing a red card but only because of the context of the situation. If you’re officiating a newly promoted side playing their first top flight game in 22 years against one of the best teams in the world, you don’t want to be the guy reducing them to ten men for a couple of relatively soft incidents. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying it's understandable. I know that shouldn’t come into it and officials are not supposed to let things like that affect their judgement, but some of them are actually human beings so if he didn’t want to be the massive arlarse ruining their big day unnecessarily, I can live with that. If he pulls that shit when we’re playing City, United, Arsenal etc then that’s a different matter entirely. Overall the ref was ok I thought. The crowd were baying for him to even if up with yellow cards for our lads any time they committed even the most innocuous foul, but he didn’t buckle. Not until late on anyway when he booked Gakpo for a little trip. That’s fine though, four more of those and maybe Slot will have to put his Dutch bias to one side and give my Darwin a chance…. Anyway, the first half was shite as we were really passive all over the park and couldn’t create anything. Ipswich were spritely and pressed with energy, but even then this wasn’t a game when it looked like we might struggle. Even when we were doing nothing in the first half there were loads of times when they looked wide open if we’d have just played the right ball, so I was never especially worried about the result. I was just annoyed that we’d looked so flat. The encouraging thing is that Slot identified what the problem was, dealt with it by letting the players know they needed to basically fight a bit harder, made a big call with a substitution and after that we looked great. The second half performance was genuinely exciting, because some of the football was sensational and gave us a glimpse of what we can hopefully expect when the team is completely up to speed with what he wants. The fact the first half was so shite points to an issue with the players I think, because we had this for most of last season too. It’s an issue Slot inherited and it’s one he’ll need to fix, because we can’t keep starting games looking so slow and passive. That first half was garbage, we barely even managed a shot. At least we looked fairly secure at the back and didn’t have too many problems. They had more chances than we did, but it’s not like Alisson was stretched too much. He made a routine save from a Greaves header and then a comfortable stop to deny Hutchinson after a quick counter following one of a number of shite corners from us.

Monday Aug 12: Zubimendi has left Richard Hughes with his cock in his hand, just like he's done with Arsenal and Barcelona in the past. It's not a good luck for Hughes who has it all to prove given the complete lack of credentials he had when being given this job, but is this his fault? Fuck knows, probably not, but it doesn't really matter as the optics are terrible and he'll also be getting judged more harshly than he probably should because of what happened last summer with Caicedo. For us to be strung along by a player and then jilted at the altar again, the fans aren't going to react favourably. The line coming out of the club is that Zubimendi gave Hughes his word that he wanted to come here and then he changed his mind. What can you do about that? Not much, other than maybe be a bit more sceptical about a lad who has repeatedly turned down offers and said only a few weeks ago that he would only leave if they kicked him out. I don't necessarily see it that way but others will, and they may be right. Hughes is close to the agent though so if the agent and player are telling him they're up for it and that's the player you want, you have to go for it. I said repeatedly I wasn't arsed about Zubimendi and indeed I'm not that arsed if we aren't making signings, but I'm probably in a minority of one there. What I would say is that Slot obviously wants another six so with that in mind, failure to get him one would not be acceptable. Personally I'm quite happy to roll with what we have and to further develop Bajcetic and Morton rather than block their path, but Slot isn't and that's what matters here. You all know how I feel about Edwards. I think he owes his entire reputation to the brilliance of Klopp, but at least he has a reputation. Hughes doesn't, he's achieved precisely nothing and therefore has it all to prove. He's been here months now and all he's done is appoint a coach who was not top of the wanted list (they sounded out Alonso and Amorim first) and then left the poor fucker in a situation where three of his key players don't have contracts beyond this season and we're a few days away from the season starting and we're the only club in the top seven leagues in Europe without any new players. Still, he managed to bring in £25m for FSG from selling Carvalho and he's doing his best to flog Bobby Clark and Ben Doak too, so he'll get brownie points from his bosses for that. I hate this shit because it's putting a downer on the promising signs we're seeing from Slot and the team. The performance against Sevilla yesterday was really good and we appear to be in good shape ahead of next week. Most of the line up against Sevilla will start against Ipswich, and to be honest nobody other than Elliott did enough in the Las Palmas game to stake a claim for a spot. That wasn't a great performance but I put most of that down to the absence of a crowd. The lads in the first game are out there in front of sixty thousand and will have had a real spring in their step. The ones who featured in the second game were probably feeling a bit flat and resentful they didn't get to play in front of the fans, and also assuming it means they aren't starting at Ipswich. Motivating yourself to play flat out in what is basically a training session can't be easy. Doak did well though, which will have had Hughes salivating at the potential fee he can get for him. It's a shame he can't clone himself, send the clone to Bournemouth and then pay well over the odds for him with a nice little sell on clause included too. Also today, we found out that City's hearing will start next month. It's expected to last a couple of months and any appeal would be heard before the end of the season. I have no idea what will happen other than it won't be even 100th of the severity of what should happen. When this is all said and done, we'll all be left fucking fuming and disillusioned and it will be another nail in the coffin of a once great sport.