gkmacca

The whole thing just defied reason. Time and again this weird Mr Egg Head fake villain escapee from some second rate comic strip gets to be portrayed as some kind of evil genius without actually doing anything at all. They're shite and yet, once again, we contrived to hand them a victory. Do many of our players even know that much about the mancs? I doubt it. So why do they start these games with such a sense of anxiety? We had more than enough chances to destroy them and all of them wasted.

Well, we came back, but jeez, what a ghastly start. Play the game, not the occasion, and all of that - it's not as if these players haven't played in far bigger games before, so why they seemed that heavy-legged and dim-witted is a mystery. Some of the passing was atrocious, we were way too narrow, thanks in part to one of Diaz's snoozes, and the awful way we tried to play out from the back was just painful. And on top of that - this ref will give us absolutely nothing. Hopefully we come out in the second half with a proper attitude, use our pace and pull them apart.

We're being made to look less clever and confident by a team that gives each other high fives for conceding corners. It's exasperating.

The times of Dyche's press conferences all come with the added words, 'roughly speaking'. It's the worms that are to blame.

Absolutely atrocious TV direction to almost miss Clarke's first goal, and all of the build-up, because of a replay. And of course no apology at all. I've said it before, these days the ball can go from one end to another in about seven seconds - if the director has to show a replay, he should be looking at the action ready to cut back to real time. Frustrating we took our foot off the pedal - I get them taking it easy but you can do that and still keep the passing pacy. Get the goal-hungry kids on second half.

Everything about TV pundits these days looks as if a 12 year old organised it. Take the obsession they have with bringing out a little table and doing the post-match chat by the pitch, often with umbrellas up to shield them from torrential downpours while the sound of the grass mower keeps drowning them out. Studios were introduced, amongst many other reasons, to make that kind of TV chat easier to conduct, and what do these twats do? They think that 'progress' is to go back outside again. They'll probably try going without microphones next, maybe cameras, too. That actually WOULD be an improvement.

Everything about his approach in recent years has been bloated. He employs the most ridiculously large private 'team' of analysts and assistants, whom he keeps on the payroll throughout his periods between jobs. What he doesn't have is someone like Pako who will question him, challenge him and keep him focused on the essential part of management. He's grown so many trees around himself he can't see the wood.

The coverage of the likely partnership of Edwards and Hughes has been very entertaining, in the sense of watching some hacks (and fans) straining to retain the 'Edwards was a genius for selling shite players to Hughes for inflated sums' idea, whilst adding the new notion that 'Hughes was a genius for buying players from Edwards who eventually came good, even if we only mean one of them'. It's a dream ticket, no doubt about it.

There's no empirical evidence of HIM, Michael Edwards, being suited to excelling at this particular new role, rather than the particular old role, to which he has now been appointed, given the fact that, since leaving his old role, his consultancy work has been much the same. How you can possibly, honestly, apply your hermeneutic skills to my post and arrive at that ridiculous generalisation, without wishing to score some deluded cheap point, is utterly beyond me, and, I dare say, everyone else on this fucking planet. ("ii6, .ij")

Edwards did well in a certain role. He's now been brought back in another role. Hopefully it will work, but there's no empirical evidence it will. His speciality is precisely what the person he'll hire to be sporting director will now do. If he's not repeatedly overruling whoever gets that role, I'm not sure what he'll be up to that's based on his expertise.

That was an outrageous foul on Danns, I simply cannot understand how that is allowed to go - both hands around him, hauling him to the floor.

Take that, doubting feckers.

That's our dream, they're having. It's delightful seeing them live it.

Absolutely thrilled for the lad. (By the way: If we had a goal chalked off on Sunday, we should have had had a pen for that.) But great for the lad, that's joyful.

ITV are desperate to drive home their narrative. And Matterface is a self-confessed Chelsea fan.

The bloke was in tears when he missed the final a couple of years ago. He's a top pro as well as a great player. I cannot understand the idea that such a player sits there happy that his body has packed up. It's probably soul destroying for him.

No, the offside was not the reason. Peter Walton, for example, said: "Wataru Endo was standing in an offside position but he does not commit an offence because of that. The Liverpool midfielder goes on to commit an offence — interfering with play by stopping Levi Colwill from getting a clear run at the ball to try to stop Van Dijk. The law is quite clear on that aspect and so Van Dijk’s header was correctly disallowed. If the offence had only been offside, that would not have been a subjective call and there would have been no need for Chris Kavanagh, the referee, to go to the monitor". What Walton and other refs fail to explain, however, is how the fact that many players, many times in many games, in the same or similar situations in the box, do what this player did and they don't get penalised. Inconsistency, once again, is the issue.

It won't go down as highly as it deserves to, but this was an extraordinary win. With so many out, with so many kids in, forget all the hype with Ginsoak's bunch - they always had as many senior pros as they needed to bring them through - this was absolutely amazing. Inglethorpe never gets the praise he deserves - we MUST make sure he stays - and Klopp, too, the way he not just gives these players a chance - that's just part of it - but also gives them the right backing to be the best they can be - superb. This is a glorious win.

It's Peter Drury to Peter Dreary.

Really cynical play from them. Argentinian, even.

Must be real supporters there.

Rinse and fucking repeat.

Dry your eyes, you wailing babies and start supporting the team.

So many years on from the doubters to believers theme, in spite of so many things, and it's not as if anything's changed. Good luck to the next manager.

We're playing well with a much-weakened team. They get a crazy bit of luck. The idiots start whining. It's just vomit-throwing nonsense, some fans these days.