Ne Moe Imya

Fernando Reges - Perfect! Good player, needed position. Hope it happens. Salah - Lots of potential, plenty to be excited about. Bertrand - Ooh. Kills the mood entirely.

Brilliant news.

Given the Suarez contract has now been signed, I think, reading the tea leaves a bit, that we're about to spend serious money in the January window. The owners will now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we miss the CL we're going to lose Suarez and have X million pounds (hopefully above 70?) to spend in the summer, so why not spend a good portion of whatever amount they have budgeted for the summer ahead of time? If we get into the CL we'll have far more money to spend, if we don't we'll still have 50 million or so to spend even if we need to leave some of the Suarez money behind ... it's a bit of a gamble but unless the players brought in are all utter rubbish then it's a gamble worth taking. I wouldn't be surprised to see 30 million or so spent in January, maybe more. Probably continue our emphasis on younger players who will hold their value, in case it all goes wrong in the second half, but I honestly think we might be about to go all in on this season.

If Spurs can melt down completely that would leave just Everton (well, and United if you think that somehow Moyes can get that team on a 2 points/game pace for the rest of the season) as our only significant rival for that fourth spot. So far it's looking very good for that to happen. Add in another draw/loss for United to one of these upcoming home bankers and we suddenly look massive favourites for a CL spot.

Got out of jail there. We have a really odd U18 team this season. We look so good in attack, and so horrific in defense that it's hard to believe it's the same team. Goalkeeper and fullback are particular weaknesses, and tonight the former showed through clearly (though he did save 2 penalties in the end).

One of my mates, an otherwise average player, was going through a bit of a purple patch and scored 5-6 goals in a month. Needing to find something new to give him a bit of stick with, one of us went with the old "yeah, but none of them were headers - you're still rubbish in the air." The very next game he rounds the keeper and, noticing that the last defender had given up on the play, goes down on his hands and knees and heads the ball in off the ground. The ultimate in piss-taking. Of course, while it might have looked badass in his mind, the fact that it was still a freckled ginger kid with his arse in the air nosing the ball in with his snout like a pig diminished the effect somewhat, to the general merriment of all in attendance.

Exactly. It's not that I "don't mind Everton" or anything like that, it's just that they are a relatively small club and if we're struggling to the point that they are rivals then I'm more upset about that than I am the fact that they finished above us. If they were to be the team to pip us to fourth that would be a different story, but if we're already down in sixth and they move ahead of us to see us end seventh (like last season), I'm already so upset about being in sixth that I don't really care much. Sixth or seventh - the only teams that should be caring much about one or the other are Newcastle, Villa, or Everton. For Liverpool, either one is a failure and as such there isn't much difference between them.

Don't say that. It'll be all over twitter in a half-hour that Rodgers is suspected of rodgering roosters.

It was all about the midfield (well, and Suarez). I honestly thought that Sandro, Paulinho and Dembele would overpower our midfield, but they never had any time on the ball to do any overpowering. We were so consistent with our pressing, and so team-oriented with it, with every single player contributing, that they had no chance to get anything started. What a game for Henderson. I know I've been critical but I'll hold my hand up - he was simply sensational. If he can keep that up I'll be ecstatic to see him on the teamsheet. Maybe rotate him, Allen and Gerrard between 2 of the midfield spots and add a top player to replace Lucas and we are looking seriously good.

1. Suarez 2. Henderson 3. Sterling Hard to leave Flanagan, Sakho, Allen, and Coutinho off. Really the only players that you couldn't make an argument to be MoM were Johnson and Mignolet - everyone else was superb.

I have little faith on this one. It's all about the midfield. Don't care what Flanagan does/doesn't do, or any of the rest of them - if Lucas, Allen and Henderson are overrun in midfield, as I more than half expect, then we will struggle to take anything from this game. (Unless Suarez decides to win the game for us all by himself again, which is also possible.) It's going to be a rough month. If we had been able to continue beating the poorer teams, then we'd have some room to drop points in these tough away games. However, losing to Hull means that we really need at least a point today and probably another 1-3 points from City/Chelsea, which is a tall order.

Was hoping that if this were to be a City win that it would be a demoralising one for Arsenal. Not happy with City's goalkeeping giving up 2 savable goals, but now I'm hoping for a 8-2.

Yaya Toure - what a player. Add him to our squad and we'd be serious challengers for the league. I hope we can find the 10 million pound bargain version somewhere in January, though I don't expect it.

I've only just realised that he's still 23. Plenty of time for him to fulfill his early promise. If he were 27 or so it might be a different story, but I think he can still become a useful player for our squad over the next couple of seasons.

At least they got £5 million when they sold Pique and £6.5 million for Rossi (horrible values, but at least it's something). They could have had one of the best young midfield pairings in the league right now with Pogba and Morrison, who they lost for a combined fee of £300,000 if you believe the reports (plus some sort of fee every time Morrison appears for West Ham). When you consider that they basically gave those two away for free it makes their ineptness in the search for a new CM in the transfer market look that much worse.

While we're onto the "extremely tenuous links from known bullshitters" train, the lad who was the first to tweet about Mkhitaryan now claims that we're enquiring about a double deal at Hamburg for their left back (Lahm's backup for ze Germans) and a 19-year old attacking midfielder whose name is impossible. So there's that.

Oliver Kay says today that he's been told that our priority is to sign a "very talented, powerful, box-to-box midfielder." At least we've identified the correct priority, then. Next stop is actually signing the player.

One of those "pisspoor" loans you're talking about did in fact come from Real Madrid, in case you've forgotten.

Has anyone ever actually seen Hodgson and Moyes in the same room at the same time? Manchester United manager David Moyes says defeat to Newcastle United at Old Trafford 'raised my spirits'

What do you mean "anymore"? I don't really expect a win at City or Chelsea, but I do think the odds of such a win happening are MUCH higher now than they would have been any time over the past 4 seasons. In 2010 our expectations in those games would have been absolutely miles lower than they are now.

Sakho plus one other for me. Agger/Skrtel, most likely; I'd be happy with either. If I were Rodgers I'd be thinking seriously about playing Toure as a DM this week, especially if Henderson is out as rumoured.

I think this is where we come down to earth a bit, hopefully without a serious bang. We already miss Sturridge, but with the form of Suarez it hasn't been that big of a problem. However, with Gerrard now out as well our already weak midfield is that much weaker. Spurs aren't great, but WHL has always been tricky for us and I wouldn't be too unhappy with a point. I'd be surprised if we get anything from City and Chelsea away, so we really need to avoid a slipup in those two home games to take 7 points, lick our wounds a bit, and then try to recover our top 4 spot in January when we have Gerrard, Sturridge, and hopefully a new player or two to come into the side.

Have there been any indications he'd be available? I mean, I'd love to take Inter to the woodshed again in the transfer market, but surely even they aren't stupid enough to put Kovacic up for sale?

He has looked pretty good in our last couple of games. Now I worry what will happen to him with Lucas next to him instead of Gerrard.