Papillon

Gareth Barry

Another silly mistake leading directly to a goal against. No shame in letting in goals against City away, but that’s not the kind of goal we should be gifting them.

Huh? He was invicible alright, but it’s not like he did any worse than most others on the pitch.

A bit like Pogba, in that he looks a bit clueless just because the players around him suck. So many times he’s inviting obvious runs, but nothing happens and it leads to a lost ball or bad pass - making him look bad instead of bagging a key pass. The ones that understand football see the problem, then you have the ones only seeing the bad passes without context. Saying that, he had two unforced errors leading to possible counters today. If that’s Pool or City it’s 100% a goal at the back.

Mings is a good addition to the squad for his physique and toughness on set-pieces, but the lack of quality was very evident for their goal today. Very clumsy and terrible defending to be honest. That goal was coming one way or another with us being down to ten, but still... feels crap when that kind of defending settles everything.

The kind of decision that can make you want to quit football (at least until you wake up the next day and don't give a damn anymore). Reminds me a bit of that James-fella at United, who has been booked twice already for diving without actually diving - it must feel terrible. The referee in this case should be ashamed of himself as a person for booking the player for diving and he should be even more ashamed of himself as a professional for not waiting to blow the whistle. As Grealish actually releases the ball, which in itself takes away all doubts about simulation, the referee must wait until he blows that whistle. A big shame to the referee, a huge pair of rolled eyes for VAR and just disbelief. I am definitely less interested in football this year, I wonder if it's VAR ruining that last bit of passion. Yesterday it was Bilbao vs. Sociedad and the latter had a penalty call ruled out because the tackle happened outside the box. It took me 4 seconds to see it was 100% outside the box on the telly - yet the VAR used about 4-5 minutes to get the decision in. The referees are shielded in England, which is absolutely ridiculous. In this case, the referee should have been questioned and it would be nice to hear his thoughts behind the failure. Secondly, he should give Grealish his apologies for this grave mistake.

I remember the derbies back in the day, with Mellberg, Dublin, Savage etc. Such fierce games and mental atmosphere. I don’t think our players have seen the videos, they haven’t prepared at all

It's been a while since I last posted on here, but I remember this lunatic banging on about Barry Bannan being the next Gazza mixed with Ronaldinho. Is he still around ?

Oh I will! Not being an ass here, just stating the obvious. Here’s for hoping, a new manager always needs time - but you always hope for the extra points in the beginning.

Not a great start Dean... hope you aren’t a fraud like Bruce, RDM, Sherwood, Garde and Lambert. What an awful list that is.

Dodged a hule bullet with Thierry Henry. The guy knows nothing about management and would bounce immediately if something bigger came along. We need to realize that the Championship is very far from being sexy enough, so we can forget many of the candidates mentioned already. It will be someone like Moyes or Allardyce, nobody else wants to go to the second tier.

I take huge offense in the fact that he says he did everything he could, like he's not to blame. His utmost responsibility is to run the club in a responsible way for the fans - that's why a football club exists in the first place. He has taken risks based on us managing promotion within two years, something we have not managed to do. This outcome was not unthinkable, in fact, it was always not in our favor when there's 23 other clubs with the same problem as us, all chasing those millions. Xia is a fraud, a novice when it comes to the business of football and he has ruined our club by throwing everything on one outcome. Millions of fans not knowing what's going to happen and if there's any Championship-football to be played next season. Shame on you, wherever the hell you are right now. I do not care one second if he's losing his own money, he shouldn't have spent it if he couldn't sustain it. "Money locked up in China?" Are you kidding me? Is that supposed to be our problem? Again, not sustainable - what a huge amateur.

I said it the second this fraud started to spout his illiterate propaganda on Twitter. Completely unprofessional and dealing with stuff he had no knowledge about, but people were on the train already. Xia should be charged for what he has done with our club. I hate to be right in this case, but now look what's happened.

Not getting us second or better is a sackable offense, not managing us to create a single chance with 11 vs. 10 over 20 minutes is too. Steve Bruce needs to go, he is a very, very dull manager without any clever ideas. A huge travesty not getting us up in the Premier League. God... another year in the fecking Championship, it's so bloody sad.

I must admit I have no idea how this player looks or how good he is. I do remember picking him in my Fantasy-team just to have the cheapest option in the game and never play him. God, the Championship is so incredibly boring. I know he is just on loan and that we will clear out a lot of players, but what the heck will we do when we promote this season? For the first time as a fan, I wish we'd stop signing players

I find it quite rich and hilarious that "Sanchez to Man Utd is all about the money" and now suddenly a move to City would be about the football and nothing else. Come on, City is all about the money and they are built on lottery money - they are only great because they could literally buy talent like Sanchez because of just money. I do agree City have a better team right now and play excellent football, but United are in fact second in the Premier League and only a few players away from being a great team. Especially funny to read all the tweets from Ballague, he is seriously hurt about the fact of Pep losing out on a target. Pathetic from a grown man trying to act as an objective journalist and expert, when in fact he is the complete opposite. Sanchez to United, if it happens, is not only about who is paying the most money - there are probably several other reasons. Perhaps City would have to increase the wages for several other players to be able to give him what he deserves (seeing him walking out of a contract with all the benefits that follows for said player). I would not be surprised if some of their players have that "top earner"-clause in their contracts, such as Silva, Aguero, even Toure, de Bruyne and forth. Say what you want about United, but they are getting a world-class player to make them more exciting again and they are using their own money - this would only benefit the league in the coming years. Seeing City winning 33+ games every season without competition would be boring. Aubameyang rumored to be going to Arsenal. Hmm.. strange move? They already have Lacazette and they surely wouldn't field both at the same time would they? Aubameyang is awesome, they should have gone for him in the summer instead of Lacazette, the same probably goes for Chelsea and United when it comes to output for their strikers.

Didn’t he win two trophies in his first season? Can’t be too bad - and the same team does not win every trophy every year, even Ferguson managed to not win a trophy some years.

One of their players passes the ball to our player, ridiculously bad pass, then three seconds later they score. Well done Villa! Looks like non-league stuff

Awful, awful start to the game - hard to believe this is the second division in the country

I think Man Utd will go after Alvaro Morata before Romelu Lukaku. Morata has not really ever scored lots of goals, but he is only 24 years old and needs to play every game where he is the focal striker. Better ability on the ball, better technique and a great header of the ball. Could develop into something special, but the jury's out I guess...

Or it could just be a condition he inherited, speculating is probably not better than actually looking up facts about heart conditions. Stress is all relative, this is also a guy that can relax whenever he wants, fly private jets and go on vacation to wherever he wants whenever he wants. Being rich and important also has its benefits - although stress is certainly part of being a leader. Many sectors have long working hours and stress involved, but I haven't seen any reports showing increased cardiac arrest risk for let's say lawyers racking up 17 hour working days.

I don't know, but stats show that he is one of the players making the most tackles and interceptions in the league. So yeah, he is among the workers in the league even though he can also score and pass a ball nicely. He is literally nothing like Cesc Fabregas, so I do not understand how you can compare the two - other than both being Spanish? Fabregas is a passer and a playmaker, with a much better foot contributing with assists/goals - Herrera is much more mobile, makes tackles and short passes, he does not have the same role at Fabregas at all..

I think this is pretty ignorant to be honest. Herrera is a very good passer of the ball and he commits probably the most tackles/interceptions in the league together with Kante - he is no pussy and it probably the first player on the sheet for Mourinho. Football has luckily developed a whole lot since the 90's and Vinnie Jones was never a proper footballer, he was a thug - someone who would never play a single game at this level in this day and age, he couldn't pass a ball five yards. Who cares about Vinnie Jones? Using your example, every footballer in the world would "disappear or fake an injury", it does not really just extend to just Ander Herrera. I like Herrera, he gets stuck in and always gives 100% even though he might not have the biggest frame. We could use a few players like him with the same mentality if we want to promote next season.

Tottenham are struggling with the extremely narrow pitch at the Olympic Stadium, I have seen it several times earlier this season. Spurs are really good at exploiting the wings and turning sides with longs balls to charging full backs, but at this stadium it's virtually impossible as there is no space. Just look at the distance between the sideline and the box, it's like 10 yards. Ruins the game really, shouldn't even be allowed to have this format. Spurs are now out of the title race they in fact never really were part of, just like last season.

We are not used to what? We have a new owner, a new manager and in the last game - we had six new players starting! Do not compare this scenario to what happened last year, it makes no sense at all. We probably had players worth more than their entire first-XI put together in many of our games. What happened with Man City and Chelsea when they got new owners and tons of new players? I guess we can compare our little spending spree in the Championship with their haul in the PL. Chelsea sure as hell didn't flutter around the bottom after six games. This start to the season has been nothing short of embarrassing - no way to hide away from it. I am not writing us off though, far from it - but things need to change because we need to get right back up.