robby b

So Ollie's penalty record with us from the five he's taken is scored three, missed two. I know that's not ideal but it could have been worse. :s Great penalty from Douglas today, perfect start, but there's a lot of pressure on him... in order to be better than Ollie he can't miss more than one of the next four. Not so easy. We'll see...

Watching highlights just now and seeing the joyous look in Ollie's face as he celebrates with Douglas... perhaps a look partly from relief: 'phew! My penalty replacement has scored his first penalty, I can stay off penalty duties!'

Some people have posted about him no longer having the pace that he once had at Leverkusen following some injury or other. (Exactly which injury I'd still like to know!) But at least he still has quick feet! Sky Sports in their match report have referred to him as the "fleet-footed" winger. He is good at suddenly 'dancing' past a defender along the edge of the box to the bye-line in order to put in a cross.

Bad day for him today, nightmare throw in. But perhaps he won't be rubbish in Everton's next game given that earlier this year he put in some great performances with us and a lot of us were heaping praise on him. We'll see...

Bad start to the season for them, then there's Maupay's long, long run without scoring, now DCL with a new injury...yeah they could go down this time. But like last season, again I don't think they will. Perhaps DCL has a small cheek fracture but he might be back playing in about 5 or 6 weeks with one of those face masks. Yes, today they were bad but Dyche is a good manager to sort them out, make them hard to beat and keep them up again. And last season their many demanding, passionate fans fired up the team to stay up and they started playing well again. That 5-1 at Brighton was stunning.

It wasn't Dutton, it was Dobbin. I like his name, it reminds me of Dobbin the pantomime horse:

I was trying to remember when they beat us 4-0 in the league, just looked it up, it was November 2015, but now eight years later it's the other way round. How things have changed... I know they've been struggling the last few years but still I really am surprised we've ended up beating them in all of our last five PL meetings! And then there's also unbeaten in all nine since our promotion.

After achieving the heaviest defeat of the opening weekend it will be nice to have the biggest win of the 2nd weekend, if there's no more than a 3 goal winning margin tmrw between Palace and Arsenal...

From 19th to 9th in less than two hours, that's not bad. That must make us the weekend's biggest movers, I guess.

And on top of that Everton have put a pantomime horse on at half-time. I'm daring to dream suddenly.

Wow Earps really is brilliant, what a save !

Oh dear, that was a big mistake from the 2020 FIFA player of the year. Dribbled for a bit too long, a touch too many, too risky against such a good Spain team, should have laid it off earlier.

Wordle 792 3/6

I suppose it isn't ideal to take even a mild over the counter sleeping pill the night before a match if it makes the player feel groggy and a bit spaced out the next day, yikes.

How can starting 11 players sleep the night before a world cup final?! I wonder if any of the lionesses will take any kind of mild sleeping pill. I'd be a total nervous wreck, I don't know if I'd get any sleep at all! Maybe a couple of hours, perhaps three, if lucky.

You've won the day so here's the cup... That was a really difficult one today. :s

Yeah! Brilliant comeback from Wrexham, what an entertaining, dramatic, bonkers match! Wow. : >

I can't believe it, Wimbledon have just won a 2nd match in a row! 3-0 away this time. This is most un-Wimbledon-like. And a handsome 3-0 away win for Newport today too. Wrexham seem to be good in attack but a bit dodgy in defence. At home to Swindon today and it finished 5-5 !

Yes. Hmm, now I'm quite confident that I can translate this correctly: 'there's a lot of banter, great family'.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/rod-hull-and-emu-on-parkinson/zh7tjhv

I love Bamburgh! I had two holidays there when I was a kid, around the age of 8 and 9. Two of my best holidays ever.

Wordle 791 5/6

Interesting. I often say fab instead of fabulous. And I've started saying fave instead of favourite. And a scouse mate got me saying deffo... I quickly realised today that I'm deffo fine with youngsters saying bantz. Just as well otherwise I'd be a hypocrite! (E.g. What was wrong with the word favourite?! Well sometimes maybe it is simply just about making a long word shorter, to speak more quickly and easily). I suppose every generation invents some new words when they're young. In their teens and 20s. Part of their culture, group identity, creativity... a bit of fun too.. perhaps also some subconscious desire to be different from their parents' generation, a bit rebellious even in a way.

Oh you've reminded me of another song that's made me a bit teary a few times, my fave song by the Manics and one of my fave songs by anyone: Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky. So beautiful and so sad. Steel string acoustic with alternative tuning. And a harp. It's about a big cat trapped in its little enclosure in a zoo.

Fly by Einaudi the first time I heard it (probably because it was in the cinema, in the film Intouchables). I think this is my favourite piece of classical music. A few of Yann Tiersen's beautiful piano pieces from the film Amelie. Storms by Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks) once made me shed a few tears too, as did No Need to Argue by the Cranberries.