Rafael

We needed to get a TD on that one. Allen Robinson is awesome.

Anita should be starting, that's for sure. Provides some very neat distribution and works really hard on defense. Sissoko needs to be on the center, he's just not working playing as a RW right now. And Mbabu is our starting left-back. What a man.

He figures it out, but a bit slowier. I mean, he figured that Ayoze should be starting, that we should play in a 4-4-2, took Haidara out. It's just that we had a really, really tough schedule in these first few games. Norwich, Stoke, Bournemouth, Sunderland and Leicester at home being our next five games will serve as proof of McClaren's work to see if he's really making the team better.

In the semi final, right? Exactly. But really, the team played some excellent football in the first 45 minutes. Then it all went to hell with the second goal, after that we had 10 super off minutes leading to a 5 goal difference. But I still have *some* belief that this team is going to be good. I fear for no Mbabu against Norwich though.

It feels like watching Brazil.

There are a lot of underrated, undervalued players at the market. Iago Falque was sold for what, 8 million euros? Draxler was cheap, and you could argue that the likes of Payet, Wijnaldum, Cabaye, Ayew,etc. could be valuable pieces for a team like Liverpool. Instead they splash 32.5million pounds on Benteke and 25 on Firmino. Nothing against both players, but that's just too much when the market offers you better.

I mean, England is really going downhill in the coefficient rankings and most of the time I don't see teams playing their best 11 in the european competitions. Maybe it's about time some commitment is shown?

Born in 97 and still got 14.

I'm still amazed no one in Europe had ever heard of that.

I'm pissed off at basically everything the Hornets did. Maybe we get a 7th seed but no upside for the next few years thanks to Mr. Michael Jordan not understanding the meaning of ''long term''. At least Kaminsky looks decent.

I'm kinda pissed that we didn't try to put the ball in the area, in the last few minutes.

Fuck off. :/

I'd like to take back everything I said about Mbabu. What a player.

Really, really green. Decent cross, though.

So, McClaren sacked by Christmas?

Veron? I mean sure he didn't do well at United, but the guy was terrific.

Tettey closed in the pass. Coutinho was expecting him to close him down so he could play the ball to a free Ings. Tettey didn't do it, he got confused, decided to shoot, though I agree he tried too hard a couple of times.

Posluszny. What a guy.

Wasn't the gist something like "he had got past his man so he had the right to go looking for contact"? Ridiculous. Yeah there was kind of an awkward silence after the obvious dive followed by "well Raheem showed great feet and made sure there was contact there, which he has every right to do". The English media is very different to ours. When we play shit or do something wrong, the pundits are honest about it and often even self-deprecating. There's something very broken about the pundits when it comes to England, it's the most over-the-top bias I've ever encountered. One of the headlines on Sky Sports this evening was "Rooney doesn't get enough credit", this after a week of non-stop verbally fellating him. Nothing will ever beat the 2006 World Cup though. They were practically sharpening the pitch-forks for Ronaldo on-air while praising Rooney's "tenacity" and ignoring the nut stamp on Carvalho! The English media is different to the whole world. I mean, hell, we had 7-1 but England are like the inventors of football and managed to miss several WCs and to this day still overrate pace machines like Sterling and Walcott. The biggest complaint is ''the foreigners are taking over our league! '' meanwhile the most creative player the youth systems can come up with in 10 years is Jack Wilshere. At least that's how I see it. EDIT: From what I see in the PL thread and on other places, there's also obvious and blatant stupid club bias and domestic player bias, but that also happens in Brazil so I can't say much.

Finished episode 5 of Narcos, pretty good show. Nice to see brazilian people doing good things.

Martial tore apart Arsenal in the Champions League. The guy's 19 and he's already shown what he can do in big games. How ''unproven'' is that?

Jonathan De Guzman is set to join Bournemouth on a season-long loan deal.

Liverpool and Everton have joined Arsenal in the pursuit for Yarmolenko. The Gunners apparently have had a 32M pounds bid rejected for Inter's Mauro Icardi. Nottingham Forest have accepted a 7M bid from West Ham for Michail Antonio.

Anthony Martial is fucking class. Wouldn't become a key player right away, but definitely useful for the team this season. I wonder when United will sign a CB though.... Tottenham have sold Ismail Azzaoui to Wolfsburg. Arsenal have made a 20 million euros offer for Dynamo Kiev's Andriy Yarmolenko OM midfielder Mario Lemina is having a medical at Juventus.

Adnan Januzaj is close to a loan deal with Borussia Dortmund. Javier Hernandez is set to join Bayern Leverkusen for 9M. Newcastle apparently are after striker Pierre-Michel Lasogga.