Holymoly

Wow, that's unbelievable. That said I think we'll still lose as Gallagher aside the squad doesn't care about the animosity between the two sets of fans.

While there has to be a serious audit of the medical/conditioning department I think we also need to look at the due diligence done during player acquisitions. Desasi aside I think all the players that have been out this season and last have had a history of persistent absence during their careers.

I remember him giving a goal away with pretty much his first touch in his first game for us. Thereafter he rarely put a foot wrong with Ashley Cole like clearances off the line, Marcel Desailly like shadowing of players out to touch and John Terry like heart and leadership on the pitch. The guy cares and we love him for it.

VID_261990131_182618_158.mp4 What a fucking legend.

Wow the bench.

Personally, I was crying after the rollercoaster of the lead up to the first one. The family thought I was nuts. The second time it was more, meh we've won then, huzzah. Maybe it was because we were against domestic opposition. I did have a slight feeling that the second time we didn't deserve it quite as much as the players hadn't paid their dues quite as much. That said, two European Cups, can't grumble. I wonder if I'll ever see another one though.

Have you ever stuck a pin in an already deflated balloon? An almost imperceptible gentle fart. That's what we've become.

I think he was talking to the fans when he stressed he was only working in the academy and had nothing to do with the first team.

And breathe..... The morning after the night before and the sting remains real. However. I've had time to contextualise this a bit. Are we overall better than last year? Yes. Unequivocally. Are we as good as we would like to be? No. Equally unequivocally. The old Hansen maxim "you'll never win anything with kids", thought to have been rubbished by SAF's United, appears to hold true afer all. The owners unfortunately seem to believe that as our squad matures the rest of the league will conveniently stand still and let us catch up which obviously won't happen. If the the transfer policy remains the same then we are condemned to a future of ups and downs as we are seeing this season. If we want to challenge for the CL, never mind the title we have to see an influx now of experience and leadership. Yes, we ahve been hit by an unprecedented amount of injuries in key positions but notwithstanding this we have to accept that many, if not most, of the recent acquisitions even when fit will not turn out to be the players they have been projected to be, especially given the contracts they are already on which takes away the encouragement to strive to be better. At the end of the day we have to accept that most of the players on our squad are not good enough to ever feature in a title winning squad. You look at the likes of Declan Rice who is two years older than Enzo and yet was better at that age than Fernandez is. You look at Jude Bellingham at 20 who is not only already a world class player but is also a mature individual, a quality none of our players possess apart from the departing Thiago Silva. These are the types of players we need to identify if we continue to concentrate on kids. Otherwise we need to look at experienced players coming to the end of their careers who want one more hurrah, much in the way we did in the nineties that would add steel and nous to the squad. Turning to the manager. Will he lead us to ever win anything meaningful? Unlikely. However he should at the very least be expected to instill some pride and professionalism into the younger players. I'm prepared to see what he can achieve in the close season but if we are still in the same position come Christmas then that I think is the time to part ways with him. In the meantime we have another month of purgatory to sit through.

Humiliation. Unfortunately as predicted.

Lots of possession, no shots on target. Really quite depressing to watch.

Here we go!

We'll get stuffed, Havertz hattrick, ridiculed all the way home