Zoob

Yeah, I try to ground myself in this too. In the heat of the moment, and when we're utterly s***, it's easy to forget it. Knowing we're the only ones to have beaten cheating City to the title in the last 8 years helps for sure. It's how bad we are to watch that is frustrating in the moment. We have all these great players, we strolled the league, and yet we're being outplayed, outrun, outfought, and look utterly causeless across the pitch. Even our keeper - like how the f*** did we sign a keeper who is so bad with the ball at his feet?

He didn't play well, and that miss was really poor, but then aside from Dom (and some bits of Jones maybe?) who wasn't crap? And then the subs we made once we were 3-1 down just destroyed us as a team. We had zero midfield, and I have no idea what we were even trying to do at that point. Even Chiesa who has looked good coming on was totally lost.

Just amazing how far we've regressed. Combination of things. Jota is definitely part of it, as is aging players, too many new players, some of those new players looking s***e, Slot second season syndrome, this weird set piece long ball, long throw renaissance... Even 2022/23, we didn't seem as clueless and open as this, but maybe I just blanked it out of my memory. Just an absolute s*** show, and annoyingly putting me in a s*** mood far too often.

We were beaten to almost every second ball, and outrun throughout the game. Conceded 3 utterly s*** goals and it could have been more. Not a fun time.

Some pretty odd decisions all round at the moment. And obviously failing to motivate our players so they actually look like they give a crap.

Feel sorry for him because he's the only one that seems to run without it looking like he's wearing lead boots. Ran until the end, set up our only goal, nearly equalized. Must be wondering what's happened to all his teammates, as they've pretty much all turned to s***.

Brentford look more likely than us to score another goal but 7 mins isn't nearly enough injury time given the pen check, their time wasting and the number of subs.

I'm totally fine with us not being given a pen for Gakpo, but that was even less of a pen than the one not given to us. Absurd

Been a scary glimpse into life post Alisson. The drop off is so massive, and we're so used to Alisson making saves in 1 on 1s or saves you don't expect, that we're now conceding from every good chance we concede. And of course we're already conceding too many of those...

They're gonna run out of steam badly in the second half, but we still look so open on the break.

Kerkez has been our best player that half. Just kidding. Thank him for the goal and get him off.

Yep. To put it more bluntly, if his team-mates hadn't let him down as much as they have, there would be far less discussion about him. Also a real shame Salah didn't just square it to him for a tap in last night when we were already 5-1 up. Can understand Salah wanting to score and get some confidence back, but the right move was a pass for an easy goal.

Feels a little like the 22-23 season, when we were very Jekyll & Hyde... But our squad is much better, so hopefully the end result won't be the same.

Think Jones played decently today, and certainly better than the current version /form of Mac Allister, but Szoboszlai tried to move us forward at pace again and again. By far our player of the season so far, he's been superb wherever he's played.

He will come good, but even without the injury, Ekitike is a much better player all round at the moment.

Having more movement up front from the other attacking players also helped. Him and Ekitike seem on the same wavelength too. And could easily have ended the night with 3 assists rather than 2.

Obviously delighted to win that and actually start playing some football too, but a real head-scratcher how we managed to lose to Gala after they were thumped by this very average Frankfurt team.

Love how absolutely calm Ekitike was for his goal. So much time to think about that and get it wrong. Showed great pace and finish.

Well played ! You get the assist.

Looked like offside player in front of our keeper jumped over the ball as it went in. But didn't get the right angle replay to see if he was obscuring view of the keeper.

FFS Martin Tyler and Andy Townsend on my commentary. That's a terrible start.

Might be a rarely seen 3-2-5 formation.

This content is not viewable to guests.

Got the best goal involvements per minutes played out of anyone in the squad. Obviously this is boosted by relatively little time playing, but still impressive. He's not gonna be our saviour, but it's mad he's given so little time on the pitch when he's actually been consistently good when he has been playing, and can't offer much less than Salah or Isak have done so far.

Yeah, as sports fans we get greedy, but even when Klopp was here, City were such a machine (built on a foundation of cheating of course), I didn't think we'd win the league... and then I thought once he was gone, we wouldn't win it again without a City points deduction.