Onana is capable of shockers too frequently to be considered elite. Even Allison has some shockers because so much more is asked of goalies now than even 10 years ago and they play so frequently within 10 yards of their own goal. They are less frequent which is where the value lies.

We overpaid for him for sure. I mean, that's what we do. But calling him not a shot stopper after some of the saves he has consistently pulled off is just...myopic. He was 5th last season and is 2nd this season in expected goals saves. Which means he's either a shot stopper or has been extremely lucky for the last 60 EPL games. Can't take any opinion seriously that routinely completely ignores or discounts statistics like that.

None of that means he hasn't cost us games or that he is worth what we paid for him. It just means he isn't as nearly as useless or incompetent as people tend to point out.

Antony on loan to Real Betis.

United working on a deal for Lecce left wing back Patrick Dorgu. 20 years old. Naturally left sided. 22 appearances for Lecce this season. 3 goals and an assist.

Lecce supposedly want 34mm pounds for Dorgu.

Antony loan appears to be a (hopefully) long term gain that will likely cause short term pain. I don't rate the guy but he's a body and it doesn't sound like the loan provides any short term financial relief.

Anyway, good luck Antony. Score 10+ goals so we can sell you for 40 million to Serie A in the summer.

I'm watching the Benfica v. Barca game… if we have a 15M buyback for Alvaro Fernandes, we should do that if this 30M-40M nonsense for Dorgu continues. I'm sure Amorim is fully aware of him, but gosh he looks like exactly what you'd want from the far left wing. His crosses have been incredible.

Not a foul on de Ligt. Certainly not in the PL.

Are we allowed to benefit from crappy goalkeeping? I thought we were contractually obligated to only be punished by it.

Well it is one of our former backup keepers, Jack Butland.

Maguire should have scored from a set piece. Ugarte with a free header right at the keeper from a set piece. What is this sorcery?

Bruno Bruno Bruno!!! Our Portuguese magnifico!

Top 8 in Europa! We are back!

(Still not back, but did deserve the win lol)

I may have jinxed us; I think there may be a scenario where we aren't top 8 still. But the W makes it pretty likely.

There are way too many teams bunched together on points for me to make any sense of all the scenarios but it seems like a draw should be enough, Would be big to skip out on the knockout rounds.

Amorim with some kind words about Garnacho and his progress in the post game. He does seem to have improved in the last several games. One thing I've noticed is that he looks for the pullback or the pass when he's in the box much more often than he ever did pre-Amorim. So many times with EtH he passed up a great pass for a speculative shot.

His dribbling and his ability to beat players 1v1 still seems off to me but maybe I have some confirmation bias/too high expectations. That used to be one of his best skills. Seems like he relies much more now on his pace to latch onto a pass in behind to beat his defender rather than getting past him with skill when the defender has the position on him.

According to the Athletic, Betis is paying 84% of Antony's salary (very specific number) with no upfront fee and no option to buy. I think I read somewhere that he's on about 100,000 a week so that would be maybe 2 million if salary savings for the rest of the season.

35 minutes in and we have 0 shots. Not 0 shots on goal. 0 shots attempted.

The Bruno as a central midfielder has never worked and it continues not to work under his third manager.

Officially 2 attempted shots now. One was a very generous ruling off a corner where the "shot" seemed to be from a Fulham defender. The other was a speculative Bruno effort from 30 yards from goal that was blocked 6 inches from Bruno's foot.

...and now a third from a set piece just outside the box. Bruno nearly caught Fulham out with a worm burner that went just wide.

60th minute. That's it. Weeeee!

Sounds like I picked a great day to assign a 320 game tourney and then be on the field all day.

I haven't seen a more boring game in quite a long time.

Maguire had that error against Rangers that led to their goal (though I think he did get a meaningful push that admittedly most refs wouldn't give) but he's been very good thus far tonight. Some hypothesized that Amorim would be really good for him based solely on his performances with England in a 3 back system and thus far they have been right.

Is a wickedly deflected Lisandro Martinez shot the goal we deserved? Probably not but it's the goal we got!

1-0.

Who had a Licha banger to break this one open?

I may regret asking this but anyone know the story behind that goal celebration? Seemed to be karate chopping with one hand and grabbing his crotch with the other. Feel like his national team goalie must have inspired it somehow.

Toby Collyer saves 3 points at least temporarily with a goal line clearance header. You won't be surprised to learn it was from a corner.

Collyer with a great goal line clearance

If defenders arms counted in offside, that Amad goal would count.

That was such a massive smash and grab, I feel like it should have its own name. Looked pretty horrible but whatever. We're in full "Get to 40 points mode so we can end the league season and see if we win the Europa League lottery" mode.

I don't think we are in 40 points mode at all.


This year, 35 should easily be enough.

Amorim not mincing any words regarding Rashford post game. Good lord. Saying he'd play his GK coach before anyone (Rashford) that gave less than maximum effort in training.

So. He gone.

Shame that Rashford is wasting his talent like this