Recent content by GBrannan

I was including this season as the second season. It’s fine. We can disagree. Cut the abuse though

I think he had. It stemmed from the season culminating with the Lyon defeat. We’re still miles below the standards we set two years ago. This season there’s obvious reasons for it given the turn around time. We’d looked stale for a while, but Dias coming in and our new found, rock solid...

The team didn’t play like it. We were porous in defence and abject in attack. Guardiola found a way but for mostly two years, not just this season, we’re well below our best. In the past few weeks (4 weeks or so) it feels like he’s back because he knows what the team needs as there’s now...

People didn’t have to write the team off to see things were off. Pep had lost his way, looked disinterested etc. But Dias has been a huge addition. Pep seems to have got really hot for defence, he’s always been interested which is testament to our previous records, but the absolute security...

Strap yourself in. You’re in the game

Weirdly, it looks like after years of excellent defenders and no creativity we’re going to end up with loads of attacking options and very little in net or in defence.

They’ll also have to replace him... and maybe Milner too, who is coming to the end now as he’s picking up injuries. They’ll also need a CB.

Very shit. Abysmal. Up there with Danny Mills for his level of being ineffectually shit for recent(ish) full backs.

Neither party are likely to come out feeling like they gained the upper hand. We had an unhappy player that wanted to go and was going to leave for free in a year. Let’s be generous and say his performances had been mixed thus far, and based on our summer business was likely to be 4th or more...

Pretty much how I see it. An absolute top player and we’ll miss him as a player and a leader. It’s a shame we made such a mess of CB recruitment last season because he could still have done a very decent job there with slightly better mobility. For, his speed and range of pass and his quick...

Pleased you won after the years of woe and your pre-game hurdles... You can definitely score points on the Chiefs. As you say, it’s just keeping them out that’s the problem. You need to find a Ruben Dias and you’ll be fine.

It’s like they’ve not watched our team before Dias came and after. I let my subscription lapse with the Athletic in December. The majority of the written articles are puff pieces in the PL. Sam Lee has definitely lost his edge there too. He used to get exclusive stuff before but now anything...

I lost my mother when she was 53 and I was aged 30. The doctors didn’t expect her to deteriorate so quickly after a cancer diagnosis. However, we could see she clearly had declined and wasn’t well and this just didn’t seem to register on the scale you’d expect. Obviously your circumstances are...

Both teams were really poor tonight. That’s the Champions League though, we’ll be playing them next month when we might have turned to offensive crap again and they might be playing better. All things considered though, coupled with competent referees, we should have too much at both ends of...

I think he’d be better in a more central role. But then I think we’ve got players who’ll be even better than him there, in that same position. Unless something weird happens I think he’ll be phased out as the season evolves and he’ll be moved on in the summer. He’s far from shite, he’s lots of...