Trevor Hockey's Beard

Has football ceased to be a contact sport/ That was an incredibly soft (or wrong) penalty.

I'm happy with yesterday's result - at the moment. It reduces our game load and no one went, so no moaning about letting the travelling fans down for once. Next Saturday is the game which counts, be it the result or just the performance.

We all say this before the season starts, but the grim reality is that it is almost impossible to "kick on" in the second season. The analysts will have worked you out, the players won't be quite so motivated and the teams who have been in the Prem for longer than you are nearly all stronger and focused on grinding out results. It really is a sad state of affairs. The powers that be have allowed the Premiership to become a stale product and very unbalanced. Us "old timers" must sound like a scratched record, but it really was more interesting when the gap in quality between all the clubs was less.

The fault lies with those who supposedly run football and are supposed to vet potential owners. The management of the Premiership, EFL and FA leaves much to be desired and I suspect that they have failed to develop or buy-in the skills required to be running football in the current financial world. They act as if they are bedazzled by the riches of Premiership football and the top clubs, and show a serious lack of vision or any plan to make football in this country sustainable. If they saw the need for a long term plan they would be seeking ways to funnel money down through the different leagues and to support "grassroots" football. They would also be more professional in controlling who takes over ownership of clubs.

Snore.

I feel that we should keep our powder dry where the promoted clubs are concerned. Let us wish them luck and just give them the benefit of our experience (West Brom and Fulham hardly need it as they've barely been away, although it does seem to get tougher every year), and see where they end up at the end of the season. It may be that Rodrigo is an inspired signing - he may be the ideal match for how Bielsa wants to play and works out like Teemu did and just needed a team to be built around him, or maybe he'll be another Wesley or Joelinton. Time will tell. The other two promoted teams have not been very busy so far. They've basically bought their best loan player (Pireira and Knockaert). Fulham are saying that they aren't going to buy many players, but West Brom have quite an ageing squad and Bilic had a big thread on here with his talk about how they weren't going to follow our example. It's going to be an interesting season, but I'm not interested enough to bother watching MOTD this season.

As Donald J Trump would say: "The Germans don't even have a word for Schadenfreude."

There's a comment about Messi has signed for Cambridge.

It's early days, but Mumba looks like a steal - no wonder some Sunderland fans were angry that they sold him - he couldn't even get in their team

It certainly isn't very friendly, but I think Farke is shouting in German "Win this game and you sleep with their wives." But it was a long time ago that I did German, and I got a "U".

Who will play in the No. 10 role in the next game? I thought Stiep and Dowell were our main 2 for that position? I feel that Stiep has a role to play this season, but not sure that out on the right wing is the place for Dowell. This and last game have been good tests for dealing with a high press - we have coped reasonably well so far, but they hit the post when we lost the ball just outside the area. This has not been the most convincing defensive display, but this season may be another one of scoring more goals than the other team.

Do we have a problem if none of our "star" players go? Will our squad be too big? Can we afford all these players? Will the newbies be happy to sit on the bench or not even make the matchday squad?

Well he certainly succeeded with that. It suggests that he already feels part of the team. He didn't look too rusty and seemed "up for it".

I think this is where the true irony of Covid will be, as Chinese individuals and Companies buy up British Companies and assets at will.

A couple of thoughts I've had recently are: re Brexit and the last election - Just because they won doesn't make them right. And re this Government, I am inclined to paraphrase Johnson's dodgy hero: "We can rely on this Government to do the right thing....once it has exhausted all the other possibilities."

My favourite moment was our last corner, when someone did a Martin Peters and ran to the near post and flicked it across the goal - haven't seen that since... well since Peters played for us. I thought Hugill put himself about and we seemed to be winning more headers.

I realise that he's paid a lot, but apparently he's got a "Golden Leg". Talk about being showy. My Mum wouldn't have approved, she didn't like overt displays of wealth.

I thought it was his Mojo which he was missing. Atom Heart Mother anyone?

How depressing. Now they can go on and splash the cash - I see that they've signed David Marshall already.

"You'll never win anything with kids!" Best said with a deep Scottish accent.

It seems to work quite well for Man City.

Agreed. This is not an exciting signing, but may well look like a good signing in a few months time. He is a known quantity and we haven't paid over the odds (compared with the £7 million Wednesday were said to want for Rhodes last season).

How long has it been since they were allowed to use newspaper to wrap up our fish and chips? Political Correctness gone mad. PS This your first post Yorkshire that I have read to the end. You may have excellent points and I might be 100% in agreement with you, but I find the single large paragraph too daunting, like a stream of consciousness or a page of Ulysses - albeit with punctuation.

We could have sponsorship for individual positions: Right wing : The Conservative Party - although some might say that they are so right wing that the player would be running up and down outside the ground. Left wing : The Labour Party - although some might say that they are more Central Midfield these days Striker : Unite or GMB Left back : A-level students from deprived areas. Right back (to the 1950s): Vote Leave. No 10 : Rishi Sunak ( we have to look to the future here and not flog an old horse) No 1 : Tena Lady No 2 : Andrex Substitutes ( an unlimited number) : Tesco's Home Delivery Service

Yes, and with a zero goal difference, so the defence must have tightened up, or we are scoring more.