Moyes said when Declan Rice moves it will be for a British record transfer fee. Which is either £107m for the record paid by a British team or £100m for the record paid for a British player. I don’t think it will be, Rice only has 1 year left on his deal and won’t sign a new one. No one is paying £100m+ for a guy with 12 months on his deal when they could wait for a year and get him for free. I’d say he’s going for £70m

Nay. Nuh.

Hairy moment….

Salah has gone off the boil so much, at times he can barely control the ball. It’s part of the reason I’d never have him in the top tier of Prem greats. The very best were great every season. Think of Henry, pretty much unplayable from 10 games in to his Arsenal career until when he left

If we are to face more of these ten man defences, doubling up on wingers then it would seem one of the obvious personnel switches would be to take of Xhaka and play either Vieira/Emile Smith Rowe/Trossard there. Players who excel in tight spaces

Jesus give it a rest ffs!

Received! Thanks, Daz.

Game on! Kane opens the scoring.

Am I allowed to be excited by that?

I’ve read conflicting things about 1 year options so it might be 2 years from this summer. Either way it’ll be high enough that the negotiators will be protracted allowing every club, his dog and his wife to horn in on it. I very much remain to be convinced he’ll sign for us.

Let me know what soap you use afterwards and if it works…

Not that I’m complaining this time but how do City gift Spurs so many easy goals? It’s crazy how they fall apart v spurs.

Yeah I’m admiring Harry Kane’s use of his physicality, gonna need that soap info stat please.

It’s got a very us against Everton away feel about it.

You are negotiating with David Sullivan and Karen Brady. Total spivs that will inevitably turn it into an auction regardless of contract expiry.

The only thing you can really say is that they have a duty to the player given his contribution to the club so a mudryk type situation would be less likely and united, chelsea and city seem stocked,up in that department with all recently acquiring defensive midfield players

But it’s true. How much have you seen in the media about Liverpool this year? How many difficult questions for Klopp? Plenty of people think Liverpool are borderline untouchable in the media. Compare it also to when they went head to head with City for the title - the media to a man absolutely fawning and willing them to win it. Look at the treatment Arteta has received in contrast.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we were 10th with Liverpool’s results? Any tough questions of £80m flopp Nunez? I recall when Sancho had no goal and no assists in 7 games sky sports did a whole 007 James Bond micky take of Sancho….well Cody Gakpo also has zero goals and assists in 7 games. Not a peep from anyone about how poor a signing he’s been so far…?

I know someone that was with him a couple of nights ago and it’s a move to Chelsea he wants, so I think the £100m + fee will be a given. They also mentioned something else which would not sit well with Arteta, I think it will be the Brighton lad we pursue.

I wonder how much cash Boehly would throw at signing Saka. Lots I’d venture to suggest.

Holding thumbs

Not now it hasn’t. City have woken up. Sadly we never did. Also Tottenham have gone passive, and Everton certainly didn’t.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!

Would be massive for us if spurs can hang on here but they are fluffing real chances to finish City off.

I’m watching, but trying not to think about it too hard.

Spurs have missed so many chances you feel it’s inevitable City will score in the last minute. Even a draw is a good result though

Not allowing myself to hope until the final whistle blows. Spurs have disappointed too many time in the past.

I’m back into counting down the clock mode. Not enjoying it much.

Enjoying it even less now with the red card.

Here we go.

So far so good.....

Wow. Excellent result in the circumstances.

Amazing how these small teams raise their game when the big boys are in town.

Looking like a great result for us
Only downside is it narrows our comfort zone to champions league football to 11 points though we do have game in hand on spurs.
Bigger.picture though is city didn't take advantage to our result!!!!!
Still 5 points clear!!!

City surrounding the ref so much in that game. The charge they put on us is being made to look more and more questionable every week.

11 points and 2 games in hand on spurs. Win those 2 home games in hand and even if spurs go at 2.5 points per game (all but the form of the greatest prem sides ever) then we’d only need 8 wins from our last 16 games to finish above them.

Of course stranger things have happened but I can’t see this season being a 95+ point title win despite the 50 points we reached at half way. If you gave me 90 points now I’d snap your hand off for it

Is this the South African version of fingers crossed?

Precisely. I wasn't aware that it is SA-specific. It appears to be Dutch/German idiom that has migrated into SA English.

I love it. We used to do something like that at primary school. You’d stick your thumb between your first and second finger in a fist and say “Paxis” (we pronounced it pax-ees) and then you were safe in any game you were playing and couldn’t be caught. I can see now it probably came frm the Latin Pax meaning peace. Looking back we were 7years old or whatever and had no clue what it meant. How far back did that tradition go I wonder!!

Brings to mind ‘fainites’. A real blast from the past.

Check LTG.

Fingers crossed and shouted.

I was trying to google that but couldn’t spell it.

I agree and admit to being far more nervous about that Everton result than most. Everton did well but nothing startling from a tactical perspective. Doubling up on our wingers has been increasing in frequency and there doesn’t currently seem to a way around it. Expect Brentford to work just as hard as Everton but with a lot more of a scoring threat. My gut is saying that it’s going to be a bit of a roller coaster as the season winds on. Especially having to grind results and more draws than the first half. Arteta has proven that he can change things up to fix problems so fingers crossed he has another avenue that’s not so heavily reliant on the flanks.