midds

And the trayurns marra!

Not a chance Grealish works hard enough to tick the huge boxes we need. He's not shit but he's not a Newcastle player based on what Howe needs and wants. It's a ridiculous link

In fact, they've only beaten 4 teams NOT in the relegation zone all season. City, Fulham (twice), Everton and Brentford. That's abysmal by any measures you care to use

Man U have only beaten 1 team outside of the relegation teams since the middle of December (Fulham away). They're losing their last 2 games, they're absolute pigshit

Absolute pigshit. If this is the way they go about things then even if they go up they'll struggle to get 15 points. Shutting up shop in the Championship is all well and good but the PL teams will inevitably score and they've got zero to fall back on. Hitting Championship teams on the break can get you some of the way, trying it against PL teams will mean they lose 3 or of every 4. They're just not good enough to keep clean sheets and not good enough to trouble teams at the other end. Couldn't give a fuck if they go up or not but if they do then they'll get absolutely fucking battered more often than not

Why? It's 2025

Howe's main problem will come in a couple of years time. That first raft of players we brought into the club in the first 2 windows will all be 4 or 5 years older and they too will need to be replaced, I'm thinking Trippier, Burn, Targett, Pope and Bruno (to a lesser extent). So not only will he need to continue to weed out the malingerers from the squad he inherited but he'll also need to start planning to replace the replacements. The youth teams don't appear to be churning out masses of talent and the younger players we've invested in are still a few years from developing into useful squad players. We're going to be constantly chasing for at least another 10 years yet imo. Players age and need upgrading and that includes who we have already brought in. We desperately need to get the youth system right and it needs to start producing very soon or I fear we'll never really bridge that gap. Seeing even a couple of players introduced each year would be huge, introducing players capable of even PL-squad level means more cash can go into the stars. This was the squad he inherited from the pig: That is a squad of players that was, literally, worthless. He had virtually nothing to build on and I think that gets ignored too often and makes what he's done even more impressive

Morons at work already giddy at the thought of "gerrin a tigget fur Wemboah". Just taken Coventry for granted it seems

Feels sly as fuck not giving player of the year to anyone other than the bloke who's got 24 goals but I honestly think Burn edges it this season. He's been an absolute mountain back there

PP have us as 1/50 to finish top 5 for the record. We're as low as 1/5 to go top 4. Doesn't mean it's going to happen but it'll take a ridiculous run of results for us not get at least top 5 now

No reason at all why the flag shouldn't have gone up immediately, he was about 3 or 4 yards offside. Marginal ones I'll accept but this was so obvious that it should have been flagged immediately

Nissan

Liverpool fans have always had that arrogance about their team. It's always been 'how dare anyone want to leave us to go somewhere else? Who's bigger than us?' It's even more pronounced when the player in question is a local lad obviously. They just have no concept of humility and understanding that other people may not hold them in the sky-high esteem they hold themselves in, they've always had this superiority complex about their team. They consider themselves as footballing gods, it's completely ingrained in their culture now. It's fucking rank tbph

Clear to see where the next step is to building the total up season on season. We've left lots of points on the table against mid-table teams this year, to take only 2 points from 18 from Brighton, Fulham and Bournemouth combined is something we can, and need, to correct next year. We're formidable at home and can match anyone up at SJP but we're still (understandably) struggling away to the best in the division too. No reason why we can't add to the squad depth and quality and tack another 10 points on next season - it's potentially there for us

And that's not even considering the times Caicedo fouled someone and the ref played advantage for us. I don't even blame Caicedo at this point, if the ref is stubbornly refusing to book him then why the fuck shouldn't he plough into the back of people? I'd do it. He's immune from punishment

That's management-speak for 'Please just get me the fuck out of here and be done with it' Pressured into taking the job earlier than he wanted by a leadership team who openly courted new managers this time last year only to see ten Hag win a Cup so they backtracked furiously, gave him a new contract only to sack him anyway a few months later. That club is a fucking circus and it doesn't surprise me one bit he's making noises himself about getting sacked and moving on. He knows he's made a huge mistake going into that shambles and wants to protect his reputation before it gets even worse in the next 12 months. Can't blame him but it's very very transparent at this stage

I know it's a complete intangible but seeing the Forest owner booting off on the pitch at FT would frighten the life out of me if I was a Forest fan. In isolation it means nothing but it does just reveal how much pressure they're under and how close to the edge they are of losing their collective shit now it's come down to the crunch. That was a massive tell imo and I think they'll really struggle to beat either West Ham or Chelsea now

This Arsenal side has all but thrown the towel in by the looks of it. We still need to finish the job off and win one more game but Arsenal (A) now seems like a legit bite of the cherry, I'd all but written the game off a few weeks ago but this isn't the Arsenal who looked so good earlier in the season, they're lacking so much. They're looking beaten, downtrodden and feeling sorry for themselves and we can profit from that next week, absolutely nothing to fear or lose next Sunday

Marinakis will totally take his time and consider his options over the next few weeks. He definitely doesn't have the appearance and history of a man who (over)reacts wildly to relatively minor setbacks and bumps in the road

Pretty sure it rules out the (vile) prospect of Forest and Chelsea playing out an agreed draw and us missing out, yes?

Whyaye. But you also need to know when to put the brakes on too like

He's a bit hefty like, isn't he? Loves the gyro

Ryan Mason is a shocking omission from that list of cunts

Changes nothing - we still need 3 more points. If anything it means there's more at stake for Chelsea in 2 weeks time

Second half was a bit dicey, not a massive fan of just sitting in tightly and destroying everything - only takes one mistake, one trip, one misplaced pass and you're fucked. I do think the early goal had a big part in how the rest of the game developed though. Tonali gave us a cushion and moved the onus squarely on to Chelsea to to the pressing and make the running. They had to push and take chances and that meant we could change the way we played, conserve a bit of energy and hit them on the break to wrap it up and that's exactly what happened. Jackson's stupidity also cost them and it's telling they looked better when he was in the shower than they did with him up front. The red meant Maresca had to change it up and go for it even more. We defended well, held on and did what we needed to do although a second goal shouldn't have been left that late, we had chances to settle it Overall, the result was all that mattered and we got it done today. 3 more points to get and 2 chances to wrap it up - today was the big one though and we deserved it