Karjala

Bye Bye Cabaye. £20m is all I expect...

No doubt we will gift them 3 points and set them up on a high for the league cup final that they will go on and win before continuing their turn in form to avoid relegation by a single point.

Indeed, "he who laughs last..."

any team news for tonight?

Any other fucking season and getting manure in the semi would be a certain loss, but this year... Can see it going to extra time and mackems nicking it, unfortunately.

Not sure about that, if they won a cup they'd have bragging rights for a fair few years, probably for the rest of my life actually. I'd take winning the League cup and getting relegated.

Hopefully Poyet rests a few players for their "must win" home match to Southampton, they get trounced. Then go to OT full of hope for a cup final, and get trounced. No cup, and relegation closer.

Cabaye to manure then?

How lucky are they to get 50k week in, week out? Makes you wonder why supporters waste their money.

You'd still have to fancy manure in the 2nd leg and hopefully the mackems needing to put out a good team will knacker them for the league. Still, pretty fuckin disappointed with that result.

manure are terrible...

Might be getting ahead of myself, but cant help but hope that this is the beginning of a shit period for manure, a realisation that they have mediocre players and need a fair few signings and no longer have a god given right to turn up and win. Hopefully we see seasons of this, with plenty of home defeats, Asian fans deciding to go elsewhere to 'watch their team win' and crowds decline. Lack of champions league qualification for a couple of seasons will also see their big names leave, and no world class stars want to join...

HAHA Fucking shite

we have been shite against an awful Cardiff team with no real ambition to win the match. Quality.

Agree with your first points, but I reckon if they beat us they will stay up, as it will give them the boost they need, just like we gave them last season - had we beat them, im sure they would be in the Championship now.

Yeah that sounds like bullshit. There are plenty of other clubs that are more likely to have broken that rule, if it even exists.

We wont be relegated now, and seems we wont qualify for Europe via the league. We should be giving this cup everything! But obviously our owners said mid table is more important than a cup win, so fuck knows.

So, 20 games in they have 3 wins: vs NUFC - Borini superstrike at the death, hasn't scored a league goal since vs Man C - scored against run of play, put 11 men behind the ball and Man City had their 1 shocker (having scored 7 the week before, and 6 the week after) vs Everton - Howard sent off, penalty scored, Everton miss a load of chances. This lot are shite.

or 3pts from West Ham (a), Norwich (h), Cardiff (a) and Villa (h) with a grand total of 2 goals scored.

That's the first of the mackems winnable January games fucked up then... Fulham away next.

Ben Arfa could be best used as a sub today IMO.

That's exactly it, we have beat teams as good as Arsenal this season, so have nowt to be afraid of!

Would be amazed if Ozil doesn't play, given that Ramsey is out.

None of those teams will roll over, and aren't guaranteed wins. Of those teams, our results at home we have played 5 of them and won 2, drew 2, lost 1.

Looking at the positives, the mackems have only won 3 games all season - and 3 they are unlikely to repeat, its arguable whether they deserved any of those 3. They are currently on a 'good run', but after matches against West Ham, Norwich and Cardiff, they didn't beat any of them. Every game is a massive one for them, and January is packed full of fixtures. They don't have the squad to compete in all competitions, so must field hugely weakened sides, even by their standard, in the cup games. Ultimately they are bottom after having played all the other 19 teams.