TRon

I dread seeing this thread now. I fully expect the next time it's bumped it will be tragic news.

I don't know about dishing out a hammering, but it definitely feels similar in that we have been frustrated by recent results, and I just get the feeling we will win by any means necessary today. I reckon there's a lot of players who will be desperate to win today, and I can't see Bournemouth stopping us.

Nevertheless it was still quite surprising to read a Samuels article which didn't make me want to pick up a pitchfork. City's intentions might have been dubious, but his central point that the rules were put in place to protect the old guard was not wrong. We saw the concerted efforts to block our takeover, and the main reason was they didn't want competition.

Well said. Why would we give a flying fuck about their promising youngsters? Sunderland is like a skid mark on the whole region, best thing all round would be for them to get relegated back to the third division.

Regardless of whether we can expand the stadium, it's nice that we have owners who put some value on our property, unlike the cunt who was willing to sell it off piecemeal to line his own pockets.

No idea tbh, just rubs me up the wrong way. First they spent their way to success using Roman's dirty cash, and even with him gone they just seem to be able to throw cash at every player going.

I hope he's somehow ok, although not looking great is it? Last time something this tragic happened with a footballer was the death of Emiliano Sala in the plane crash.

Chelsea have been the worst of the lot IMO.

Man U are going strong, they have a much bigger squad to cope with injuries. Spurs I really felt might be out of it, but somehow they've found a way to win, and again they have much more strength in depth so should be favourites. I think we needed that 6 points cushion, it's gone in the space of a couple of weeks.

I love Scotland man. I would rather head north than south any day of the week. But seriously, don't find offence when none is meant. Some of my family still don't talk to me because I casually mentioned Scotland is mostly made up of little villages. That was meant to be a compliment but somehow got translated into an insult.

He's one of the best posters by a country mile. I'm hoping this is sarcasm and it's wooshed right over my head.

Always felt like he was a force of nature personally. We had Demba, Tiote, Hatem and Cabaye in the same side. It was like all of them came together to create a perfect storm, not sure any of them would have been great at different points in their career. And that fraud Pardew probably added 6 years to his managerial career on the back of it.

Agree, and we can do it as well. But just need to keep our feet on the ground a bit and realise we are punching way above our weight class so CL should not be an expectation, but a dream scenario.

Someone needed to write this. I've been a bit down since the Spurs win, but it cheered me up a bit so thanks.

Absolutely. Still gutted mind, a week ago I still thought we had the CL in our grasp, but feels like it's slipping away now. Not that surprising, I'm pretty sure I made the same point as you, our squad just isn't as strong as our competition. We were trying to recruit a midfielder from Chelsea who doesn't even feature much for them and they still told us to fuck off. That is what we are up against.

This is definitely one time I am happy to be proven spectacularly wrong.

I didn't particularly want Eriksen tbh, so not sure signing someone on loan to replace him would make much difference. They paid £60m for Casemiro who is 31, I thought that was bad business, but tbf he's fucking class. But even they have had to balance the budget over the last few years to stay in there. They have a much larger financial base to take such punts.

For someone who looks about 7ft he's absolutely shit in the air.

I noticed that as well. We had some fantastic situations but were undone by unnecessary dithering. Very frustrating since we are clearly trying to switch this up, but it's not natural to players who aren't used to operating at such high levels. Not their fault really, we are asking guys who could barely find a place in our side a year ago to play CL football.

That cross near the end where he ended up overhitting it by about 10 yards summed it up pretty well. He's game as owt, but he's not a left back.

Hope they don't park the bus again, at least not when they are playing at home. They did it very successfully up here.

I don't think it was complacent, they are just sticking to their plan, which is only recruit players who we really want, and who will take us to the next level. I'm sure they would love to bring in more bodies, but to be better than what we've got would mean getting the wrong side of FFP. Everton did this a couple of seasons ago and look at them now. Chelsea are also going for broke, and if they don't make the top 4 they will also have to face the music next season. It's very tempting to go for broke, but sometimes that can end up with you literally going broke.

I actually like that he doesn't try to dribble past his man in the low block and looks for one-twos to get past them instead. When more of our players start doing this, that's when we play our best football.

This is what I mean, it's not easy to do that in the middle of a scrum of players, he takes a lot of pressure in possession rather than look for the easy pass. I didn't think it was one of his better games tbh, but that just means he wasn't outstanding.

It's a lazy line, I don't really follow Scottish football, just assume it's shit because the national team is shit. I have a lot of family in Scotland btw, and they all get really narked when I take the piss. No sense of humour.