Colos Short and Curlies

Cancel the season now for a minimum of 4 weeks. Once things settle a bit have the top 6/8 play a mini tournament to determine the champions and European places. For the relegation/promotion slots the top 6 in the Championship and the bottom 6 in the Premier League have mini tournaments to determine ups and downs (repeated across the pyramid) Put some excitement into things

Is Ashley the overriding problem? Of course he is, however.. Would Steve Bruce deliver better results, performance and longer term improvement under a different owner? I'd say not Would another manager be capable of delivering better than Steve Bruce under Ashley's ownership and remit? I'd say that there are managers out there who can deliver decent football and league finishes under the restrictions Ashley places on the club. Yes there will be no long term stability or plan but Bruce is under performing on what our back 5 (or 6) plus ASM and Almiron provide. Therefore Bruce is the immediate issue

Time to concentrate on the cup. Yay

Criminally under capped for England but no shame in being behind Ince, Gazza, Redknapp and Platt.reckon he would have connected with the cross that Gazza just couldn't against Germany mind He'd be England's best midfielder if he was playing now, looking back on the mid 90s options we had some talent there ad a country.

Not Cabaye, Lee or Speed? I can't really comment on Lee, I never saw him. I didn't really pay much attention to Speed. Young me saw him as boring next to Solano, Dyer and Robert. ((Actually Solano might be a good shout for a template too)) Cabaye was brilliant, but I loved the way Emre seemed to have ball carrying, passing and a cracking strike on him aswell. If you want to be entertained/become depressed (about now) grab some decent highlights from the Keegan years to watch Lee. He was absolutely brilliant.

Not Cabaye, Lee or Speed?

Would've been great! And for £65M aswell!!!?? it would be like all the modern stadiums. a souless meccano style bowl. it was rightly stopped. St James Park forever. Take down the student flats and build them elsewhere to get round listed building regualtions. build over east stand and gallowgate to complete the current ground. As long as MA is the owner there is no need to expand, if we get taken over by some mega rich bloke/country then we'll be building a new stadium in time rather than expanding SJP. The time to have a fully complete SJP has passed unfortunately

See the scenes at the end of the Derby/Man U match last night. Handshakes and hugs all round.

Rather lose to them now then embarrassed at Wembley. Would quite like City to do the cup treble, marginalise Liverpool season somewhat. Unless of course the coronavirus leads to Premier league season being cancelled, which would of course be glorious in this season

Worst Football Club owner of the decade. Hmm, I mean Owen Oyston raped a lass. But those jeans

I'll say it again. The defence are Rafa's players, the attacking players bar Miggy are Bruce's. So how is our attacking play shackled by the ghost of Rafa?

This could of course be the Chronicle's reporting but so many inconsistencies/inaccuracies in such a short sentance "Jonjo has trained, Manquillo is back and all of a sudden we have 20 or so outfield players out there. You can only pick 11 and the other 10 will be disappointed. Most of the players understand that without a squad you won't survive. I expect half-a-dozen players won't be happy."

Whilst those free kicks were good, they pale into insignificance against his volleys vs Spurs

Not sure Bernard would agree with that, 100% rocket launcher from his experience

At football or somersaults?

So this season was always going to be one of struggle? Under Rafa we'd be top 6 in this league so the only reason it was going to be a struggle is Bruce.

I like Pete. Weather you want to believe it or not he provided information no need to slag him off. In many ways Ashely made lots of sad stuff but turning us on each other is top of the list. I used to go to school with Pete, can't remember a thing about him, although he was a couple of years younger. He'd no doubt say the same about me but he probably fancied my sister

If the crowd turn do you reckon he's got the cajones to stick it out or would quit at the end of the season?

Bruce ringing the changes. Schar and Miggy dropped. Muto right ring and Gayle up front 0-2

Surely somebody at the club has realised that the more time the players spend with Bruce, the further from Rafa's levels they get and they will have locked the gates today to prevent the extra session

From today's line up the back 3 + Dubs were Rafa players. Of the 'attacking' 7, 5 are Bruce buys. Another reason the argument that the players are too well drilled in Rafa's methods to be more expansive falls down

The bacon

Perfect

It'll have to be one for VAR you'd think And the lower leagues without VAR? That's why VAR should be scrapped - consistent rules and application across all leagues

Whilst you can argue about how many of these would get into a top 4/6 team, its actually quite a feat to have such poor attacking stats with: Yedlin and Willems at wingback (both better going forward than defending) Schar and Lejeune available at centre back Almiron and ASM who are very attacking and can hold onto the ball pretty well I'm not saying we should be the Entertainers reborn, but not rock bottom for attacking play