Colos Short and Curlies

If it wasn't for injuries then we'd be adding Rob Jones, Woodgate and King into the conversation at the back

Scored a brilliant goal as well...was it against Man U? Debut wasn't it? And yes Man U

Wanchope is in the favourite 11 just for changing the pronunciation of his name 100 times to confuse commentators

Ginola I’d say. Or Andy Cole. Cole is probably the answer - he has the stand out achievement for goals in a season even if the bulk of his career was post NUFC We won’t like it, but Owen? 97-02 he was elite level. Always forget he played for us in these type of discussions. Goals record pretty similar but Cole's record 1994 to 2001 was 1 in 2 and his 34 goals wipes the floor with Owen's best return. Cole for me

Ginola I’d say. Or Andy Cole. Cole is probably the answer - he has the stand out achievement for goals in a season even if the bulk of his career was post NUFC

Most disappointing by reputation XI? Veron in the middle, Schevchenko and Rebrov upfront Keeper's are tricky, Barthez was erratic but not horrible, Kepa suffers from hype rather than reputation fill in the gaps

Nah, give it another 24 hours for more dirt to sneak out onto social media then let him squirm.

I reckon Longstaff or Shorstaff are the mole

Ritchie apology and Charnley at the training ground suggests he will, sadly. Unless Ashley personally steps in and orders the chop after we lose at the weekend. It becoming public changes things

The bit (understandably) glossed over is that the players want Jones in charge to the end of the season. He obviously has some standing with the players

Ritchie is the only person in the world who could be angry eating a Happy Meal. The one player in the squad you don't want to have an argument with

Obviously they are on a different league to us this season, but all 4 of those teams away from home are liable to a shocker. Shame we pull a shocker every game...

Should be. If we are ahead of Brighton after we play City then we stay up. Burnley maybe, although they have Sheff Utd (a) last game so could pick up 3 there. I can't see more than 2 of us, Brighton, Burnley, Fulham getting more than a point per game between now and the end of the season so if we can get 12 before Fulham then we should be safe

Now I have a headache

Really like that lineup. Could see that actually getting some results, mostly due to the legs in midfield and having Dummet in the back four, as we will need to be stronger defensively with our best attackers out. It also takes the goal scoring burden off Joelinton, and instead puts pace and running around him, as the one thing he will do well most often is play people in. The only problem is Bruce will never setup this way. Really like the thinking though I put this into the relegationometer thread, albeit with the possibility of Carroll and Gayle uptop. It's basically direct wing play with legs in the middle to support attack and defence as needed. Basically how I set up every game in Pro Evo / Fifa! It's basic, it's rustic - it's actually quite early days Premier League standard but it's our best hope of overrunning West Brom and Brighton in particular. Murphy can deliver a ball and Fraser is pretty good as well. Carroll and Gayle aren't bad in the air and the key is to have people in and around them to pick up any loose balls or keeper fumbles

In a weird way the injuries might play into our favour for the West Brom gams. A forced 4-4-2 with Murphy and Fraser on the wings, Haydon and Willock in the middle and the old fashioned Big man / Little man combo upfront with Gayle and either of AC or Joelinton. No frills, nothing clever. Plays right into Bruce's hands and a direct approach like this might not be the worst thing in the world against a Big Sam team. Of course this all falls apart when Bruce sticks Haydon at RB, Ritchie at RW, Shelvey in the middle then tries to be clever to with 2 false 9's

Bring back Roger Thames!

Had a dream we won this 6-3 last night. Saivet got 4 and Shearer 2, so unlikely to actually happen

My concern (see above) is we are conceding far too many goals and look like we are going to whenever a team attacks our goal. It’s ok scoring goals, but, do we have the players to score 2, 3 or more to keep churning out results. Our defensive formation is very poor no matter which players are in position. The system currently is certainly not providing a good defensive platform. The obvious solution is to bring Dubravka back in and then once fit Fed comes in to partner Lascelles. Full backs are a problem, need Manquillo back

Bruce never saves bacon

People keep saying this, yet they've won three times this season. Once since November. Picked up more points than us since November. Who hasn't? Big Sam?

They need a new pic of Amanda anyway, that one has to be 6 months old. Surely she has a Zoom snapshot showing off her library that they could use to reflect the current day

He'd probably get a bounce and 3-4 wins between now and the end of the season which would probably keep us up. He's then a hero in his own mind

You just know that Bobby would have embraced the crowds reaction to KK and encouraged the team to feed off it. Would love to see how Bruce, or Pardew for that matter, would deal with it

Fuck, so its the FA as well as the PL that are determining our fate. We're in the brown stuff for sure FA=Fat Ashley Who?