Yorkie

No surprise if he's crocked given how much he's played but hopefully someone is just enforcing a rest. He was rubbish in the first leg against Barca and we need him on top form over there.

Feel like I need to phone the GP tbh.

sorry. Not a clue how I went so badly wrong with the maths there. Point remains.

It isn't done by any metric; we've got 45 points to play for.

The best scenario is that he picks his arse up and performs something like the player Brentford fans loved and rated extremely highly.

If you count resting Joelinton's legs as doing nothing...

There really is nothing that warms my cockles more than PL clubs making tits of themselves against European opponents. How the fuck have Palace failed to score in two home games against Cyprus' third best team ffs? Embarrassing. I assume they put 11 men behind the ball but surely you still find a way against that standard of opponent?

that 5th place finish was all Pardew, like.

I'd be happy to see Wissa in from the start but my assumption is that he is in no position to be starting games. If he is, great, and let's hope it's the true start, after his false one.

jla sp

I've no time at all for that podcast, and I also don't think co-comms should have obvious allegiances to one of the playing sides... However, there is something wonderfully nostalgic about Jon Champion and Alan Shearer doing comms for a Newcastle Champions League game.

I'm saying you maybe had a point, but just hanging onto Wilson for another year would've been the low risk option to delivered no worse results than the Wissa signing. All hindsight of course

Ramsdale Trippier - Botman - Burn - Hall Woltemade - Tonali - Ramsey Murphy - Osula - Willock Rests for Thiaw, Joelinton, Elanga, Barnes, Gordon. Shame we can't give Tonali a rest; the Miley injury is such a pisser. None of this 'play the kids' shite please. The league season is far from done.

I've no beef with Wissa the person; it's just the fact that his transfer failing has had a massive impact on the season. Going from Isak to no reliable strikers has been a sledgehammer to the season. Going from a gap left by Almiron to an underperforming winger has been annoying, but hasn't really been a contributing factor to our regression.

Woltemade + 50% of Wilson's time is still more than Woltemade + Wissa, with £55m saved. @LFEE has made the suggestion (edgelord check still pending) that we shouldn't have signed any striker and kept our powder dry until the market settled down. Keeping Wilson would've at least enabled us to hold some money back. I think the underlying point is that, as far as the striker situation went, we were between a rock and a hard place, and then got an additional boulder to the knackers when Wissa did his knee. I don't think Howe etc really deserve any stick at all for how the striker situation has turned out

In all seriousness, trying to hang onto Wilson for another year probably wasn't the nutty decision it seemed, without knowing of Isak's imminent actions. Would've gone down like an almighty shit sandwich but he'd have offered more than Wissa has. We got totally fucked as far as the strikers go and I've no beef at all with the Howes, Nickson, and whoever else was charged with getting deals done last summer. The only one you can give them stick for is Elanga, but even he has just been a case of massively underperforming as opposed to being an obviously bad choice. Other than that, Thiaw's been great; Ramsey hasn't pulled up trees yet but looks odds-on to be a long-term success; and even Ramsdale - for all he's nothing special - has been good value for a backup goalie.

Snapped Isak didn't he? Sign and immediately give him an honorary degree from Northumbria uni.

Literally just a better goalie probably puts us in the top 7 even with all our issues up top.

God it would be fucking unreal if we ended up being the last PL team standing. Obviously extremely unlikely given Arsenal's result but still. Very happy to see four PL teams get cunted this week.

Real Betis tomorrow night in the Europa. Expect they're probably serious underdogs but would love to see them progress. The comms on one of the recent highlights packages seemed to reckon he was under pressure at Panathinaikos but they're in good form atm.

Great stuff.

Bournemouth pennas was Gordon > Woltemade > Bruno > Tonali > Joelinton > Hall > Miley > Barnes > Thiaw

I don't think we were naive last night. Going for a second goal was an entirely justifiable approach and their equaliser wasn't a direct result of that. It was a direct result of incredibly poor decision-making from Gordon, poor tracking from Tonali and an unfortunate rick from Thiaw. We had plenty of men behind the ball at that point.

Not sure how I feel today, probably a bit deflated more than anything. Proud of course but then I always tend to feel proud of this team and manager, because they always represent this club and the fans so well. It was a great performance and the players continue to blow my mind with the levels they're achieving despite the most punishing of schedules. I was convinced we'd get a result because I always believe in them to step up in these real crunch games, especially at SJP. They did so, and would have been very good value for the win. Without the penalty, Barcelona's xG was 0.6, which is some feat against a team who are absolute goal machines in La Liga. ... Which makes it all the more frustrating that we contrived to throw it away in a completely self-inflicted manner. Bad habits are our identity this season, and they are why the history books will eventually file this season under forgettable. This was a huge opportunity to bank another famous night in the Howe era, squandered. We just don't have it in us this season. That said, I don't think there's a significant difference between a 1-0 and a 1-1 going into the second leg. Barcelona will surely find the net at the Nou Camp, which means we will have to as well, regardless. It's just that stinging feeling that we could and should've been able to say that we beat them. Ah well, a great performance and a really enjoyable occasion despite the late heartbreak. Still in the tie, and onwards and upwards.

Cannot be fucked with this at all. Hate going to Stamford Bridge. We can't afford to throw it because we're still not that far adrift of the European places, but we'll probably lose anyway.