Yorkie

That was a clear FK on Barnes Hilarious reffing performance

A half of trying to break down a low block awaits

So high absolute banter goalkeeper

Marco Bizoff

Villa keeper sent off

The whole 'get rid of VAR' argument is predicated on the acceptance that there's gonna be occasions where you're gonna get robbed without it... just as you get robbed with it. We've had worse injustices than this with VAR.

Woltemade, Trippier is 18 for acceleration mate.

They've been poor going forward. Surely there's a goal for us in this and then who knows.

Well held up by my Osula, tough finish for Barnes

Nowt coming off for Barnesy so far.

Exactly. Yeah it's annoying. Almost as annoying as the fun police ruling out Schär's winner in this competition last season.

Osula shot goes out for a throw

Ah well

Wolt started really well

Well like I say, I'm not gonna pretend to know the financial implications of each permutation, but they've obviously taken the view that there wasn't a FB on the market in January who would've been worth the outlay, factoring in the impact on the summer budget. We don't have the luxury of just buying and buying if signings don't work out; the next FB we get will have to be a genuine first team prospect in the long-term imo.

I reckon Osula has more chance of getting a chemistry degree than developing any chemistry with Woltemade, but I'm definitely happy to see him back in the squad. Any fresh legs at all is very welcome. And I do like the mad fucker so hopefully he has a good game.

Well my initial phrasing of the question was "do you not buy it, or do you just think they're stupid" but thought that would contradict my assertion that I wasn't being snarky. Fair enough. Without knowing the ins and outs of our financial wiggle room, personally I don't think it's a stupid decision to safeguard our summer budget, assuming investing in full-back cover would've had a meaningful impact on that.

So do you basically just not buy the explanation regards PSR and maximizing the budget for the summer? Do you think it's BS? Not being snarky, genuinely asking. To me, if Bruno's injury totally ends the season then I'd argue we're even more vindicated in not making a short-term investment in January.

You reckon we should've bought a 7th center-midfielder?

Yeah I've got absolutely zero optimism for a result here; it was a horrible draw when you consider the dozens of kinder fixtures that were available. I feel like we really could have done with Wout Faes' Monaco as opposed to blinking Azerbaijan in midweek too. With an injury per game and endless traveling I'm not sure we can have too high expectations of the team atm, so hopefully people don't annihilate the morale if we get beat.

Great read. I'm convinced he'll be mint eventually. Didn't realise he'd become a dad since he arrived; you can't underestimate the impact that has on your life. I've no idea how comparable fatherhood is if your wage is six figures a week as opposed to three*, but surely it's seismic regardless. *

It's an absolute miracle it hasn't happened before now tbh. He's played 230 games for club and country since he signed for us. That's an average of more than one game per week constantly, for four years straight. Plus all the travel, training, and the mental toll of representing his country and captaining his club.

I think you take the rough with the smooth with this ownership. It rid us of Ashley and probably gives us a better chance than most at closing the gap to the cartel; at the expense of stuff like having overt Saudi connections during the day-to-day, and reminders that we're only a small part of the portfolio (eg Nunez transfer).

We signed those players to go from bottom half to top. The point Ange is making (which I agree with) is you then have to buy the best in the league to make the next leap. We tried to do that but couldn't and so we targeted the best quality we could. I agree that we should sign players from abroad and we always do. I'm just make a defence for our choices to sign the best PL players we could.

I get it but I really can't be fucked with Brentford either. Irritates me that they're good.