Ronaldo

I think they're already there. They aren't the team they were a few weeks ago. I watched some of their game against Norwich and the latter pushed them and were a little unlucky not to take the lead. Once Huddersfield scored they were canny but not so much before that. You're joking aren't you? Huddersfield should've been 3-0 up before they scored the first.

Yep, a lot of good stuff there.

We all know how bad Colback is but Shelvey's had just as many good games with him tbh. Neither Hayden nor Colback can be his partner next season.

Sam Allardyce taking Palace down or Paul Clement taking Swansea. I think we both know what's far more likely.

Bassong was our best central defender when we got relegated that season. That was one of the reasons why we went down. He was well rated in that season though, Spurs poached him on the back of a decent showing that year. Aye but he was actually pap. He was a poor player in an even poorer side so he impressed. He's never been a consistent midtable perfromer. He wasn't pap that season though. Aye, he was our best player by a distance. At home against Spurs, in particular, he was colossal.

The fact it happened to the biggest cunt in the Premier League makes it sit a little better.

Thing is with Shelvey, his contribution is always going to be provided in isolated moments of brilliance. I want him in the team but it's absolutely vital we partner him with the right player next season because when we don't have the ball he's a weakness.

Well done, he's 58.

Exactly. He's a winner. There's no way he'll go into a season looking to finish 17th and above. We're wasting our window with him if we don't back him completely from the off. Given our financial situation there's absolutely no excuse not to.

By all means tell us which of our players beyond the obvious 4 are PL quality. I think that would be a lot funnier. You could look at the Burnley starting XI from yesterday and do the same. You're a smart enough lad to know football doesn't work like that. Rafa Benitez is probably the best manager we'll see here for decades. I'd rather not waste his talent expecting him to get the most out of average and abject players when he should be allowed to spend serious money and mould a squad into something competitive.

By all means tell us which of our players beyond the obvious 4 are PL quality. I think that would be a lot funnier.

Come on man, at least attempt to have a normal conversation. You can't relate what happened last summer to what needs to be done this time round. We need a complete diversion from every single window we've ever had under Ashley, basically.

Exactly. Sick of seeing people whinging their tits off about the lack of Premier League quality. That isn't an issue until August and will be massively irrelevant if we strengthen as we should. This argument falls a bit flat when you consider that of the 4 players we have arguably of PL quality, 3 of them were bought last summer 'for this division'. You can understand people being little uncomfortable with the fact we basically need to buy at least 7 players for the starting Xl. It's not ideal when you're taking into account the need for immediate team cohesion. I'm sure we'd have liked better players coming in last summer, but probably not that easy to attract to the championship. In January those above Rafa decided we could do without strengthening, not much he could do about that. What in the christing fuck does that have to do with anything I've said there?

Yeah, last summer we made a massive profit selling our best players. I'd love that to happen again.

Exactly. Sick of seeing people whinging their tits off about the lack of Premier League quality. That isn't an issue until August and will be massively irrelevant if we strengthen as we should. This argument falls a bit flat when you consider that of the 4 players we have arguably of PL quality, 3 of them were bought last summer 'for this division'. You can understand people being little uncomfortable with the fact we basically need to buy at least 7 players for the starting Xl. It's not ideal when you're taking into account the need for immediate team cohesion.

Butt and Barton dominated the Championship? Aye, OK.

This season with Rafa in charge should've represented a real opportunity for him to learn and progress, like. Can't blame the environment.

He hasn't scored in the league at home this season. That's insane, like. I know his opportunities have been limited due to Rafa not rating him, but still.

Between the start of February immediately after Routledge's arrival and wrapping promotion up in early April we won by 3+ goals 6 times. We were smashing teams. We've done it 5 times this season, for a bit of perspective.

Just out of curisoity do you think Rafa is getting the best from this squad ? With the squad we have would you play 4-2-3-1 ? I think our points tally given the lack of quality we have in a number of positons is more than acceptable. I've complained about our systemic rigidity before but the more I think about it the more I think our defenders, particularly through the centre, struggle hopelessly when exposed. At home I'd probably play with 2 strikers, to answer the second question.

I don't necessarily think the football this season has been great (leaving aside the control argument), but I sometimes wonder what people expected. Even decent Premier League teams don't batter Championship teams when they meet in cup competitions and certainly very few teams in the Championship have seasons where they wipe the floor with other teams each week - it just doesn't happen and didn't happen in 09/10. By this time in 09/10 we were absolutely rampant tbh, at home anyway. We kicked on towards the end pretty much thanks to the signing of Routledge, tbf. We were pissing the league anyway by then. Routledge was a nice bonus, he wasn't a deciding factor. He was a deciding factor in us dicking teams to shreds, like. Our football was much more entertaining after we signed him.

Eh? He's lost form because his hamstring is fucked and he either can't play or can't play at 100%.

I don't necessarily think the football this season has been great (leaving aside the control argument), but I sometimes wonder what people expected. Even decent Premier League teams don't batter Championship teams when they meet in cup competitions and certainly very few teams in the Championship have seasons where they wipe the floor with other teams each week - it just doesn't happen and didn't happen in 09/10. I personally expected better than having to endure Gouffran playing CM in April, like. I don't really blame Rafa one bit but we've needlessly made this part of the season a bit of tense scrap to grab points and go.

Why not? They're shit. Better than Sheff Wed, who've done the double over us. Yep. But not as good as Brighton and Huddersfield who we've done the double over. It means nowt either way. It means we can't really take comfort from sides being 'shit'. This season we've been fairly susceptible to losing to sides who fall into or near that bracket.

We controlled the game against Wigan Athletic and Burton Albion. Erection worthy.