Chris_R

I also hate upside-down formations. I don't care if it's more in 'order' by traditional numbers (not that this means anything these days) it puts all the left players on the right and vice versa. Ridiculous way to list a team.

Wolves and Burnley are gone, think we can all agree on that. Leeds are probably one good result from safety. Spurs are a point clear with a much better goal difference, so probably worth an extra point. There's also 2 teams that have to overhaul them for them to go down. For that reason I reckon they'll be fine, sadly. Would love to see West Ham go if Spurs stay up, I want to see a proper "Ever-present" PL team get flushed for a change rather than the same teams just bobbing up and down all the time from the Championship, which is what it would feel like if it was Wolves, Burnley and Forest to go. Though of course Forest going is funny for how Marinakis has behaved plus it might release Anderson, though that only helps us if he wants us again and we want him again. Bit poinltess from our perspective if he just fucks off to Man City etc. So Spurs >>> West Ham >>> Forest is my order of preference. So clearly Forest go down.

TBF the 4 minutes are a MINUMUM of 4 minutes. If the ref has decided it's 4m30 to play, he'll have the board put up for 4m. No real issue with that. Plus any additional stoppages need adding on that occur during the 4m.

The same Osula who recently sprinted faster than any other PL player the length of the pitch, skinned two man u players then smashed an injury time winner into the corner? That one? I'm going to take it as more a positive reflection of Osula than a negative of others.

Sure, and I'm 7'2"

This is where I'm at with him. He made some saves last night look brilliant because he's short for a keeper so has to dive for everything. A big man just sticks his hand out. Fair enough he's still saving those shots, but it's not those shots that are the problem. The problem is when anything goes in the corner, he's got fuck all chance of getting anywhere near it. That said he was great with the ball last night, something he's consistently good at. Playing with 10 isn't so bad when your keeper can just be the extra outfield player at times. He played well last night, but overall I don't think he's the long-term solution as No 1. I don't care how good enough he is as a footballer, he's just not good enough as a goalkeeper. A few Hollywood saves of shots others could almost catch won't change my mind on that. I hope our scouting team are working overtime because I think Pope seems on the wane or at least has trust issues with his body, and Ramsdale is not the solution either. We've just got to limp through to summer though.

What's it say? I refuse to either accept their tracking cookies or pay to read it.

Hopefully they "concentrate on the league" and play the kids

Me too. Don't get the hate or people saying they'd snap their hand off for £12. He's not perfect, but who is? He's direct and terrifying for the opposition when he's in full flight. Last season he proved he's got end product too. This season a lot hasn't come off for him but he'll get that back. If it's for someone else for a cheap price, I'll be livid.

Pipe down big shot, you're not the only one on here earning £8.52/hour.

Last night's 'goal' looked offside in real time, and I thought he looked offside in slow-mo and with a freeze frame. I was actually very surprised that the 3D model had him as close as it did to being onside. Without video replays, the linesman is flagging that because historically linesmen always have. They see someone break the line and more often than not assume they're offside and the flag goes up. I'm not sure there's a world where without video replays that goal stands. At least it was given the chance of standing. Delays are frustrating, but more decisions are now correct even if we can moan about it only being correct by some forehead skin. The alternative is more wrong decisions, and people back to yelling about linesman incompetence, "how can't they get this right?", "why aren't we using technology?" You can't even put in a margin of error - Needs clear daylight etc - because there's still an arbitrary line, you're just moving it somewhere else on the pitch.

I mean isn't that true of any transfer?

We just look so shit in possession. We used to defend deep and break fast, and it worked well. Now we try to play some kind of slow buildup by working the ball around but we just don't know how to. It's horrible to watch, we just don't look like a good football team. Ironically we look better against good teams because we revert to sitting deep and countering fast. Problem is because those teams are very good, we still get beat. But at least we look capable of attacking, whereas this 'way' of playing just isn't working even against mediocre teams.

This. I'll not judge anyone on missing a single effort, I'm sure we could find Shearer missing some easy efforts if we looked back hard enough. It's about patterns, about how a player plays overall. Miss those every week and there's an issue, miss one? Meh. Especially as it had zero effect on the game.

Well I guess I'll find something else to do now

That is disgraceful, what are wasps doing out in this weather?

That's not a criticism though, Brighton have punched well above their weight for ages. Who can blame Sunderland for trying to follow in their footsteps?

47 points. Fucking hell. I am quite traumatised by playing these cunts over the years, I'll not be relaxed unless we're at least 3 up.

And again. Dumb cunt determined to get another red.

Gordon a fucking idiot for raising his hands but the reaction is laughable.

I mean I've no idea but I watched Shola Ameobi stand a good 15+ yards from goal and just throw his arm up and punch a ball away in the box once, so these things do happen (to Shola).

I've thought this a lot lately and it reminds me of some times I've watched cricket. Sometimes you see a batsman get all defensive and refuse to play shots, just blocking the ball. The upshot of that is that the fielders get in closer and closer, crowding you out, so when you do inevitably nick one then there's someone standing right on your toes to grab it. If the opposition KNOW you won't try to whack one, they get ever more confident in closing you down. Often you need to take a risk and put your bat through a few to drive the fielders back, then when you do pop one up in the air there's nobody standing on your shoes to gobble it up. It's the same in football, if they know you're not going to shoot, they can defend accordingly. They defenders can get closer to you because they know you're not going to shift your weight and try to have a pop. In turn, there's less space for passing. You need to have variation or you become too predictable and easy to nullify. As for XG of a shot from distance vs XG of a shot from in the box, well that's all well and good provided you also factor in the percent of turned-down long shots that actually become shots in the box a few passes later. Using nothing but my eyes, so I don't really have the stats to back it up, it appears we're just not creating enough in the box to compensate for turning down long-range efforts. Often as others say we have whole halves of football where we just don't shoot at all so it feels we're not exacly great at converting 'non-taken' long shots to 'taken' short shots. Again that probably loops back round to my first point though, that if you just refuse to shoot long then the opposition know they don't have to worry about it and so they can focus on stopping you in other areas instead.

Of course. But Lua Lua was the trained gymnast, not Martins IIRC. I mean maybe Martins had that in his history too, but Lua Lua was 100% a former gymnast. You could tell from his flips too, much better at them than Martins though admittedly Obafemi was doing them at 45 years of age.

That was Lua Lua, wasn't it?

To be fair it seems to have worked so far.