Chris_R

This is an important point and one that I didn't appreciate fully until the Palace game. Until then, I'd been incredibly impressed by watching him on TV. Then I saw him live and was just in absolute awe of him.

Be delighted if we signed him. He'll be at least 7/10 every week, absolute minimum. Often more. So solid and consistent, and utterly reliable. Sure he's not a flair player, he's no Cafu, but we need depth and we need English players too. He could play a really big part for us for many years. Given the fees bandied about, I reckon he's an absolute bargain and we'd be mad to not sign him if the opportunity is there.

What a fucking performance that was. I thought we had a good chance, but I never thought we'd batter them for 90 minutes and completely play them off the park. I'll be exercising my option to work from home tomorrow, and rolling out of bed at 09:59 for a 10am start. Now though? I have beer.

Whilst I agree, that's probably because Arsenal are chasing something (CL qualification) and their goals mean more in what's left of the PL campaign. I don't think it's malicious. Let's not get all "Magedia" like them down the road.

Yeah. If they don't have one themselves, the league appoint one for them.

Of course not really. It's just poking fun at the "Wilson would have buried that" brigade after Wood's miss in the first half whilst making the point that anyone can miss anything and claiming "X would have done better" is just silly. Wood's effort was dogshit, I said it at the time. But saying a different player would have scored it is nonsense.

Wood buries that Wilson chance tbf.

He's useless on the right wing, but he's not a right winger and should never play there. I'd like to see him as a 10 for a bit and think we'd see far more from him there.

2-0 down and we're lucky to have scored 0. Oh well. Glad to be able to just relax and not give a shit because it doesn't matter.

Why not, it's the weekend. What you got?

I've defended Wood a lot, and am grateful for everything he's done to help drag us away from the bottom of the table and believe he's been instrumental in our upturn in form as a focal point for attacks. But that header was fucking dogshit.

Absolutely trust Howe and whatever happens today will be no bad reflection on him because City are so far ahead of us anyway and we've got good players missing. Could be a long afternoon, but miracles happen occasionally - See Bristol Rovers yesterday!

I've loved following this thread and loved reading the updates from our Bristol Rovers members, so thank you all for that. Whatever Elliot's career holds, and the step up is of course massive to the PL, this thread has been great and I'm incredibly happy for the blue and white half of Bristol. Seems like it's been a magical second half of the season for you guys, with today just the most mental of finishes. Hope you all have majestically bad hangovers tomorrow. Next season, part of me would be perfectly happy for him to continue in L1 with you as it seems its been a great match for both sides, but sadly he maybe he needs to be playing a little higher if we're to see him reach PL quality and I feel we might be loaning him to a Championship club instead. Either way though, I'll have a close eye on your fixtures next season and hope you do well. Although (as we've found ourselves twice recently!) club size is no determinant on what league you get to play in, and I know recent history has not been kind to you, but Bristol Rovers are certainly not a L2 side in my opinion so I hope you do well in the next league and push on up to the Championship eventually.

Up on goals scored if it stays like this according to the BBC, with Anderson scoring the 7th.

Only time I've been involved in a pitch invasion was when we clinched the title away to Plymouth under Hughton. Was an amazing night. I know you weren't talking about those kind of things, I just wanted to own up proudly to being a pitch invader.

Would rather they lost in the semis, no "wembo" for them that way.

Tbh I disagree. We were right in the shit at the time, and it looked for all the world like we needed Lingard to give us even a fighting chance of staying up. If blocking this had relegated us, they'd have considered it a great decision. Only 20-20 hindsight makes it look stupid, nobody could've foreseen the miracle Howe has worked.

The fume on there over us lending Gateshead some generic black and white flags - literally Gateshead's colours - to help with some atmosphere is just hilarious, you'd think we were asking them to wave branded Newcastle flags which of course it won't be but their little heads just can't grasp that. However the rewriting of history and their willing acceptance of this alternative universe over Gateshead's ejection from the league is rather terrifying on a human scale, showing how little evidence people need to so staunchly believe nonsense if it suits their agenda. Explains why the world is in such a fucking mess right now.

Sounds like he could receive a s-pee-dy delivery When you come down in the morning, urine for a nasty surprise

We simply must register home-grown players for Europe, or else leave empty spaces in the squad. Makes sense to give him a new deal.

If they were in such peril, I'd hope we'd give them exactly as much as they'd want to give us if we were we in a similar position.

Marachute payments finished

As opposed to Bruce, who would probably put players on the bench because of their presents.

I have absolute faith in our new management team that players will only play when ready. Under Bruce et al, they'd be thrown in as soon as they could walk but I trust Howe completely. When they play, it's because they're ready to play. So I don't get the people saying "leave them until next season", because there's no risk any more than than there's a risk starting Bruno or Burn or anyone else. Should we rest EVERYONE until next season, in case they get injured? That would seem silly to even suggest. I think some people are still suffering (Understandably!) from what's happened under our previous bunch of incompetents.