Chris_R

Bit odd that we seem to be keeping 8 behind the ball, doubt we'd even play that many back there with 11 on the pitch.

We've been in danger for a long while but this is the first point where I've thought "yeah, we're definitely down"

Everyone could see before the game that playing him was a massive mistake. Needs launching into the sea from a fucking trebuchet after that though.

Haha fair, I completely forgot that. Makes it even more important that Howe dropped him - well done Eddie!

Krafth and Ritchie out, can't argue with that.

Yeah he did well for us last year but he was basically playing as a 10 then. He's not a central midfielder.

I've done it twice this year alone due to Covid, getting stuck in Heathrow quarantine jail. It wasn't that bad. 10 days of wanking, drinking and playing video games. Maybe Howe has a slightly higher work ethic though.

Whilst his lifestyle may or may not have contributed to his injuries (Do I correctly remember him being out injured after falling off a bar stool? :lol:), his lifestyle will DEFINITELY have affected his recovery from injuries. Hard to get fit and heal properly when your blood is 13.5% ABV.

Wilson aside, we had a whole fucking team that didn't score goals under Bruce. Clean slate for all.

Well I can't legislate for lab issues, but actual false positives basically don't happen. False negatives are incredibly common, like about 30% of people with symptomatic Covid will test negative, and people doing their test badly (maybe because they want to be cleared to play?) won't help either. I was in Heathrow quarantine jail twice this year following travel, and we had to self administer our tests to be allowed to be released. I'm as sure as I can be that 99% of people probably just ran them under the tap and stuck them back in the box.

No there haven't. There have been a bunch of people getting lucky by doing 2 negative tests afterwards. PCR tests are, at best, about 70% accurate at picking up even symptomatic cases when properly administered. That drops when people are asymptomatic or not doing the test properly because they want a negative result, but even working on that 70% figure, the odds of a person getting 2 negative tests when ill with Covid is about 9%. That's FAR higher than the chance of a false positive, which is waaaay less than 1%. Any supposed 'false positives' are almost certainly people gaming the system. I'm not just making shit up by the way, my wife works on the local Covid ward and has done for the last 18 months. She's had people dying in front of her from Covid, testing repeatedly negative. If you get a positive test, you almost certainly (like Vegas jackpot odds certainly) have Covid. If you get a negative test, you 'probably' don't have Covid. And that's PCR tests. Don't start me on lateral flow.

There are almost zero false positives. False negatives are common, false positives are as rare as intelligent Sunderland fans.

1) it does NOT have a 99.7% survival rate. Best estimates are 5,172,031 deaths from 258,174,334 cases (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) meaning about a 2% mortality rate. Stop talking shit. 2) fit and healthy people can die from this 3) aside from that, it's not about him, it's about the frail and elderly people who might get infected further down the line and die or get seriously ill. Preventing transmission saves lives. 4) it's not even about the survival rate. Long Covid affects tens of millions of people worldwide and will continue to for years. "Survival" is a ridiculous metric with which to measure success by, there's more to life than 'surviving'. We're still in the shit almost two years later because people STILL chat shit like this, playing down something that could be eradicated or at very least reduced to incredibly manageable levels if we all just took some personal responsibility, got vaccinated and fucking behaved. But no. Seemingly that's too much to ask so here we still are, still treading water. We should do as they've done in Austria, mandatory vaccine passports for any public spaces. If people insist on being part of the problem rather than part of the solution, treat them as such. Fuck the people who don't take this seriously, deny science, make up numbers or won't put a mask on.

Was speaking to a Burnley fan when we signed him, and he told me then he was absolute dogshit and they were glad to see the back of him. So whilst I hope Howe can work miracles with him, I'm less hopeful than with others who have at least a history of being decent at times.

The third beats most keepers. Sure, it 'could' be saved, but I don't blame him for that in isolation. That goes in most times, with most keepers. The first goal was horrific. The second was little better. But just generally, goals aside, he was awful. He was glued to his line so much, he was so hesitant on through balls. His decision making was rank. He filled me with terror, not confidence, and I'm sure the defence felt the same. You need a keeper who gives confidence to the back line and performances like that do the opposite.

Any pictures of yesterday's?

You win football matches by getting more goals than the opposition. You get more goals than the opposition by consistently creating more chances than them. I know not all chances are equal but assuming they are for a moment, if they're having 10 chances and we have 2, we're not going to consistently win. You need to create more than the opposition. Once you factor in XG you need to have yours greater than the opponent's long-term to get success. I don't believe you can do this by playing defensively. That's not to say we should be streaming forward like absolute lunatics at every opportunity, but shutting up shop like we did under Jones is just delayed suicide. We MUST carry a threat. Yesterday we created way more than Brentford. Play that game 100 times and we win way more than we lose or draw. I say we carry on that way rather than how Jones set us up, because that way we lose more than we win or draw.

If he does, he'll be dropped like a brick. Howe won't tolerate that, I think we've seen that much.

That's him out with Covid next week.

The overall performance today was very good. Repeat that to the end of the season and we'll get wins. Howe showed at Bournemouth that he can get points off big teams too. We're not down and out, not by a long way.

We're not down, but we're right in the shit. We outplayed Brentford, were by far the better team. Play like that for the rest of the season and we might be ok IF we play an actual goalkeeper instead of Darlow who should not start any more games if Dubravka is even remotely fit.

Schar fucked Edit: maybe ok, looked like his hamstring had gone for a minute

Darlow is fucking useless and should never be near the first XI again. Joelinton has been fantastic. Actually really enjoyed that half, rather than half heartedly watching whilst pissing about on my phone I was absolutely gripped. Reminds me that this is what football is like. Bring on the second half.

Probably off one of the weirdos hanging round outside the training ground for 12 hours a day.