Wandy

Yeah I remember it. It's funny but at the time I thought he didn't lay it on enough in front of Miggy for that chance, hence why Muggy didn't put it away. Not had a chance to rewatch it anywhere though so couldn't say for sure. I'm just far from convinced with this guy, and his performance in a pretty much written off game is not going to sway me I'm afraid. If it's between him and Willock I take Willock all day long for this match.

I don't think he should start if Willock is fit. Going against the grain here maybe but I wasn't taken in by his performance on Saturday. The thing that is becoming increasingly apparent with ASM for me is that he looks better when there are no expectations of him. He came properly alive after the sending off when the game was already gone, therefore it was a free hit for him. Thing is though, apart from looking lively with his runs etc I still cant remember any real end product from him. We definitely need a cagey & fully disciplined performance from every player to have a chance of winning this, and I just don't see this guy doing that. I'd be bringing him on at some point in the 2nd half, depending on how the game is going.

Said it before and will say it again, the fucking idiot DJ needs binning off, as does the music in general. Blaring music has no place at a football match. I don't even like having Local Hero played as it adds absolutely nothing to the atmosphere. I even hated it in the KK era back in the 90s.

I used to like Hope but more and more he is showing himself as a bit of a wanker.

Leicester showing us exactly what not to do next week. Any sloppiness at the back will be punished.

There's not a chance we can or will play them off the park FFS The best way to win this will be to be conservative and cagey. If we play with the same tactics next week as the ones we started off with yesterday then we will get mullered. If we had kept 11 players on the pitch last night then Liverpool would have scored at least another goal. They were picking us off totally on the counter. Player for player Man U are better than us in most positions right now. We need to understand this to prepare for it tactically to have a chance of winning.

Another note, I see a few people on twitter complaining about all of the wires for the new spider cam. For those on here who were there yesterday, what were the wires like? Was it distracting at all?

My season ticket was in the Leazes, including the years from 93 to 99 when it had the same roof as the current Gallowgate, and I know from personal experience that when that stand was singing in unison it was incredibly loud, not only from sitting within it but also from how it sounded on the TV. I know this because when rewatching on MOTD I could clearly hear all of the songs that I had been participating in and they sounded loud. You only need to watch a match like the Man U 5-0 in 1996 to appreciate how well the current Gallowgate acoustics carry to the TV viewer. The Level 7 extension definitely spoiled the SJP acoustic experience but, even until recent years, the general atmosphere had still been good. I maintain that the loss of 10k season ticket holders in 2019 has had a really damaging effect. I just find the current SJP atmosphere incredibly weird. The place sounds flat right from the off, and we don’t appear to have any kind of songbook anymore. And the fact that none of the songs that have been around for decades don’t get sung anymore tells me that a lot of the fans that were around in the 90s, noughties and pre-2019 simply aren’t in the stadium anymore. You barely even hear the Blaydon Races now FFS. Getting the current Gallowgate made into safe standing is the most important issue that the club needs to address. I would not make any more season tickets available for that stand, convert the whole thing to safe standing and then make the remaining non-season ticket holder spaces available on a match to match basis only. Any season ticket holders in the Gallowgate who don’t want to be in a standing spot need to be moved to a seat somewhere else. Since we don’t seem to have more than 32k ST holders, this will likely be the last opportunity to move people around while spare seats are available so the club need to make the most of the opportunity now.

Probably loads, unfortunately.

What's wrong with what he has said? We have a home crowd that doesnt have a songbook in the slightest, apart from that puerile Bruno In The Middle crap, which is in itself a rip-off of an already wank Arsenal song. And in addition, the same crowd who think waving a flag about for 5 mins before kick off is creating a match atmosphere. The media aren't helping by falsely blowing smoke up our arse. I'd actually like a pundit to step forward and tell it like it is, and say our support is vastly overrated. Next weekend I fully expect Man Utd to outsing us at Wembley. As loathesome as they are, the one thing they have is a great songbook.

You've got to be kidding me. It was quiet right from the kick off. After the sending off the crowd needed to get their finger out and up the intensity. They didn't though, and instead just waited for something to happen.

Unfortunately this level of delusion and entitlement is showing itself at home matches too, which is why the place is like a morgue. The new owners have magnificently undone so much of the Ashley damage in a short space of time. The next really big challenge is to get all of the actual supporters together in one place within the stadium. It’s depressing how lacking in intensity the atmosphere is at SJP right now.

I think the main reason we didn’t get hammered is because they just aren’t that good right now. A good team would have rubbed our noses in it. I still think we have a good chance of top 4 if we pull ourselves back together soon. Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea simply don’t look good enough to guarantee themselves that 4th spot.

I’m a bit baffled by the optimism on here tbh. We were 2-0 down with 11 on the field and they were picking us off at will on the counter until the sending off. After that they just took their foot off the gas. I’m still confident that we will finish the season strongly but the cup final has come at exactly the wrong time for us. We are right out of form at the moment and it’s asking too much of Bruno to come back into the team and turn us around IMO.

We need another striker in the summer, no question. Wilson has always been injury-prone, but dependable. Now he’s still injury-prone but becoming undependable.

Well at least I’m not nervous about this game now as I fully expect us to get beat. We are going into this game with roughly the same chance of winning as the 98 and 99 finals. Unfortunately we have lost form at exactly the wrong time and the opposition’s tails are completely up. I make our chances as 35/65 at best, unless Man U lose Rashford and Casemiro to injury this week.

You are gonna have to give more detail here mind. What are people on your train saying like?

Fair play to you mate, and I don’t think any kind of criticism should be directed to someone like yourself who makes such effort from such a distance. Out of interest, how did you rate today’s backing for the team? And how would rate it generally this season? With regards to the fans complaining on cup final ticket allocations, I would have to disagree with you on that as I think the majority have agreed with the club’s policy on ticket distribution. You are always going to get a few who whinge about it when they miss out.

it’s because the stadium is heavy on spectators and light on actual supporters. The backing for the team was atrocious right from the kick off and after the sending off the team needed the crowd to raise their game. What they got instead was a wall of silence.

Our crowd arent helping here mind. Silent as fuck as usual.

Great news. It really needs to be the current Gallowgate and definitely NOT in Level 7.

Which goal are we behind, when watching it on the TV?

I'd say that most people of a certain age will naturally be feeling pessimistic about this game. The two finals of 98 & 99, in addition to the title collapse of 96, have left most of us who were around in that era with strong PTSD when it comes to the big crunch games. You can also add in the semi-final of 2000 to that mix too. For 50 years the club has been one that continuously falls at the final hurdle. 1974, 1976, 1996, 1998 & 1999 have left us with something of a persecution/inferiority complex as a fanbase. If the new owners can get that gigantic monkey off our back we will quickly soar, but right now it still feels like one hell of a task to do it. This is my 39th season of following NUFC and it feels like the biggest game of my lifetime. Almost too big. If we lose I will try hard to stay rational and reassure myself that we are only at the beginning of a great journey with people who are finally running the club properly. But yet another defeat would be gutting and there's no point in pretending otherwise.

Good stuff, cos that's what you are about to get. To clarify, I don't want Man U to get an oil takeover at all, but if they do then I don't want it to have any Saudi involvement as that *might* compromise us at some point in the future.

We need a strong performance on Saturday to get us in the right frame of mind for the final. We really don't want to be going into it on the back of a poor display against the Dippers.