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I liked the we watched Gouffran at Bordeaux and the player that started his career here, but that is just gone for whatever reason. We can debate those reasons for hours, but his attacking contribution is just so minimal. He's at his best in the box, yet he is barely ever in there, and usually fluffs his chance when he is. For a player with his style to have not scored a goal in the entirety of 2014, while consistently starting every match is incredible. Another that has just badly regressed.

The CL record is expected, because there has rarely been more than one club at a time that could be considered a "top team" from that league, but the performance in the lower cup is just shockingly pitiful. Every single year, too. Although England's record since Heysel is horrific also.

Millions of shirts not licensed or produced by Real Madrid.

There was a massive and long injury in this half and they didn't have seven damn minutes.

Balo still isn't exerting himself as much as I would like, but it is already evident that his athleticism and general ability on the ball will be a major asset to the team. They are such a dangerous team going forward. Spurs are just an inferior version of Arsenal.

Stoke are much better than NUFC, btw. From what I saw of the game, they defended well as always. Osaze, Diouf, Moses were all very dangerous and Bardsley was very good as well.

He moved the ball about pretty well I thought, but was just a complete disaster defensively. Players just waltzing past him constantly with ease and not pressuring the ball or holding his position throughout the match. I really don't know what happened, tbh. Hope it is a one-off.

Exactly. For all the terrible things about that performance, they conceded in the fifth minute of a completely unwarranted seven. There wasn't even a major injury!

Exciting match between two terrible sides, with almost no quality involved. Matches like this are what the Premier League is all about.

Awkward comments about Jamaicans for some reason.

All four of NUFC's defenders (along with Colback, who seems to be the only defensive midfielder, tbf) have been atrocious in their own side of the pitch today. Both fullbacks have been good going forward, though.

Shouldn't the crowd be angry or something?

Pass the ball Haidara!

Hart is terrible. Fantastic pace and will from Diouf, though. Stoke have a lot of pace and skill going forward, tbh.

Krul at fault for the goal. It should be something extraordinary to enter the goal from that angle.

Only one of him and Colback should be playing anyway. They essentially perform the same role the side. I don't particularly care which one it is.

I think he will play plenty of matches gvien that Costa cannot play every match, Drogba is 36, and the manager actually seems to desire him, unlike Ba.

Both featuring atrocious "defending" by West Brom.

What an awful goal.

I sort of get it, to be honest. It is the very fact that UEFA took a perfectly decent competition like the UEFA Cup, and butchered it, producing this absolute joke of a format. Now, maybe I am different on this because I can remember watching my club play in, and win, the European Cup (*obligatory mention*) so am tainted by this, but when we played in the final format of the UEFA Cup and then the EL under O'Neill, it had just been reduced to such a parody that it became boring. It started too early - I remember sitting in blazing July sunshine, watching us play Odense, and seemed to drag on forever, pointless fecking group matches against the likes of Mentalist Kharkiv or FC Boobtube of Slovenia. It just went on and on and on, and excited nobody. UEFA created that format thinking they'd have a television oriented second tier competition to cream it in from, but what they got was something that so few people wanted to see on telly, Channel 5 won the rights. Channel 5 don't win the rights to anything other than Big Brother and Home and Away. The excitement of potential European glory should be there for the likes of Hull, you're definitely right there, but if you look at the way they treat the competition, I honestly think it is down to UEFA butchering it in the first place. Incidentally, do Celtic now drop into the Europa League, effectively getting a third chance at European glory? How can you take that seriously? tend to agree with most of that with one additional bit is the fact champions league losers get into it, why? They lose and get rewarded with a spot in the europa league? Am I supposed to take this thing seriously when UEFA are all but calling it the losers tournament? It has no merit of its own its just champions league lite for those not good enough to get into the real tournament. I really don't get this complaint. The tournament exists explicitly as one for teams not good enough for the Champions League.

They got knocked out just two years ago.

They have to finish in the top three of a group (at minimum for the playoff) in which three of the sides have absolutely no chance of qualification. It shouldn't be back-breaking labour.

Wasn't this the case for the fifty years or so until Wembley was finally torn down? It is not some sort of new development.

I enjoy how young players are completely forgotten about and underrated because they fail to make it at big clubs with managers who don't even desire to have them. Zaha is a more than competent Premiership wide player.

NUFCVines have uploaded it on Twitter. I feel a bit for the Reading reserve players just trying to carve out some sort of career in the sport, having to be embarrassed by Hatem Ben Arfa of all people in an irrelevant practice match.