thenige

Pretend he's about to sell the club near or in a transfer window. Make bargain basement or fifth choice signings as did you not hear? He's about to sell the club. Transfer window ends. News slowly dies away. Club not sold. Rinse and repeat.

Actually think we didn't play that badly until Ritchie went off for Atsu. There were some pretty awful performances (Kenedy being one of the worst) but have to say West Ham got the tactics just right. Leaving three men forward on the break expecting our attacks to break down worked perfectly and when they scored the game was for them to lose. Has been a while since Rafa got done tactically and today was one of those days.

Those bloody commentators. Lost count of how many times they misidentified our players.

On the plus side, Rondon’s hold up play has been immense today. Shame he runs in treacle but then wouldn’t be playing for us if he had that to his game.

Our fans cheering when Perez comes off for Joselu. Fuck me. Given the same cunts couldn’t even protest effectively against a god-awful regime by holding off for eleven minutes, hope the twats get coal in their stockings.

Worry how bad at football Murphy must be if Atsu’s on the bench ahead of him.

Has to be some kind of ‘must play’ clause in Kenedy’s contract. Absolutely carrying him today.

This is true but also not the full story. The stats seem to suggest that he works really hard, does a lot of ‘take ons’ and wins the ball back a lot. That’s why I force myself to put up with how rare his genuinely brilliant moments are, he obviosuly contributes a lot to the team. He’s a really hard player to assess, especially in the context of our limitations and the other options in the squad. Like him a lot as a lad though. Aye fair enough, agree with that. This conversation sums it up for me with Perez. Spot on.

This season's Per Ciljan Skjelbred. Absolutely no chance.

Hard cunt. Pretty sure he got that from smacking his nose in the back of Rondon's head.

Just don't think you can play Lascelles and Fernandez together as they struggle so much to get the ball out from the back. Lejuene and Schar are better bringing and passing the ball out, so realistically it's one of each. I'd go with Lascelles and Lejuene - they played well together last season and have that partnership experience. But yeah, the only position in the squad we have real strength in depth. Bin Clark off ASAP.

His first touch and awareness just aren't really good enough. Ball bounces off him too often so would be a nightmare in a congested part of the pitch and just doesn't seem to know where defenders are unless he's facing right at them.

Very interesting that and not surprising for anyone who watches us on a regular basis.

Exactly the kind of centre-half we've been missing since Lejeune got injured. Lascelles and Fernandez have both largely defended well this season, it's just their distribution is often lacking. Today Schar actually allowed us to move from defence into midfield without it being an aimless clip down the line by one of our full backs.

We actually looked better when he went off today. Where he normally holds onto the ball for a while, picks it up and deep and looks for ambitious passes, where Ki really helped was short simple and penetrative passing to keep us ticking over.

We’re so bad. Full backs nervous as hell who can’t do anything but give it away, two immobile one-paced CM’s who need an eternity on the ball, the list goes on. Just so many problems in this team. Toothless and shite.

This thread.

Nobody ever claimed footballers were the brightest bunch. As club captain he has a responsibility to try and pull people together which he’s tried to do in a bit of an ill-concieved way. Given the current climate some of his words show again that detachment between players/ex-players and the fans (aka Shola the pundit). But the day the club captain says to the press ‘I back the protests against the current owner and the fat man is a prick’ is the day he’s no longer club captain. At least he’s actually played quite well this season. In comparison most of the rest of the squad could come out and slag off Ashley but they’d still do us no favours come Saturday.

Personally I’d never slag off the person who pays my wages to the press either.

Over the legendary Alan Wright? Are you mad? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wright (Answer = no).

You can have Jorge Campos in goal too - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Campos

He's actually taller than both Messi and Edgar Davids. Just goes to show stature can make such a difference.

To be honest he's just part of quite a few reasons why we struggle getting the ball from back to front. Absolutely limited.

I need a new vote. My '7' is way too optimistic.