John P

Yep, tremendous effort from everyone this season, well done guys. Really makes a difference to the atmosphere and makes it a positive start to the match.

Just went on the sky sports website to pick my England squad. Centre back options - Tarkowski, Smalling, Dier, Jones, Maguire, Mawson, Stones, Keane, Gomez, Mee, Dunk. No sign of Jamaal anywhere, despite him being better than every single one of them. It's fucking ludicrous that we've got a 24 year old English centre back who's captain of a promoted team that finished 10th, who has been solid as a rock all season in a position that England are lacking genuine quality, and he's not even in the frame for the provisional 30-odd man squad. He's a leader, has a great attitude and above all else he's a bloody good defender. Pace, power, great in the air and decent with the ball. Mental.

He had a great end to last season as well if I remember. Obviously only performs when it's warm, typical foreigner tbh.

Essentially looks like Mitrovic, judging from a Youtube compilation.

So the general supporters get just over 10,000 tickets. Great way to kill the fucking atmosphere at the biggest game in club football.

What a complete fucking waste of time.

There isn't a match thread for it yet so thought I'd put it in here - the club has just released some more Level 7 tickets for the West Brom game for anyone interested. Guess they didn't take up their allocation.

They will basically have to sell or release all of their players apart from the youth squad, as their wages will be absolutely astronomical for League One. I know a guy who has spent his career playing in League One and Two, and last year Southend offered him £100,000 annual salary, which I'm led to believe is towards the higher end of what players are paid in that division. The money generated by playing in that league just isn't enough to be able to offer players more. These lot have Jack Rodwell and Lee Cattermole and probably a few others who are currently paid £100,000 in 2 weeks, but it's just not possible in League One.

Love the F365 Pardew hatred.

If England had options in central midfield you could understand his exclusion from the squad as he hasn't been very consistent (until the last couple of months) and there are weaknesses in his game. But you look at the England squad and see Jake Livermore and a finished Jack Wilshere and it's ridiculous that he probably isn't going to get a look in. Shelvey playing some of those long balls to Vardy and Kane could be absolutely lethal.

I didn't know that was a rule to be honest, I appealed straight away. Still didn't believe it when the commentators said it was ok so had to Google it

He's going to be back as a pundit before the season is over and he'll gradually start telling people that West Brom were nailed on for relegation before he took over and there was nothing him and 'JC' could do. This will slowly become accepted as the truth and he'll take over at Watford 10 games into next season.

Remarkable turnaround for the guy. Every time I see his name on the team sheet I still don't sort of trust him, as if he's suddenly going to turn to shit again, and then he puts in another monster performance. It's so strange as he hasn't just improved his form, he seems to have completely re-modeled his game and is now brilliant at winning the ball back. Very rarely gives it away either, his pass completion rate must be very very good in the last couple of months.

The thing with Lejeune is that he takes risks in playing the ball forward and people will have different opinions on his performance based on that. He looks to play passes with pace between the lines and into the forward's feet and they aren't going to come off every time. He's more than capable of playing the simple pass every time to Lascelles or the fullback and coming off the pitch with 95% pass completion, but personally I'd much rather he tries to play a probing pass into the attacking third or a cross field pass to the opposite fullback.

Dan Storey writes a lot of their articles and I'm sure I read somewhere that his father or grandfather was a Newcastle fan, so maybe he has a bit of a soft spot for us. His articles are also very good.

Alright Farage, calm down.

Christ, the floated set penis. I remember those days. Getting a free kick in the opposition half and knowing it would either be clipped straight over Mike's head or he'd get the slightest of flicks to it, also resulting in a goal kick. Glorious.

Yeah, there's absolutely no way Lascelles needs to beef up, he's currently at a size where he is mobile but still able to physically dominate the majority of strikers in the league. I always think Lejeune has a strange shape, he has quite big hips but fairly small chest and shoulders.

From the admittedly little I've seen of him, he isn't really the sort to bully defenders, but he is physically good and obviously decent in the air. He's no Duncan Ferguson (ie clattering into defenders, elbowing them in the face and dishing out the occasional throttling.)

This is probably the only big criticism I have of Rafa so far. The decision to never play Mitrovic and start Joselu instead is bizarre. Mitrovic misses his fair share of chances too, but I'm convinced he would have stuck away a couple of the sitters Joselu has wasted this season.

Yep, he has to be starting games at the minute with Kenedy on the opposite wing. Can't remember the last good game Atsu or Ritchie had.

Can't bring myself to hate the guy, he looks genuinely hurt when he misses chances and his attitude can't be questioned. He's just not very good. .com also said that none of his career goals have been penalties, so pretty strange that he was on penalty duties. The camera didn't show who was taking it for ages and when it suddenly cut to Joselu standing over it, my heart just sank.

Looks 10x more agile than Blob based on his Youtube compilations. Having said that, I'm probably 5x more agile.

Strange side that

Joe Allen is an absolute cunt so I have no problem with that whatsoever.