themanupstairs

This is incredible

Going to be such more backtracking if Hodgson keeps Palace up.

He'll be sacked before the season is over. March is my guess.

I wonder if Short pronounces Sunderland correctly. Be funny as fuck if he calls it Sunn'er-laand.

Ritchie celebrating already as well, the pyschic little nutter.

"Matty's ball, I'm open!"

I'd try and play Atsu instead of Perez at #10. Not sure it will work but it's not impossible Imo.

 

I agree that Perez has had a couple of games completely pass him by and isn't looking great but I'd have serious reservations over whether Atsu would have the positional discipline to play at 10.

 

I'd have Merino there ahead of Atsu personally. I'd also try Shelvey there.

Shelvey definitely as Merino is having a very good in CM. Shelvey at least has a good shot on him. Perez needs a spell out of the side as his decision making has been atrocious of late.

Paris St-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi is "confident" the club has not broken Financial Fair Play regulations after the £200m world-record signing of Neymar, 25, and the potential £165m transfer of striker Kylian Mbappe, 18. (Daily Telegraph)

:lol:

I'm sure PSG generate 400m a year in croissant, liquid natural gas and cigarette sales at the PdP. I'd be confident as well.

Women not woman.

Canadians' lack of...

"famous stadium"

Makes me happy in a way that most football media hate us and don't lick NUFC hoop at every opportunity.

If Hodgson goes in thats one relegation spot tied up by Palace. He doesnt exactly have the charisma to lift players

Agree with this. The way the club's being run is eventually going to end up in relegation. Bye.

Mane has appealed his ban - hopefully they give him an extra game so he misses the match up here!

Moronic "Liverpool family" guff as usual. They will try to make the case that he didn't see Ederson which is impossible to prove. Hopefully gets increased.

Herons post brought a tear to my eye and just read this snippet of interview by  Paco,

 

"Mikel (Antia, coach) was on the touchline and Antonio (Gomez Perez, coach) was in the stands communicating with Rafa. Between the four of us we were making a plan of communication and it worked perfectly"

 

Four coaches, dedicated to the same outcome, thinking as one.

 

How on earth have we managed to get these people to be part of our club? We are very very lucky. Unbelievable stuff

Rather have the grit of Steve Stone and Dean Saunders.

Moronic decision by the same idiot who paid us money to take al pards back down to London. No surprise really.

Even though he was tiring before he went off, the game changed when he did. We lost that hold up play. Really impressed with his game so far.

Thought it was the right decision to bring on Gayle but not for Joselu. He should have come on for Ayoze to run at their defence as they pushed for an equalizer, with Joselu taking up the number 10 spot to try and hold it up for us.

Not his time yet. Probably start improving by March or so as his nerves settle and he starts believing in himself a bit more.

Scenes when he scores his first for us from a bullet header to beat Liverpool!

Some saying Merino's arm was pulled before he went down. Was still no excuse for his legs to go, but need to see a replay again.

So do we drop him for Lejeune?

I reckon Rafa will do what he thinks is best for the team. Lejeune to come back in for Liverpool is my prediction.

Such a good read that! Love that F365 understand what NUFC is about.

There seems to be a lot of confidence in Rafa making a silk purse out of a cows ear, come on, really.

 

Boom

Si for me like

Captain, hero, beautiful man.

There was absolutely f*** all wrong with Elliot today ffs.

 

Don't think that's all that outrageous. He doesn't have any command of his area. It's a worry. In the context of a fantastic result just thought it needed some balance. Maybe s*** is too harsh but it's a weak link.

He's probably the "best" weak link we've had in recent squads considering we've had to contend with Colback and Dummett for the past few years stinking up the place.

A Benitez team is always set up to get this type of away win. We held our shape and our nerve, and it's paid off. The players look so well drilled, its a far-cry from the teams put out by the clowns of recent years gone by.

Lascelles MOTM for two clutch moments. With Merino it feels like we have an extra man in midfield as he does the work of two players. Starting to think he and Shelvey together against the weaker teams just might work.

Hayden got booked early and that just took him out of the game.

Not a red for Ritchie as he didn't catch the opposition player in the f***ing face running full pelt and head-on. Yellow a correct decision. Have to give Jones credit for not letting the blood rush to his head given the furore over yesterday's incident.

Didn't use Yedlin, Lejeune and Shelvey which gives them a chance to be fresh for Stoke.

Renato Messi Ronaldo Suarez is the best player in the world and I'm surprised he could still walk off when subbed considering the massive BSkyB tongue lodged firmly up his arsehole.

I still am convinced there is an inherent and unworkable contradiction to the entire concept when applied to a sport like football.

 

At the moment in Serie A they are spending a huge amount of time on multiple decisions during a game. This last one was a free-kick given at the edge of the box that was reviewed by the ref under pressure from Inter players. 5 minutes was spent as the video ref reviewed a very close call. Obviously multiple angles needed to be watched as it was very marginal and difficult to tell. Eventually the decision was changed and given as a penalty instead. Perhaps - from watching it - the correct decision was made. However it was extremely close, and still could be debated. Then they added 2 minutes on at the end of the half, despite wasting at least 4 minutes on this decision.

 

The argument is that these problems of time waste will be ironed out as the actors become more used to the system. I'm not convinced, but I will admit it's likely to improve. This is not my major issue though. My issue is that there is a continued unfairness to the choice of decisions that are being reviewed. If you only review certain decisions in a match then there is an unfairness in the decisions which don't get reviewed. You may correctly call a 'big' decision in favour of a team on review, but this counts for little if you don't review one for the other team. Or what is more likely is you correctly review a big decision in favour of one team, but then don't review numerous small decisions against the opposition. Small decisions which are not judged suitable for a review, but cumulatively are just as damaging to this team's efforts.

 

Basically, there is an inherent problem whatever you try to do. Review too little and there is a risk of unfairness, review too much and you destroy the flow and momentum of a sport where the clock doesn't stop. I'm not sure this can ever be fixed sufficiently.

Excellent post!

All you've said there is that he shouldn't have done what he did. I'm asking what he should or could have done.

 

He should/could have realised the keeper has gotten to the ball first, it's at head height, and that a Liu Kang flying kick isn't going to achieve anything positive. As soon as he realised that he could/should have simply jumped for the ball hoping for a block or just to put the keeper off. Some players jump and turn their backs mid air for example. It's actually quite common to have this situation where it's a 55:45 ball (as opposed to 50:50) and the player on the 45 end will change their attempt to get to the ball first instinctively, especially if it's a keeper who is favourite.

 

Absolutely no way is trying to get a foot on the ball at that height reasonable or acceptable, let alone when he's running in at that speed and jumping off the ground. What he did is the exact equivalent of jumping in studs up with 2 feet aiming for a ball that's on the ground but which the opposition player has gotten to first. That type of challenge is deemed a highly dangerous potential leg breaker, an instant red card, with zero consideration of notions of intent or "what else he could do if he wants to get the ball".

 

Players are simply expected to know not to do something dangerous when challenging for a ball. It's hardly unreasonable.

Exactly. Pulling out of a dangerous situation isn't cowardice IMO. He's a professional athlete, not William Wallace!