The Prophet

Modern football sucks. That's embarsssibg from Gabriel. He gets a slight push, but not one that should knock a grown man to the ground. The fact people think that's a foul tells you how fucked the game is.

Our run to the CL final could end up looking kinder than any run to the FA Cup final.

If Tonali stays put, which I don't think he will, it seems like the right time for big Joe to move on.

PIF are also in the process of flogging their clubs.

A keeper who isn’t chucking one in every other game and is alright with the ball at his feet will save us a lot of dropped points.

That's way too much surgery for me like, particularly if we don't qualify for Europe. Get a GK and a CM and pad out the defence to allow rotation. I think a settled pre-season will do us more good than anything else.

In an ideal world Tino and Tonali decide to stay, then we get a GK and CM in nice and early. The latter might be tricky with the WC though.

Fair point.

Is 7th not Conference League?

Not to go all Howe, but we jusy need to try and put some results together and see where we end up. More than happy for us to priorities the cups.

My bad, I should have QA'd before posting. I think the geezer from BBC has the correct interpretation.

Ah man, that Edwards exchange is excruciating. Man has such a fragile ego.

Arsenal and Gabriel in particular do it all the time. I recall him getting praises from Sky for doing exactly this, earlier on the season.

That wasn't a direct response to you for the record, unfortunate timing. I have absolutely no issue with discussing Elanga's ability, or the lack of it. My personal thoughts are that he's been incredibly frustrating, but I can see why Eddie wanted him. At times he's looked electric, particularly early on in the season, but he's clearly a confidence player who's struggled for stretches. However, there's been plenty of performances this season where he's looked good without getting returns, or been no worse than the rest of a disjointed attack, but received pelters when others have been given a free pass. There's been obvious signs of improvement of late, but as soon as he puts a foot wrong we're on him (see Qarabag). On the other hand, Ramsey, who some were equally as determined to write off, strings together multiple excellent performances and it gets much less coverage. We're just an incredibly toxic fanbase.

I'm just saying, it says a lot about the mentality of the fanbase. Will always punch down before lifting up.

It says a lot how much more this thread is getting bumped v Ramsey's these days.

Personally didn't think he was any worse than Willock or Gordon. Another case of the attacking unit not being on the same wave length.

Despite the loss, was actually largely encouraged by that. The attack is obviously still a work in progress, but the overall balancet looks miles better and we actually progress the ball with a bit of intent these days. We're getting there.

Gordon and Barnes are canny tbf.

While he wasn't directly at fault, it felt the first goal was poor.

Our entire front three looked a bit ineffective today. Set pieces were our route back into the game.

I thought we'd fold with fatigue, but fair play we gave them a go.

Until this season, we've actually been exceptional v weaker teams. It's the likes of Everton, Fulham and Brentford we've struggled against.

Class this lad. Only slight grumble is his lack of tracking runs. He'll get there though.