Lush Vlad

Nowt wrong with that from Miley. Every right to go for it and it was a split second thing. Very passive here. Targett and Tino in particular look indecisive and stand off’ish. Longstaff really needs to find a good half hour from somewhere. Back to back starts against lower league and he looks woeful. Fingers crossed Burn’s injury is minor and Botman is back for City.

Need to get some control second half. Absolute carnage out there. Proper chaos

Osula has been fouled about 10 times already.

Osula is box office. He doesn’t know what he’s going to next. We certainly don’t.

The left footed cross just summed his night up.

Nick Pirlo Pope zinging it out from the back

Osula has no control over his limbs. Went from world class. To blocking his own shot in front of an open goal. Does that count as an assist?

Build up from the back is lacking. They know they can press high against a keeper and 4 defenders who are bad on the ball. Midfield need to try and get involved somehow. Miley certainly is. Going to need to be more direct at times too.

Wilson looks sharp in front of goal at least.

Hope he plays in the 6, personally. I know it was against Bromley. But I liked him there and being able to get involved on the ball all the while.

Osula right and Willock left in a front 3? Can’t see it being 4-4-2 with the players on the field. It still looks a reasonably strong lineup. Quite a few of these were starters not that long ago or regulars, at least.

Bunsen Burner. Nice little earner.

Totally different players regarding their injury history. But Isak got a surprise start and just the first half at Sheff Wed after missing what, 3 months I think it was? So maybe Howe will do the same here in a bid to try and get Wilson something close to fitness….. Hard to keep a straight face typing that out

‘Champions’ League

Yeah. Never going to happen. But it seems pointless otherwise. Can’t stay fit for 5 minutes and even when he is playing. He has looked a shadow of his former self this season and last.

The only way he should be retained is if he’s on the minimum wage. But is heavily incentivised by playing and scoring

That would be one where hopefully Mitchell, with the help of the data provided by Bunce. Along with basically just looking at his injury history. Would overrule Howe. Utter madness if we gave him a new deal.

Scarily accurate and works perfectly read in his voice

I think it was the mixture of how unbelievable it all was and choosing to celebrate with my two NUFC supporting mates instead. Whilst also not wanting to rinse him too much. Which is odd, as I usually wind him up all the while I’d give him the odd condescending pat or sad look. Which is arguably worse He didn’t get away scot free. A few fans around us realised and started giving him some light hearted stick and all The drive home was fun. He got loads of abuse on the way back.

Still one of the funniest days/weekends I’ve had at the football. Went up the day before with 4 of us. One Spurs supporting mate. Was giving it the big one the night before with their shit chants and getting overly confident. Anyway, sat next to me in the Leazes, hungover as fuck. He got to see the goals up close I was doing my best not to laugh or get carried away. As he is a good mate and I wanted to show a bit of empathy. But seeing him have to keep standing up and applaud every few minutes and feign an interest was hilarious I think for the 4th goal, one of my other mates didn’t even celebrate. Tried to hold it together. But he just looked across and burst out laughing in the Spurs lad’s face

Agreed. Not even much chat about it on here. People are understandably still buzzing from Wednesday and talking about the final. I’m sure the players are more professional than us

To what tune?

I’ve seen three versions already: ”Follow you until you love me” ”Follow you around the country” ”Yer Ma is from the streets of Birtley” I mean. The last one is class getting his family connections in. But sounds like you’re calling his Ma a gangster. Or worse……

I thought it was gamesmanship all that carry on from him against Arsenal. They used to always do it with their keeper after 15-20 mins if they’d not scored. Clearly a tactical ploy. I know we’ve done it at times, as well. Agree. I thought Pope was starting tonight regardless.

Not wanting to derail this thread any further. I know plenty on the subject of the affordability thing, I think. As it’s hard not to if you listen to The Barstewards Enquiry. Bookmakers like Bet UK and many others by all accounts. Have already taken it upon themselves to go about the ‘affordability checks’ before they’ve even come in. Knowing full well punters aren’t going to give up all their info. Nor should they. Just another ploy and excuse to restrict or close down winners. To try and get said 90 quid out. It was the usual fobbing off. About 10 different ways of proving your ID, although they did stop short of a photo outside your house and a paper with today’s date refused to give them any banking info other than what they will already be able to access. They then eventually moved to saying my account was closed and tried to link the two small bets I’d had. To some kind of vague clause. Saying I had inside information or some such nonsense. Worst operator I’ve ever come across. But everyone says Bet MGM are dreadful so it figures and I was aware of that. Albeit after the event and all the Cheltenham madness and bad PR Bet MGM got. I’m not a big punter. I back flat racing and the odd small football bet. I’m not getting knocked all the while or anything and most my accounts would be losing accounts. I’m a recreational punter. I just find the larger operators are a bunch of scumbags. I’ve gone back to trying to bet on course when I go. Fuck Big Corp, basically.