Lush Vlad

The footballing intelligence on show down our right hand side tonight........

I'm not sure I've ever seen him connect with the ball properly and strike it sweetly and he shits himself whenever he gets a chance. He wouldn't have been my candidate for pen duty. Horrendous effort. You wait that long for one in the Prem and that's the result

I have been at 6-7 for a while. Probably still around that. We’re shite and the atmosphere is about to turn toxic. So the players that are already not good enough, will probably start crumbling under the pressure and hiding.

I thought he was really solid at West Ham. He was terrible yesterday. Gave away the foul for the third, although that isn't all on him, TBF. Shit touch and tackle for the second goal that totally killed the game before half time. His passing was really hit and miss, too. I noticed a few stray balls straight off the pitch.

After years of not being emotionally invested in the club. Reading that just makes me desperate for the takeover to happen and Rafa to stay until the day he retires. I’m not sure how I feel about caring again?! It’s all going to come crashing down and hurt like hell, isn’t it? :'(

Agreed. I said as much in my original post. Just looking at all these pipe dream players and weighing them up FM style, though. Pointless exercise, really.

He surprised me how quick he was in one goal he scored this season, think it was when Leicester played at home to Huddersfield? Ran onto to a ball played in behind, didn't look slow at all. Yeah. I remember the one you mean. Wasn’t he miles clear after timing his run, though? He just doesn’t strike me as the most agile and think he could be frustrating as fuck as a lone striker. Still, all of ours are currently. So what’s new

I’ve always quite liked the look of Slimani. Got in some great areas and had some tidy finishes early on for Leicester. Looks a bit heavy, mind. Would prefer someone a bit more pacey and mobile. Is his style hugely different to Mitrovic? Beggars can’t be choosers and I doubt we even get anyone in. So if it is true. I hope we pay what they’re asking. I think we’re going down without a 2 more decent additions this window.

Swansea 1 up. Sheeeeeiiiiiitttttt

I thought he played really well in his anchor man/3rd centre back role. As I was saying in the Dummett thread. Games like that where we barely see the ball, really suit players like him and Dummett. Not yet good enough at this level to try and do too much with the ball at feet. I'm not sure either will ever get there. But solid players for a team like us at the minute.

Really solid when he has to just stay in his own half and not have the ball. Nobody has ever had an issue with his defending, as far as I can tell? So games where we have 17% possession or whatever are tailor made for him. I thought the same about Hayden last night. Home games where we might actually get closer to 40% possession and attempt to break teams down. Both players seem pretty redundant.

Bit harsh to judge him on last night. What sort of service did he have? Long balls, with nobody else within 20 yards of him. He tried to be a bit more physical and got back to help out defensively a few times. Apart from maybe Manquillo and Atsu. I thought most of the players were decent enough, all things considered.

Had very little of the ball, but often skinned players when he got the chance and he's really direct when he has space to run in to. Not trying to compare them as players. But similar to Ben Arfa, in as much as I don't think he is particularly fast off the ball. But when he is in possession, he has a nice touch, change of direction and acceleration. So he just glides past players effortlessly at times.

Best part of that article was the link to another one: "Sean Dyche has a gruff voice because he ate worms, according to former teammate"

Can’t see him at Arsenal. They want to play a certain way and I don’t think Rafa would suit them, nor would the fans take to him. That’s not to say I don’t think he’ll leave. It has suddenly become a very real possibility.

Yes, that's definitely comparable to bidding on a football club. Almost as daft as spending weeks doing due diligence, going to the trouble of getting a NDA then putting together a complicated clause ridden multi million pound offer, presenting it and then just leaving it on the table for ten weeks during a critical point in the season and having no contact what so ever ....fucking frauds the lot of them. Beggars belief, you haven't learned a fucking thing from us having Ashley as owner. Ashley has been doing this exact same thing for ten fucking years here. It's fucking insane that there are still people saying things like "who knows?" We've earned the knowledge to make presumptions about Ashley and yet still here we are, it's fucking mental. Yep. Odd few on here and social media that seem to defend Ashley or lap up the bullshit he is serving up. Trolls, morons or cunts? Probably all three.

That's what most media outlets are reporting and I think it's pretty obvious it is or he would have been well gone now. Why would he have agreed to that? That is madness, especially as he would have found out fairly sharp’ish what that fat cunt and Penfold are allabout. It sounds about as real as the Colback clause, stating he had to play when fit

In some sick way, I hope he does walk. Just so I can finally stop getting excited by false dawns and I can fully swear off Mike Ashley FC.

Oh well. Another window where the Fat Cunt doesn’t need to spend. Guess who wins again?

What is the metric for tackles, I wonder? Is it different to a 50/50 duel, for example? As surely full backs are going to have to attempt loads of them? As for Yedlin himself, I like him. Not technically amazing, positionally he can be a bit wayward and gets caught under the ball a lot, mainly from ball watching. But I don't see him as a particularly big issue right now, compared to some much worse problems. The lack of viable options at left back, Clark reverting to type, no decent goalkeeper at the club, no pace in the attacking third, Ritchie's form, lack of goals etc etc. These are all much bigger problems IMO.

I think this game is going to be even worse now they've finally lost. The pressure is off for the unbeaten season and there will surely be a bit of a backlash. Liverpool had enough quality to press in the right areas, make their error prone defenders, well, make errors and have pace everywhere in the team. Our team is slow as fuck, bar Yedlin and maybe Atsu. We don't press high and we don't have any attacking quality. I think we 'might' keep the score respectable'ish, due to us sitting in deep and Rafa getting us organised. But I don't see much better than a 3 or 4 nil loss.

We really are a pathetic little club at the minute

He does offensively but does he defensively? I don't rate Ritchie positionally but his graft alone makes up for at least half of his defensive capabilities. He has more of that than Murphy, I'd suspect. He's a winger fuck being defensive. Not really of course, but howay, I want my wide man to go after his man, take someone on, get past a player, take the game to them. That's all Ritchie offers, graft. The British disease. By the way Murphy works hard too. He just doesn't go around yelling at people and for all Ritchie's graft, half of it is headless chicken stuff and not warranted at all. It's a wingers job to mark a full back if he is overlapping like. I don't really get this massive love in for Murphy now to be honest. He's been good these last few games but he's not proven to be much (if any) better than Ritchie like. Yet on the whole. Ritchie has been equally as poor/average the whole season in general play and that is with far more experience and chances in the side. I think it is just as much people clamouring for change, as much as it is them suddenly thinking Murphy has been great. It isn’t working with Ritchie there, so fans want to see something different or a player that is in better form. It’s a fairly natural reaction, I’d say? It’s actually one of my biggest gripes with Rafa. There are so many players that look like confidence players. Yet they never get a chance to get a run of form going. As the team is chopped and changed so much.

Agreed. He just looks busy and does a lot of pointing and shouting at others. Funnily enough, he’s like a more energetic Shelvey in that sense

I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to aim where the ball is going when you come flying out like that Of all the shit things on show today. I find this a really wried thing to pick up on. But perhaps it's just me and maybe he should have done better.