Lush Vlad

Is Yedelin leaning in to buy the foul? Or did he genuinely attempt to go shoulder to shoulder with Mitro? Only to be ragdolled off the pitch, like a small child.

Did Pogba ride there on his motorbike? That jacket

Only has to get through the Norwich and Southampton games. Easier said than done, of course. But Colback managed to avoid getting a yellow for weeks. Only to finally get his 10th booking, against the mackems. Shelvey was launching into tackles and seemed really fired up, yesterday. But it's not like he always plays like that.

I agree with everything there except his speed...I think he's slower than people give him credit for. He can accelerate well but I don't recall him beating his man much - possibly because he also lacks the strength. To me it's obvious he's always going to cut inside, easy to defend against that when you know it's going to be happening every time. Agreed on the speed. He's nowhere near as fast as I remembered (imagined?). I think/hope, that he is looking a bit slower, because of the hamstring injury. I thought he looked a bit off the pace against Leicester and he tired fairly quickly, yesterday. But before that, I thought he looked rapid. Hopefully, with another couple of weeks training. He'll be close to 100%. As the injury has obviously effected him.

Good ol' Mondial Sport, strike again. #Disco

That was straight at him. The same way most of our chances, were straight at Mannone, or high and/or wide.

I posted something along these lines in the football pet hates thread. It's like this most weeks. Sometimes, a ref takes about 2 minutes to lecture a player and card them. Plus subs, goals, injuries, time wasting. Added time. 3 minutes.

Was it him trying to get the crowd going? I thought it was Mitro?

I hope you're right. But I thought Taylor was an injury doubt, heading into the game? As for the game. It is nice to actually not lose to the fuckers, for a change. Even at 1-0, I thought to myself "It's an improvement, on the usual 3-0 score line" But in all seriousness. I think we're going down. The worst part is, I actually care again. If McClaren were still here, I really wouldn't give a shit. So appointing Rafa, is a bit of a catch 22, for me.

That La Bamba chant, that we have managed to completely fuck up. Has been stuck in my head since the game

He was doing the Charlton v Boro game, the other weekend. Couldn't believe he was reffing such a high level, live on Sky.

I didn't see it, TBF. I'm not saying he is faultless. He just usually seems the best and gets a lot of the bigger games of late.

I was saying yesterday. I would be fuming with him, if I were a sunderland fan (which thankfully, I am not). They should have won that game. Yet, they kept getting deeper and deeper and basically gave up on attacking towards the end of the game. If Mitro had scored ten minutes earlier and then didn't get knocked out. I think we would have scored again and won.

For some reason, our reserves had Darren Deadman as ref a few weeks back. He's never reffed in the Prem. But he refs up to the Championship and gets fairly high level FA Cup games. I don't think anyone realised that he was a high level ref or anything. They couldn't believe he was a Football League ref, after it was pointed out after the game. Supposedly, he was terrible, really arrogant and wasn't any better or worse than your usual amateur ref. If this is the sort of level that pro refs perform to. Then it's no wonder to see so many incompetent prem officials. I think Michael Oliver is the best. But most of them seem to be really bad. Or they are half decent, but are just so insufferably arrogant, like Mike Dean and Clattenburg.

This. It works when there is space in behind for him to try the Hollywood diagonal pass. But yesterday, he was basically playing centre back and the game was never set up to suit. Since getting the armband, he has really started to graft IMO. I like him.

Who is that in response to? The last 5 posts before this, are all pretty positive?

He was good for the most part. His kicking is gradually getting worse and worse, though. It may just be because I haven't seen him play for such a long time. But it doesn't seem much better than Krul's, at the minute. I thought when he first played for us, his kicking was a lot flatter and more accurate. But we're back to lofted, sliced, aimless punts up the field. Some going straight out of play. I thought he should have done better for the goal. Borini's shit was pretty fierce. But he palmed it straight back in front of him. The defensive shit show that followed that, was not his fault, of course. But I felt like he could have tipped it over the bar.

I like him. I thought we massively overpaid for him and I never particularly rated him. But TBF, he looks a threat and he is quicker than I thought. When he kept getting isolated with van Aanholt. He had a decent amount of success. I'm not sure if they countered that in the second half, or we just went away from it. But it looked like we were going to score, because of this match up. His touch is pretty shit, mind. When he is facing away from goal, it always seems to be a bit heavy.

I was sat up the opposite end. But I thought their fans sounded pretty shit, considering their team looked much more up for it, they've won the last 6 and they were in front for about 40 minutes of the game. Only really heard about 3-4 audible chants. Kirchoff looks like a very good player and Defoe has still got it. We both could still end up going down. But if Norwich struggle, I think they'll get out of it. Boring as fuck to watch, mind. They are set up perfectly, for a team fighting relegation. But imagine having to watch that every week?! I know if they stay up, they won't care. But Allardyce football FFS

My scouse mate, who is a genuine scouser and a massive fan, not a plastic glory boy. So I actually respect his opinion. Has been spot on about Rafa, from what I have seen so far. The gist of it was: Rafa will have you scratching your head at some of his substitutions. But that they will often end up panning out - I think they nearly did at Leicester and yesterday, we were better off after the subs. That he will infuriate you, with some of his favourites, that the fans don't necessarily like - Still early days, but I guess you could argue he really likes the look of de Jong. I don't think a lot of match going fans, see it the same way. He is stubborn and he will play his way, whether the fans like it or not. There will be a lot of seemingly slow, methodical passing and possession for possession's sake - the crowd were getting restless, pretty early on, I thought. Which was a bit mental. As whenever we went direct, the ball came straight back. I thought in both of his games so far, there was a lot of sideways and backwards passing, along the back four. I don't mind that if we're trying to work an opening. But I do think we go back to Elliot, too often. This sounds like the guy was being negative, he wasn't. He absolutely loves Rafa and he wasn't pointing these things out as flaws. Just that he can split opinion. He said a lot of things. About how he'll make us much better from set pieces, more organised, more compact, better defensively etc. I like what I see so far and it looks like the scouser was right. I just hope it's not too late for any of it to matter.......

I always thought he was a bit chubby and overweight, TBH. He may be a bit too heavy and sluggish, to ever become a top player. But he certainly isn't fat Built like a brick shithouse. So happy for him to get the goal. Just a shame it wasn't the winner. I was down in the corner where he got double footed by the fan it was pretty hilarious. Sadly, he's not enough of a natural goal scorer. Unless he hits a mad run of form between now and the end of the season. I just don't see where our goals are going to come from? I don't think we'll score enough to stop up.

Today? Really? He was poor on the ball but ran up and down all day man Spot on. He's been lazy as f*** in the past. But the last two games, the effort has certainly been there. Some of our mong fans in the ground, man. "Sissoko, run for the ball. You've got to work you lazy t***." "Wijnaldum has done f*** all. Just walking around the pitch." Now neither had particularly good games. But I would guess both covered the most distance on the pitch? They ran themselves into the ground. Both very valid points from the mong fans. I'm shocked that you share the same opinion, as said mong fans.

Yeah. I thought Shelvey sat far too deep. Sunderland were just getting everyone behind the ball and organised. So Shelvey sitting next to the centre backs and looking to spray long passes, was a bit pointless. It wasn't like we were ever going to get in behind them.

When Borini ran with the ball, Colback made him look like Messi. When Borini had his back to goal, Colback made him look like Ibrahimovic. Fabio. f***ing. Borini! Colback made him look world class He is a complete waste of a shirt. Equally as s*** in midfield and at left back. Gives away so many cheap free kicks, in dangerous areas. Considering they have a team full of brutes. It didn't seem like the wisest idea. Him getting banned, was the best thing about yesterday's game.

Today? Really? He was poor on the ball but ran up and down all day man Spot on. He's been lazy as fuck in the past. But the last two games, the effort has certainly been there. Some of our mong fans in the ground, man. "Sissoko, run for the ball. You've got to work you lazy twat." "Wijnaldum has done fuck all. Just walking around the pitch." Now neither had particularly good games. But I would guess both covered the most distance on the pitch? They ran themselves into the ground.