geordiesteve710

Cittie of York pub in Holborn is canny for a Sam Smiths. Was planning on maybe nipping in on Saturday if it's still there.

Remember a couple of years ago in the Championship when a ref- Drysdale it might have been- lost his rag with a player and looked like he was going to chin him. Think he swore as well, something like a "what did you just fucking say to me?" The player absolutely shit himself and backed down, football media went mental and the ref got (and happily accepted) a one-game ban for what is probably milder than most players do to refs every week. Not saying the refs reaction was right, but it was interesting to see the outrage. Some people seem to think refs are just there to take abuse off everyone and accept it.

I'm definitely in the pessimistic camp at the moment. I can see a similarity with 98/99 in that in both of those years form also dropped off between winning the semi and going to the final whereas our opponents just carried on as normal and had the momentum behind them. It's not as easy as flicking a switch to turn it back on on the day. On the other hand there is the mitigation that we've been missing Bruno and he will be back. It is also clear that Man Utd will be looking to take the initiative and push on rather than adopting the cautious mentality we've been up against. This means rather than having to break down a compact defence we will get opportunities to counter like we did for example to great effect at Anfield. All in all I'm looking forward to the day and the weekend, having a good drink in London with my mates and bumping into a few familiar faces I'm sure. In Wembley I'm going to take ot all in, sing/shout my voice box out and hope we win that battle as comprehensively as 2005. As for the game I'm expecting to get beat 3 or 4 nil so that whatever happens I don't end up too downhearted.

Fun fact, at least two sunderland fans from my school were involved in smashing up that phone box and visible on the front of the Ronnie. Always have a little chuckle to myself when I hear a mackem say "you would never catch us doing things like that."

That's fair comment I think. Dabizas had a header that clipped the bar a few minutes before Shearer's shot came back off the inside of the post. Looking back now I've no doubt that if we had equalised Arsenal would have just been stung into life again and it would have made no difference.

Pickford, seems to always bottle it against these as well as us

Just realised they've put that useless cunt Hooper in charge of this. That's not going to end well.

I'd be surprised if we win the cup against these, but I'll be very disappointed if we don't give them a proper game and make them sweat on it.

Surprised they didn't take a closer look at that handball shout against Maguire. Not sure "pushing an opponent to the ground" would automatically be classed as a natural position for most teams defenders.

Whoever is the commentator doesn't know how to tell if the officials have given a free kick for offside or handball. Which is poor really.

Is it? Oh fair enough. For some reason I normally get Goodman confused with Alan Smith and his gloomy Midlands accent so thought it was the other dimwit

Hinchcliffe claiming every decision for them

Thought Pope was gonna decapitate Botman there. Camera angle deceptive

Not sure if it's missing Bruno or that we're already focused on the final but I can't see us winning another league game until Wolves. Just lacklustre

Fucking irony that the tube station he's clearly on about ("take the steps down") isn't Wembley Central ?‍♂️ Familiar though.

Fatigue or Casemiro not being fit an available are your two main obstacles iro the final. I'd love to be wrong but I think Man Utd at Wembley will be a bridge too far for this team. Hope we give you a proper game this time though.

Boro will class anyone from Berwick Rangers to Sheffield United as a "derby" game. They don't have the numbers of support that Newcastle or Sunderland do, so I just put it down to marketing, trying everything to get as many bums on seats as they can. Can't say I blame them really. Fuck knows what the pyro is about the night before an away game but each to their own innit.

Been going on for as long as I can remember to some degree. Google Grobelaar spaghetti legs for example. All part of the penalty psychology for me. Don't see why anyone should be told where they can or can't stand while the penalty is being prepared, but if the keeper is still standing after the ref has told him to move back to his line then aye, a yellow card is clearly appropriate then. Same topic but slightly different- saw an interesting video last year about Chelsea and Liverpool countering the defending team's attempts to put the taker off by having one player grab the ball and pretend he is taking it, takes all the verbal, then someone else actually takes it. Clever. Putting my pedant hat on I think Krul was 2014 wasn't it?

I'm not sure, I'm guessing Tindall. Didn't understand what was going on at the time, just thought the ref was being a fussy sod.

Spectacular lack of self awareness as well

I actually think pretending that the opposition had 12 players on, in order to get the ref to stop the game while he counts them is better. Like a really shit April Fools gag and completely shameless ?

And was genuinely incapable of picking the ball up

Is that what sent Fulhams bench off the deep end at the end? They were going ape shit about something. Not sure if it was just before or just after the "12th man" carryon.

I thought Eddie has had a word about joining in the shithousery. When he announced half a substitution before the penalty I was sure he was going to suddenly shout the second bit during Mitrovic's run up!!

Sounds like a bit of a fanny anyway