Figures 1-0 Football

Aye. SSN says he has been hacked.

Well that would be why for quite a long spell Shelvey couldn't get in the team could he. Pretty sure Rafa has talked about Shelvey beginning to understand what he wants from him. While he's not quite doing it just how Rafa probably would like, Rafa sees Shelvey really is our best attacking option from midfield in getting it forward. Say we stay up and the club is sold, Rafa has some money to spend, i've no doubts that Shelvey would be out on his ear if he doesn't continue to carry on understanding and following what Rafa expects of him. Just saying how i see it. Oh aye, I definitely agree with the last paragraph and I’ve said it myself. Shelvey was sent off against Everton, then hoyed straight back into the team. He’s been sent off twice this season, one of which to our huge detriment (Spurs at home). Why make an example of Mitro and banish him from the team, yet continue to play Shelvey? This is Shelvey who has 0 goals and 0 assists in the league this season like and has been pathetic to say the least during some goals we’ve conceded. Merino is a much more suitable alternative to Shelvey then Joselu is to Mitro.

Which home games have we been cautious against the teams around us like? Burnley, Swansea, Everton (1st half), Bournemouth, Leicester, Brighton - I recall us having numerous chances and being the better side only to be let down by poor finishing. We could have (and should have) won all of those games like, which was nothing to do with being set up wrong but everything to do with our strikers not taking their chances. We’ve also beat West Ham, Palace & Stoke at home. Is Watford the only game we were probably guilty of being too cautious? Then again, I think we were more crap in general than necessarily cautious.

The trust theory is complete nonsense when Shelvey is a starter week-in-week-out for us like. Same goes for following instructions as Shelvey is one of the worst for his piss poor attempts to track back, put effort in etc. (at times). Mitro with 1 yellow card in 7 appearances so far for Fulham. Mitro’s fitness/bulking up is clearly not an issue at Fulham either, as he’s playing much more regularly than would be required here without issue. In fact, Fulham fans are raving about his work rate, fitness and goalscoring instinct. If the issue is the ‘system’, then why the fuck does Joselu get on the field for us? He tries unsuccessfully to play in exactly the same way as Mitro and has proven to be much more ineffective. We’ll probably never know what the issue(s) is/are, but the bottom line is that our best striker (bar Slimani who hasn’t put the shirt on yet) is on loan at a Championship squad and it could end up being a completely foolish move come the end of the season.

Wonder if this is a must win game for them, I’ve got no idea anymore.

Unreal how absolutely shite the bottom 5 or 6 sides are in that league. It’s the same in the Premier League, to be fair.

Neymar crashing out of the CL is absolutely delicious. Hopefully Brazil will go out of the World Cup in the group stages and the pathetic little tosser will cry himself to sleep every night.

Joselu manages to get enough game time like, is he all that different to Mitro? Not disputing that Rafa wants to play with a better version of Gayle, but why couldn’t Mitro just have played in the games we have to endure watching Joselu? Another goal and good performance from the big man last weekend Really get the impression we’ll rue losing this lad when we sell him in the summer.

If they’ve already accepted relegation then keep the creepy little prick employed and hoy a relegation on his already pathetic CV.

I’m not sure anyone has said that they’re happy for a draw. I think people are just correctly pointing out that a draw wouldn’t leave us in the worst circumstances ever, meaning it’s not a ‘must win’ game.

Well I'd be worried then. The side that wins is going to have to score at least one. Who are our potential goal scorers compared to them? I'm guessing Gayle would be our best bet. They’ve scored an extraordinary 2 goals more than us all season, I’d hardly be worried - we’re both where we are because we cant score goals.

I wasn’t there, but when our support broke out into ‘you fat cockney bastard...’, it sounded like the Liverpool fans applauded? It may have been a coincidence, but I didn’t recall seeing anything on the pitch that merited the clapping (unless there was someone warming up or something?)

I'd say all the home games against our relegation rivals have been must win, but yeah this one is even more important. Our last 3 home 'must wins' against relegation rivals have all been draws though :/ Palace in October is the last one we have won really. Hang on. All of our home games against relegation rivals were must-win. But we didn't win. What happened then? Did we go down? Why are people calling games must-win when there are not really any consequences for not winning? Does must-win game not mean that we MUST WIN the GAME, or presumably the consequences are pretty dire? Fuck the term "must-win" man, it's doing my head in Exactly this.

They seem like a positive bunch

Every game we have left is winnable.

Wow. This isn't must win? Well, no. A must win game is a game that you must win. This isn’t one of them. A draw would keep Southampton behind us, with one less game for them to catch us. This is also probably one of their games that they are targetting a win, so it’d be a huge blow to them. Of course I and everyone else (Rafa and the team included) will be hoping/expecting to win this. But it’s clearly not the end of the world if we drew.

Completely missed that Monk has taken over at Birmingham. Maybe that’ll be the lift that they need to sink the mackems further into oblivion.

4 points from the next two will set us up for sruvival. Must not lose rather than must win imo.

Bookies have us at 9/2, with 6 teams more likely to go down than us. Which I’d probably agree with. 4 or more points from our next 2 games and we’ll be safe. I cant make any sort of case for WBA surviving, so there are 2 spots available. Stoke look most likely to drop with the 3rd space going to one of Palace, Huddersfield or Southampton.

Decent set of results for us today, best we could have hoped for as we all expected to lose this weekend. 3 wins and a draw or two and we’ll survive, easily achieved.

We need VAR!

How do they rule things out for offside now? Will never forget this

Probably, which is probably why we didn’t manage to get rid of him - too many people just willing to lay down and take it. Cant also remember many fans of other clubs feeling sorry for us either.