Happinesstan

That doesn't make sense. If an attacking player encroaches, surely the outcome should be the same whether the penalty is scored, or not.

Someone asked him for a photo when he was out trying to enjoy himself with friends/family in a wine bar and he said no. What a cheeky c***! How unpleasant! f*** being famous man. People probably coming up to you all your life asking for photos and if you show a slight sign of displeasure or say no your a c***. I passed Pedro in cowgate Morrisons the other week and I said hello, and as natural as anything, with the warmest, most genuine of smiles, he said hello back, as if he was my next door neighbour or something. The amount of people that say hello to him every day must be crazy, and yet he just takes it in his stride. Respect to Pedro.

Random I know, but for some reason when I see Matt Ritchie's name my head starts singing 'Matt Ritchie is a weatherman, and so is Michael fish.'

No point expanding the stadium if you continue to buy players who can't perform on the big stage.

Our recent form points to the evident lack of quality within or squad, which makes it all the more remarkable that Rafa has got us where we are. He's a footballing engineer, building a Chrysler building with balsa and copydex.

Colback could be so much better if we upgraded Shelvey, like.

Average players playing in front of a massive crowd will only raise their game if it isn't an every day occurrence. We need players who can play big games every week. Those players demand high wages for the very reason we need them.

Since losing to these on the opening day we have slowly but surely developed ino a well oiled unit, sweeping aside most in our path (Blackburn excluded). Beat these and we lay that ghost to rest, and finally confirm that Rafa is indeed the man. Not that I have any doubts on that, but it would be nice for Rafa. It's almost like a film, we need a montage of us since that opening day defeat.

Quality. Hope he gets back on track with the toon. Love this lad. Still young enough to go on to be a worldie keeper in his latter years.

It appears he is. Before yesterday I thought everyone was just being paranoid, but its's pretty clear now that Rafa feels let down. The football's been rank for a while now, and Rafa has to take some blame for that, but if Ashley just trusted him to get on with the job you know he would deliver in the end. Promotion or not I do now think there's a good chance Rafa won't be here next season. He'll have too many offers from big clubs to be wondering if Ashley has his back - or just a knife to plunge into it. Question is when Ashley considers the amount of compo available will he have any incentive to have Rafa's back.

Can't help wondering if our transfer policy extends to managers. Sign him on a 3 year contract, fail to back him up in the first year, and somebody poaches him and we get massive compo.

Agreed, squadwise we should have enough to go up still. I think the reaction is down to the uncertainty regarding Rafa's response. How much did he think he NEEDED Thownsend, and just how confident was he that something would happen. Still 3 mins to go like.

Still 24 minutes to go after our other choices.

Who does have the best squad in the Championship then? The side that wins it...and regardless of what anyone thinks a strong squad would not lose 3-0 at a Div 1 side. If NUFC have the strongest squad there must be some strong squads in Div 1 then.. So come on then, if it's not us, and it's not Brighton...it can't be Leeds now. Who is it? Reading? Wolves? If being beaten off lesser opposition disqualifies you then it has to be.

Those were the days. The surges man, if you got pressed against a barrier. The excitement of not knowing whether you would come out alive. Fucking nanny state.

No we exist to make profit on our investments.

Are you for real have a look at that team man f*** of no hopers and s*** It sounds like he had opportunities. Can't blame the manager or the team for him missing. You can't pin everything on Mitrovic. The whole team sounded awful 2nd half. I didn't but carry on.

not if we were 9 (10) points clear of our nearest promotion challenger they wouldn't 10 points clear in January. What could possibly go wrong?

Are you for real have a look at that team man f*** of no hopers and s*** It sounds like he had opportunities. Can't blame the manager or the team for him missing.

Given our recent history it's easy to jump to the conclusion that we're not going for this. But I prefer to think Rafa has spotted some talent in reserve that he wants to take a look at. All the young uns did alright against Brum so no reason to worry.

Used to call that 'SPOT'. Kingo we used to start in a circle with a tennis ball on the deck, between the legs was the goal, using feet as pinball flippers. First to concede was 'it' and had to hit the others with the ball. Rush keeper is a weird rule, since it's allowed in the game anyway. Can anybody else remember butterfly keeper? Basically nearest to the goal was keeper.

I'm in Bitz at all these chocolate references.

If this bloke is soft then he has massive confidence in his tackling ability.

And I thought it was a typo Soz, didn't realise it was so uniquely Australian - to me, it's just a word we use instead of "bullshit" It's also a beer "made with 100% victorian ingredients". Sounds rancid.