SteV

Obviously a lot is down to team structure and how well they’ve defended. But to only concede 9 goals in 34 games shows any weaknesses he does have clearly aren’t as significant as some would make out.

Who he plays for is irrelevant. His ability is what we need to focus on. Should we not have signed Tino because he was at Southampton?

No, as long as he doesn’t get sent off…

Osula can’t start as CF against a PL team. He’s looked absolutely miles away. RW perhaps.

Is it really surprising that the support was muted in a game we had 30-odd % possession and little to no real chances? I understand the ‘defiance’ support argument, but that comes when you’re shit, and you know you are, so you don’t expect anything. We’re not shit now, and we go into matches with genuine hope that it’ll be better than tonight. So it’s very deflating when it’s not.

Howe - Botman and Joelinton “in and around it and we’ll see where they are for Sunday”.

It was hardly a performance that inspired confidence, but there isn’t a keeper in world football that saves that first goal.

His best defensive performance for us.

Tonali had a slight injury at the weekend…

And rightly so.

How many points if we had signed Cherki?

As gamble’s go…😮‍💨

Trouble in the camp…

Palace at home is an underrated game in terms of difficulty when you look at the away league table Albeit there is an argument to say it’s slightly misleading as they still have to go to us, Arsenal, Man City, Spurs and Liverpool.

They’ve not got a game at the weekend with being out the cup so they’re probably alright. The full back areas are definitely where you can get at them. Robertson is on his last legs as a top player and Trent was an absolute shambles defensively against Doku on Sunday. Unfortunately exploiting that is easier said than done.

The cheapest

Southampton

As much as it’s class to see your team win every week, the SPL must get boring as fuck. Celtic are first and Aberdeen are third. After tonight their respective goal differences will be +66 and -7.

I did like this one from another thread:

I dare say in the event of us qualifying again it could be a tad easier, as there’s 4 games rather than 3, and not everyone will be against a European monster like we had there. Obviously would still depend on allocations like.

Last season? Assuming you were a ST holder: Milan - easy due to short turnaround (1+ point) Dortmund - quite difficult (42 points) PSG - very difficult (77 points)

A related (albeit somewhat self-indulgent) story. If anyone can remember the Black n White magazine that came out in the mid-90’s, well they ran a fantasy football competition (the precursor to FPL for any youngsters) which 15 year old me won for season 96/97 (largely thanks to inspired late season subs of Pav, Robbie Elliot and Dean Sturridge if memory serves). Anyway the prize was two ST’s for the 97/98 season. As I didn’t have ST’s at the time and only really attended matches occasionally this was obviously a tremendous prize. Subsequently had to attend SJP with my dad for the photoshoot for the magazine and met the editor (I think), a guy called Mark Gillespie (obv not that one). Everything went great with the ST’s, apart from us being piss poor under Dalglish and Shearer being injured, but we bought CL tickets and obviously was at the Barca game. FA cup came round and we were able to buy our seats no probs. Reach the semi final against Sheff Utd at Old Trafford and we applied for tickets with a neighbour who also had a ST with his son. As I remember you had to apply for away tickets via a particular slip from a little booklet you got with your ST, and post them off, so we posted all for applications off together. Got word back that two had been successful and two hadn’t, but there seemed to be some confusion over which was which. Anyway, my neighbour said they were the successful ones, and they went, although it transpired that it should have been us as the money got taken from my dad. I think it was all probably a genuine mix-up and my dad probably didn’t want to have an argument about it, so just let them go. Obviously get to final and apply for tickets again (can’t remember if we did it with the neighbour again or not). After applying we get a phone call one day from this Mark Gillespie, saying sorry but the terms and conditions of winning the ST didn’t allow us to buy cup tickets. Obviously my dad was like, wtf are you talking about we’ve been buying them all season, but this twat clearly wanted them for himself, or someone he knew, and managed to pull enough strings to get them diverted to him. So I suppose the moral of the story is that cup final tickets will always bring out the worst in people.

Chelsea fans coming across tremendously in this protest…

I wouldn’t leave the seat empty mate, well unless you scan their ticket at the turnstile as, as I suspect going forward they’ll be looking at using the scan data to determine if people have actually turned up, and will probably use it against you if you haven’t. Anyway, always easy enough to find a buyer for any spares on here, and very straightforward to pass on unless they improve the tech around them.

Did not expect to be referencing these teams in this thread mind. *although I’ve no doubt the mackems ‘would give them a game’ (™️RTG) in every single instance.