Mbemba Youre A Womble

Swing and a miss from Marco Gabbiadini Shocking that Peter Crouch is still getting this amount of game time for a PL club

The Grand Old Team match thread is absolutely brutal about both Williams and Keane: https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/burnley-v-everton-saturday-3rd-march-2018.102555/page-70 Aye, read their forum quick after their game. Seem to have quite a high opinion of themselves. Not a lot of love for anything, even having a go at their shirt sponsors Twitter posts

That'd be preferable. Personally not too worried in what other teams get up though. Whatever the case we've got to win games to stay up, and if we can't we deserve to go down. Can't worry about other teams keeping you up.

Missed the chance earlier - but can we all have a collective laugh at how shit Ashley Williams has got! Sent off for a shit elbow, and gifted Wood a goal by not bothering mark him despite being stood next to him.

Southampton looking bit better now. Stoke really haven't much on the break with Crouch up front! Really do hope that West Ham go down. WBA look dead, so that'll be good for the Pardew factor. But West Ham back in Championship will be hilarious.

Who if any would you take from either if one/both were to go down? Shaqiri? Tadic? Ward-Prowse? Bertrand? Redmond? Boufal? Lemina? Some okay names in there on paper at least. Aye - rate quite a few of those S'ton players. Not so many of the Stoke side, think they've really gone backwards and brought badly recent years. Shaqiri when he's fancying it is quality, Joe Allen consistently decent too. Baring that you'd fancy Butland to improve in a better side, but that's about it. Southampton seem like us few years ago. Plenty of players that you'd think are decent, but all seem to be playing well within themselves and not gelling at all as a team. Rate Cedric, Bertrand. Hoedt's meant to have some quality about him. Everytime I watch Ston, Lemina stands out as a quality player, same with Tadic. They we're a far better side under Puel last season, and stick a manager that can coach an improve players on that squad you'd fancy top half easy.

Southampton not playing at home again till into April, and only 3 home games remaining. Don't look like they can buy a goal at all, so look pretty screwed if they don't drastically change what their playing at.

Media seem to think he's doing good job as well No different from Bilic as far as I've seen

Watching Southampton Stoke, shockingly tragic game so far.

Would fancy chances more if we could sign and register free agents gone January, but no chance we'd be getting him come summer time.

Looked through his stats in the remaining games he was here from the date of that stat - managed one victory from behind. 2-1 away at Spurs, when Sameobi scored right from second half ko.. W1 D4 L30 total record

Never won a game in which we were trailing at half time - W0 D2 L24 As of 9/9/14, sackpardew.com

Had more than a fare share of games with Pardew/Carver/McLaren/Colo years where we rolled over and played dead, or lifelessly stumbled to the finish without hope of getting back into a game. Pardew's record for 3+ losing margins was obscene. Even in that 5th season we destroyed away at Spurs, Fulham scored five against us, Wigan four, pretty sure Chelsea or Everton beat us by 3 as well.

As long as there is a human element into the decision making, you can never achieve 100% accuracy. Goal line technology works, because it's a simple case of yes or no. It requires zero input from the officials. In the current guise of VAR, it's just an added layer of human officiating. How it's currently being used seems wasteful and misguided, but I really can't see how it can be used in a way that strikes the balance between significantly enhancing officiating standards whilst not changing the fundamental sporting identity of football. I've not actually heard any one in the media make the point that football is fundamentally a different sport to what Rugby, Tennis, Cricket are. Not in so much as the spectacle, and what the fans demand from an entertainment point of view; but actually the laws that facilitate the flow of the game, and existing officiating practices don't allow technology to flawlessly slot into place. Just seems we are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with this aspect of technology, and really just throwing good money after bad. We've already got goal line technology, proven to work flawlessly. Surely better use of finance from governing bodies would be to make this a more widespread across different levels of the sport.

Not sure about that at all.. Recon our squad is pretty meek, and the few senior players that are in the squad have shown to be ultimately fairly spineless. Partly that's down to quite a low age across the squad, but that the naivety and mentality of the squad has cost us so far, and I fear might do for us this season in the end.

Make the players all wear electronic suits under their kits. Somehow code the laws of game into them, in this example the offside rule. That can then set off a glaxon as soon as their big toe steps offside.

Fuck sake, thought I was right smart thinking of that, and couldn't wait to post it

Don't think that too many of their players aren't talented, or don't have the requisite skill to play Champions League level. Some are clearly out of their depth, but would fancy many of them to be able to cut it at bigger clubs across Europe. For a hell of a long time they have lacked a core group of players that is able to unify the squad through leadership and consistent high quality performances, especially in big games. All the years Chelsea were succeeding in-spite of managerial change they had the group of Cech, Lampard, Drogba, Terry. That's allowed an incredible reliability which eases new players in the side, and elevates performances from those around them and fringe players too. Probably been the case for the last 10 years since Henry, Gilberto, Campbell left (likely getting years muddled together there). Bellerin, Mustafi, Xakha aren't fundamentally terrible players. Countless players that have been at Arsenal in recent years could have, and have indeed gone to club's who have that foundation of leadership in the group, and consistency on the field that's allowed them to flourish or at least play to a more consistent/high personal performance. Add in the failures of coaching and tactical development, it only magnifies the existing situation. PEA and Henrick M are on a hiding to nothing really. They won't, and can't change Arsenal into a top four side. The best they can do is try their best not to be dragged down to the base standard that squad are working at.

Yannick Bolasie 2.0

Couldn't stand being a season ticket holder at a Pulis managed club. Such a loud mouth b******. Must drive the players mental, let alone fans near him. Bet Berahino's goal draught is down to PTSD from Pulis shouting "SAAAIDOOO" at him constantly.

What happens when your sock/part of clothing with the chip in it is onside, but your other leg is offside?

Poor from Big Vurn that. All those years playing with Tiote, learnt nothing - should have reduced Traore when he had the chance.

For offside calls I think there should be a level of grey area used. The Mata against Huddersfield offside call was technically right, but we surely can agree that it's an absurd ruling. Nobody would have ever considered that to be an obvious error on the part of the linesman. If the linesman has missed an offside upon VAR, and it falls outside such a grey area - basically factoring in the level of judgement from the human eye, and the time delay in actually raising a flag from seeing the ball being kicked - then it can be ruled out from VAR. Factoring in a margin for error would also continue to give the linesman's continued participation at every call validity. Forcing the linesman to make every call as they would do normally - thus not effecting the judgement across their profession. (not every game they'll officiate will have VAR). If they get into a habit of letting marginal calls go, knowing that VAR will make the call anyway - that could actually seriously lower the standard of officiating. I've got huge problems with it's implementation in certain games, but not others. Using it in selective cup matches, essentially TV games at PL stadiums is affording different privilege to certain teams than others, and ultimately brings into question the integrity of the competitions. Although unfortunate, I would have loved for an error to occurred one weekend in the FA Cup, or one tie in the League Cup where the VAR wasn't in use. This would have highlighted it's sporadic use to the favour of TV companies, and bigger teams wholly unfair. It wasn't used in the first leg of Spurs vs. Rochdale, but it was in the second leg. How is that right?

Erm........... Not the first bit that jumped out at me, but can see where you've gone with that - fair play.