sushimonster85

Love when you go see a band and they play all their big hits from back in the day. Imagine his encore will be trying to somehow pin WBA's issues on 'the mighty Rafa'.

Hope no one was looking forward to the Brentford/Toon match too much. It's been replaced by a 3pm showing of The Mike Dean Experience.

He is clearly out of depth and an absolute liability, but it's not like you can accuse him of not putting the effort in. Plus, he must feel a shit. You know when someone new starts at work and they're instantly better than you are? He is going through that in a very public way!

Honestly, I feel like Dubravka could pick up an injury and there were be a section of us who would be trying to figure out a way for this to get Bruno in the side. There's no rush. The three lads in centre mid are all playing well. If Fraser is missing it will be Murphy out there.

Feel bad for Krafth, but really hoping Manquillo is fit for Saturday. Feel like we have the entire range of full back quality in the squad at the moment: Elite, top tier, sex in fullback form: Trippier Good Premier League level fullback: Targett Decent Premier League/very good championship level fullback: Manquillo Emil Krafth: Emil Krafth

Shut up man, ya plastic

Not going to lie, a bit worried about this game. Obviously they haven't got the same quality as any of our previous 3 opponents, and are on an awful run, but it's that that scares me. For the first time since the Watford game we're going to be playing a side that is setting out to nullify us, rather than the other way round. Feel like we will really need Max to produce something if that's the case.

Put me down as another who will think Burnley will (just barely) get out of it. My three (from 20th to 18th) is Norwich, Watford, and Brentford. Given Everton's run in I actually think there's a pretty good chance they finish 17th. Liverpool's version of the Chronicle (The Echo) has a fixture prediction tool that lets you just predict the result of each of the remaining fixtures, then at the end shows you where your results have everyone finishing. I actually had us on 38 points, which was good for 13th. Just Google 'Echo fixture predictor' if you want to give it a try.

People angry at Shelvey getting an extension? I don't really get it, so long as he is a squad player I am happy for him to still be around next year.

If we do take 6 points from the next 2 games (unlikely but not impossible), there is a good chance we will find ourselves as high as 13th, depending on other results. Which I think would be us pretty much safe given how in the shit the likes of Brentford, Leeds and even Everton would be at that point, not to mention the current bottom 3.

From what I can gather from his role at Brighton, then the FA before that, Dan Ashworth likes to oversee a lot more than just player recruitment. I imagine he will want a scouting and recruitment team set up which reports to him, but will also oversee a bunch of other stuff.

Agree with everyone highlighting the importance of this match. When a team in the relegation zone goes on a good run of form it can take a while for it to be truly reflected in their league position. Feel like this has been true of us. We may have come out of the bottom 3, but a glance at the table still shows us in 17th, just one spot above it which given how we have been playing feels off. That could be rectified on Saturday, if other results go our way a win on Saturday could take us as high as 14th. Assuming Leeds get nothing from Liverpool midweek, then Spurs at the weekend, even a draw with Brentford puts us above Leeds. But yeah, a win at Brentford and I will start to truly look forward to the Summer/next season.

Forget the bigger name signings, or the first trophy, I personally won't feel like we have hit the big time till everyone starts to hate us. That and we start getting a lot of dodgy ref decisions magically start going our way.

Got a feeling we may just sneak a draw tomorrow. Can't see them not scoring, but on the flipside if you look at their options at RB I can't see any of them being able to handle Max. Going to say 1-1 with our goal coming from Max serving one up on a plate for Wood.

Actually think that will be the prompt that gets him into the team. You ideally don't want to change a winning team too much, especially when Joe, Shelvey and Willock have been some of our best performers over that run. We get beat I imagine it will be a good chance to change/freshen things up a bit.

I have a feeling we may be looking at 3 at the back. I don't see him dropping Schar or Burn, but instead adding Lascelles to them. Under Rafa Lascelles always looked much better as part of a back 3 when he had the likes of Fernandez, Lejuene or Schar around him. Reckon it will be 3 at the back with Targett and Murphy as the wing backs. Joelinton and Shelvey in the middle and the usual 3 lads up top.

I think in these early days as he gets used to the PL that would be the case. Willock plays and presses much higher up the pitch, a mistake up there and you have plenty of backup behind you. I think in the mid to long term Bruno will be playing in the role Shelvey currently does.

This has been the way I have looked at it since the start of Jan when things still weren't look too great. Given the resources we were about to (and have since spent) throw at it, and how tight it all was among the bottom 4 you would have to make us favourites to win a 4 team mini-league. Obviously things have started out even better than I expected. Even if our form dips a little now, we have given ourselves enough space to be able to just perform for the rest of the season like a bottom half side and still likely be fine. Only danger is if the bottom absolutely falls out.

Anyone know for sure how much longer we have with Fun88? Or at least how long we're supposed to have? Given the Saudi's thoughts on gambling I imagine they will likely be paid off at the end of the season so they can stick Saudi Golf/Airlines/Massage Chairs or some such on the front of the tops.

Agree. I know competition is likely going to be stiff for Raphinha (Bayern and Liverpool both interested apparently) but I feel like he should be one of our key summer targets. I really love the improvement in Fraser these past few weeks, but Raphinha is just different class. Imagine him on one side, Max on the other. Lethal.

Aye, if you have a spy on their forum a good few of them are talking about how knackered Antonio has seemed lately. They seem to think Bowen through the middle could be the answer.

Totally agree with this. I feel like people shouldn't get too excited just yet about what plans they may have for St James'/new stadium. They're still actually staffing up, which is no small job in itself, don't forget whilst Ashworth may be on the way, we're still waiting on a chief exec. Nothing will happen until all that is in place. I had to guess, I reckon the summer/early next season we will start to get wind of the plans for the new training complex, and it won't be till the end of next season that they put forward a plan for expansion/new ground. Both of these are massive projects. Training complex is more straight forward as once they have a site its all about building from scratch. Any ground expansion is going to take a lot of work... and cash.

Think Brighton have a bit of catchment area problem. They're close enough to London that a lot of the really promising kids would end up in the youth systems of the bigger teams. Obviously that may be starting to change now, but that won't become evident for another few years as kids start coming through.

Aye, like as funny as it would initially be, I don't really want them to fold altogether. Would much rather them be stuck in the National League, their fanbase still banging on about how actually they are still somehow the bigger team.

Dan Ashworth definitely on garden leave, definitely not already working from home on Newcastle stuff, promise....