TheBrownBottle

‘Cacky winker’ was surely worth a bowl of untouched soggy Cheerios

We’ve beaten Villa more times than any other club in our history.

I hate the semis being at Wembley. Always have, ruins the occasion of the final.

Yep, it’s spatial intelligence. The lad has it

100% - that’s where I was with his performance too. Surprised at how many thought he was outstanding. The lad has technical ability, and he’s very, very young so hopefully he’ll develop in the coming years. Incredible where he is at this age - but he’s not at this level yet.

Fulham’s heads dropped and so did their press after the second. We were more confident, but Fulham definitely helped

Apologies due for describing it as ‘straw manning’, I went overboard there. Not sure that it is speculative to talk about FFP constraints though - they do exist and we are constrained. I’m not one of those who is negative re BDB mind - I actually think that when everyone is fit I’m perfectly happy for Howe to pick him. When we’re playing well, he tucks in when Trippier bombs on. The fitness issues on the left (Joelinton, Willock, Barnes) has meant that the bloke has been a bit more exposed. I never thought a LB was a priority, though Hall of course can play multiple positions. At the moment he seems to be the last player selected despite an injury crisis - I get the impression Howe would bring on Ritchie at LB ahead of him.

The fee is relevant if your budget is limited. You can’t conduct a transfer strategy if you think transfer fees have no relevance to what you’re doing. You mentioned the ‘Man City kid’. He’s not got a £30m fee attached. We’re not in a position yet to pay £30m for players who might one day be good enough. And no-one slagged the kid off, no-one has said he’s shite. Strawman stuff to suggest that anyone did. It’s a reasonable question to ask if a player isn’t playing under the current circumstances then when exactly does he play?

Not being funny, but if that is the case then what’s happening is potentially harmful to his career - they should have been discussing cancelling the loan

If it’s a summer transfer then FFP this season doesn’t come into it

Yep, I thought it was as much to do with poor decision-making and a lack of composure from Fulham. You can’t rely on that being the case every week.

Ah, must be a different commentsry in different regions - the check was mentioned briefly (though they didn’t show the check). They didn’t show the VAR check and only showed the replay a couple of times. Sounds like the UK commentators wouldn’t stop banging on about it

It’s as much of a reason why our form has been so poor of late as fatigue etc. We need players back or it needs to change

Either that or its opening time in the Mackem harem

Ring rusty and a limited player, but despite the poor finish early on and the failure to check his run for the disallowed goal I’m glad he’s back

Robert’s left peg was a wand, mind. He could use his right too (see the goal vs Arsenal)

It may well have been the same commentary in Australia - Jonathan Pearce and Clive Allen basically took a few seconds and said ‘yep, that’s fine’. And never went back to it - it was an uncontroversial call

Weirdly, both are perfectly apt descriptions of what I watched. It was a stroll, and it was laboured. We were poor yet never in real danger of going out.

Don’t want to think about this one just yet. Not a lot of confidence we can get owt

In which case Silva wasn’t doing anything Ryder’s own family wouldn’t do on a daily basis

Not sure he could do much more with the subs available in all honesty - though when we’ve got a squad back I’ll be interested to see if the last few months has changed his thinking. With a full squad, subs seemed to be made to a pre-planned sequence rather than reacting to the game unfolding in front of us I’ll happily back Howe on the Hall situation - he’s the manager, he sees the lad everyday. If he thinks he’s not good enough to play at the moment, then that’s the right call for me. The question mark arises over why he’s here and will he be here next season, but that’s not the same as questioning Howe bringing him on or not

Yep. If we had a Sky Six budget then we could afford the gamble. At the moment we can’t be signing £30m footballers who are at best so raw that they can’t get a kick

It’s well ladge like

I could be misremembering, but I’m sure Howe confirmed in a press conference that it wasn’t related to time on the pitch when he was asked about it

Yeah, Fulham were disastrously poor in the final third. Glad we improved after our second - heads went up, the passing started to come off (though I suspect Fulham’s press basically stopping after the second helped)