TheBrownBottle

Wonder if his memories are the same as mine - the away end revelling in Brian Pinas coming on as sub. ‘Stand up, if you’ve got a Pinas’ etc etc. I was 15, alright? I thought it was funny.

I don’t think it was handball either

Look, the 7,000 employees - who all work at the same time, the whole ‘shift work’ thing is a lie - who work at Nissan are all MLFs, and that’s why there are 25,000 empty seats. Even my mate from Chapel Park who works at Nissan who doesn’t support Sunderland would be there, because that’s what Nissan workers do

I’m not convinced it was a handball either - but proximity to the ball plays a role in where a player’s hands are. You’re not likely to worry about handball if you’re ten yards away - you’ve got plenty of time to move your arms away from the ball

Honestly mate, they were winding themselves up as much as owt else. Their profligacy in front of goal was hilarious. Laughed my head off every time Fabian Ruiz lined himself for another pisspoor long ranger.

Pope was MOTM for me too, tbh. But I’m not changing my mind re the OTT time-wasting.

No, I think we understand it. But it’s cartoonishly OTT when we do it - and it didn’t disrupt PSG at all. Nothing changed about the onslaught.

thanks Rod

Feels a lot less controversial after watching this:

That’s my understanding too - but playing double the amount of likely stoppage time doesn’t help.

Yeah, anything would have done. For me, the fact that PSG seemed to be creating roughly one chance per minute meant that we weren’t actually defending well at all those last 20 mins - PSG were just profligate. A goal looked inevitable.

I think I might have written on this thread somewhere during the game, but Pope’s ostentatious time-wasting doesn’t really help - we were punished by Liverpool last season under similar circumstances. That type of shithousing just leads to the referees adding ridiculous amounts of stoppage time on - all to delay a goal kick by about ten seconds. The club need to pack it in.

Yeah, I agree. The ball was literally bouncing off the lad - he was completely spent. I was surprised we didn’t bring on Dummett & Hall in stoppage time - both to add defenders, and to run down the clock

He was a Torygraph writer for years - mainly on cricket. Not sure if he is on the left tbh.

Personally, Liew is one of those hacks who irritates me - it irritated me when the Grauniad hired him. He’s always had an issue with us.

I honestly think that the VAR checks make some things worse - particularly handballs. They need to be watched in real time, not slowed down - every handball claim looks more valid in slow motion

Organised fun shite to me. Saw plenty of positive comments, which makes me think that I don’t understand modern football at all.

Yeah, I think so too. If you’re relying on the opposition missing chances you’d expect them to score nine times out of ten you’re riding your luck - you’re not shutting them out. Christ knows where our lads found those energy reserves from to chase as hard as they did for so long - but we also couldn’t have complained if the scoreline was a big PSG win. In that context, a draw there is an incredible result - though it is a pisser the way we conceded. I’m not as angry re the result as I might have been otherwise - it felt like an equaliser was coming for half an hour. I think I’d sort of accepted it.

They really should have buried four or five of the chances they had in those last 20 mins + stoppages - the manner of how the goal came was a disgrace, but if PSG could finish the game would have been over well before that point.

Hey, what are you implying? That corruption occurs in European football? You’d think that the only French team to actually win the European Cup were found guilty of match fixing that season and were banned from defending the trophy the year after. Oh.

Yep, the lads were colossal. No criticism on that front - one of the hardest working and most committed performances I’ve ever seen from a team in B&W. On another day mind we get a hammering

Being in the UEFA Cup is much better than a consolation - it’s a major competition which would be fantastic to be in. We haven’t been in Europe for a decade - I want us to play as many games in it as possible. Something with thinking about - winning the UEFA Cup wouldn’t just be one of the biggest (maybe the biggest) moments in our club’s history to date - it also means qualifying for the European Cup again next year.

PSG were absolutely shite again BTW. They should have been out of sight - irrespective of our heroics. Chance after chance they wasted.

Thought we were great - though I honestly was expecting the equaliser the moment that the mysterious EIGHT mins of stoppages came up (I don’t think we always help ourselves on that one - the obvious time wasting by Pope seems to lead to excessive punishment on time added). The pen was ridiculous, of course - but I’m still happy with a point.

Alright. These lads have done the club proud here whatever happens. They’re blowing out of their arses, Herculean effort