TheBrownBottle

Bruno has been as poor as the rest of the midfield in fairness, though we definitely need either a different midfield or a different formation

I thought Botman & Schar had poor halves too tbh - Schar particularly

Feels weird to say given we’re a goal up at HT in a cup tie, but that was a really poor performance. Fulham’s profligacy has as much to do with the scoreline as owt else. Hopefully a better second half performance and a nice cup tie win

Looked off mind

Dixon is one of the great ‘common sense’ exponents of football punditry. And as we all know, ‘common sense’ as applied by an ex-pro overrules the laws of the game.

Maybe that will wake us up

No chance that should be chalked off

Yes!

Yep, thought as much. Bruno played a lackadaisical ball and played him into trouble, Burn gets the flak

I bet Burn will get pelters but that was half fucking arsed by Bruno

Yep. He’s a hate sponge. Bruno and Longstaff have been embarrassing thus far

The midfield is really poor which is the heart of the problem. Hopefully we win today, but we’ll lose more games than we win every time that midfield starts

Christ is Bruno on drugs?

Ridiculous booking

Murphy needs to bury that

More than likely

Let’s get past this difficult tie and hope that somehow the cup gods finally give us an easy home tie in the next round. I feel like we could build some momentum with a cup run

That’s an unimpressive and half-witted defence of Barton’s position right there.

That doesn’t make for evidence that he can do it at the top level. He might, but it’s hardly nailed-on.

I don’t think he ever looks all that great in midfield. I really like him on the left wing, but he’s not effective enough to consider him a top player.

We don’t have that luxury, as you’ve said. The club needs to sell saleable assets - it’s the ‘Almiron or Bruno’ question. You either sell the players who aren’t going to take you to another level for what you can get, or you sell the ones who can but bring in even more money.

Honestly, there are some who I suspect wouldn’t sell anyone other than Hendrick and Hayden. The squad needs significant refreshing - that will involve selling players. Footballers are surely aware of the nomadic career that most will have - I bet Almiron is, given that he hasn’t spent his career in Paraguay. Not sure when a ‘players happiness’ came into whether or not a club should look to sell.

Bruno’s new deal was significantly more than £120k pw. It’s more like £180k pw. Joelinton - if the rumours are true - is looking for a salary in line with that. The club would be mad to pay him anything like it. The truth is that we would probably just about get our money back if Joelinton was sold - but that’s more about the insane original fee than the lad’s recent performances. We paid a centre forward’s transfer fee. He’s not a player I would want to push out the door, but if we’re paying top whack then I’d want top whack footballers in return.

Water carriers seem to have exorbitant fees attached to them at this point. Ten-a-penny midfielders are now £30m midfielders.

I can still remember when Ferguson retired from Man Utd in 2002 having announced that far earlier than necessary