TheBrownBottle

Players doing something once and once only is not proof that they have that skill ‘in their locker’. To prove it, here’s the old Bolton battering ram centre forward doing what he didn’t do best:

He never did anything like that again - it was a one-off. I mentioned in an earlier post that despite the Everton assist he didn’t actually do this.

Isak is an incredible centre forward if you play to his game. I’ve never seen a calmer centre forward - he made it look like he had a lot more time than he did when presented with a chance. He’s the best I’ve seen in terms of finding space and finding his spot. He’s also a very clean striker of a ball. He wasn’t much good at one-on-ones - when he had time to think - and volleys, which suggests a slight flaw in technique. He didn’t really beat players. The funny thing is that I think if you ask the usual gobshite pundits (including Merson) to name what he’s good at, I reckon beating players in a dribble and one-on-ones after breaking the line would be two of them. He’s isn’t Henry despite his frame and wearing the 14 shirt for us.

Don’t be daft - it’s not 1997.

No-one tell them he always puts this much effort in and never could last 90 mins He’s turning back into the player he was at Sociedad

I’d have been saying what I see forever on that one

wtf the fuck does that even mean? Down time or something? Why do all these cunts think they’re TV’s Roy Walker?

Christ I thought he was shite for us, but I never held any ill-will towards him. Just a thoroughly mediocre player and I’ve seen dozens of those in B&W

Completely agree, just wanted to add that this wasn’t what ‘Isak used to do at Newcastle’. He didn’t go on slaloming runs beating players - that assist vs Everton excepted.

And The Sun’s money, the cunts

It would be the lower clubs who’d be most against it edit: by way of example, if Weston Super Mare pulled Man Utd out of the hat, they’d get half the money from the 3,500 tickets sold at their ground. If the tie was played at OT, they’d get half of whatever the revenue was that day - even with a reduced crowd, it could still be 40-50k tickets sold. If the tickets at OT were reduced to an average of £25, that would still be £500k for Weston Super Mare. If they ramped up their home ticket prices to double that and charged £50, they’d still only get £87.5k. No lower league club would want to take the home tie.

Class

The WC is a joke tbf - neither nowt nor something. They might as well abolish qualifying for that parcel and just invite everyone. At least it would be less disruptive. For lower league sides, the dream draw is away and not at home to a bigger side - the players and fans get their day out, the club gets half the gate money. Seeding would 100% suit the bigger clubs as it would guarantee an easier tie and therefore they would know they could rotate. Liverpool don’t want to play Man Utd in the third round - they’re not worried about playing Barnet away

Really looking forward to this one, feels like we’ve pretty much got all our players back (sans Pope). Yes, we looked poor second half vs Burnley but it was a rotated side - a result here would be an excellent one and would be a nice set up for what looks like a big seven days for the club

I can’t back the FA Cup being changed, I feel far less strongly about the League Cup though.

I think making several unfounded suggestions to an audience of millions that a person is a predatory paedophile is about as criminal as language can get - given what could have happened to Vine as a result, I don’t think he’s been harshly treated at all. I’m in complete agreement re his connection to our club, though I also felt that when he was here. He was always a horrible bastard.

He’s a textbook recidivist, it has to be said - and like you said, it’s in no small part because a few months in the slammer is unlikely to have long-term consequences to him. It might act as a deterrent for others, mind.

Yep, sadly I agree. What worries me about some of this is that this will become yet another ‘free speech’ argument and the far right (the true bastion of political freedoms, I’m sure we’ll all agree) will mar a martyr of the lunk-heeded cunt. Hopefully folks will be able to exercise their grey matter and work out that Barton could’ve made all sorts of nasty comments about Vine and Eluko without ever overstepping the line like he did. As IW said above the Eluko stuff clearly had a racial motive, too. But libel and malicious comms that can endanger a person are not fucking on. Barton won’t get it, not just because he’s a nasty piece of work, but he’s that terrible thing of a thick person who somehow have convinced themselves that they’re smart.

I’m more than happy for people to go to prison for the sort of slanderous shite he came out with - speech isn’t free of consequence. It’s incitement by the horrible little cunt as well as smearing. edit: what he said about Vine could have had very, very serious consequences to him.

They’ve fucked around with the FA Cup enough for my liking. The only change I reckon has been for the better has been getting rid of multiple replays - but the general abolition of replays I don’t like. I don’t want to see seeding at all - it’s a competition which is a century and a half old. Just pull numbered balls out of a bag and you get who you get. I’m perfectly happy for a bunch of top flight teams knocking each other out in the third round - seeding is just additional pandering to the wealthy clubs.

What happened down there? I’d only just started being taken to aways by my dad and uncle. The one that sticks in the mind is going down to Barnsley and getting thumped by them.

Bournemouth at home in the cup was one of the worst football experiences of my childhood. My dad took me and a few of my mates (from memory they had reduced tickets that day), and we lost on pens to what seemed like the shittest team imaginable. Latter-stage Ossie NUFC really was grim. Edit: just checked because I thought it was late in Ardiles’ time, then thought I might have misremembered and it was the year before. But it was definitely 1992.

I completely sympathise with Salah tbf. I think that a club should be grovelling him to sit on the bench, even if they did give him a 400k/pw contract a short while ago and he's been thoroughly mediocre since they did. They should be begging his forgiveness for noticing how shite he's been, and how there is every chance his legs have gone given he's 33.

Reads like he has nowt to do with the mess they're in!

You’re likely to be inundated with abuse from thick cunts who think they’re free speech advocates