Viana

I try to look at these games as a great opportunity for the fans to create an intimidating atmosphere and the players to harness that energy.

To be clear, all I'm saying is I don't see Brighton getting top 6 again, probably closer to 10th.

No that's fair, but that could be the path to a 1-0 win for a lesser side. My point is more, everyone was willing to hail De Zerbi as the next elite coach, but in reality, this season was going to present a lot of new challenges that he hasn't faced before. That's why I wanted to see what, if any, tweaks he'd make to his system to make it more robust tactically. It would appear he's just running it back, which may well work against the bottom bunch who lack quality, but West Ham have that quality and they've shown a lot of teams how to approach a trip to Brighton.

Brighton in for a long old season I think. They've got more games to play and teams will have sussed what stifles them at home - a deep defensive line, and trying to isolate your strongest and their weakest in one on one battles like that Antonio goal. The latter is basically how we battered them 4-1 last season.

I do think we have to take some responsibility as a sport for the fact we've created a situation whereby experienced refs are 'afraid' to send their mates to the VAR screen. It's a failing on both sides; the FA for not allowing refs to explain and fans for being chronically abusive. The idea that it's on VAR or the FA to fix alone won't actually help. You'll likely just make the pool of referees smaller (of which it already is quite small). We still haven't figured out how to practically apply VAR. I think personally, the best way would be apply it for situations involving offside with the threshold for offside being if your foot is ahead of the last defender and for cases of identifying who committed an action/off the ball incidents which I grant you aren't many. You could use it for errors relating to penalty calls like today with Rashford, but that may again muddy the waters. That way you give a lot more power back to the on field referee and you stop the demand for every infraction to involve VAR. The worst refs on a Sunday morning are the ones constantly stopping it. Those who just try to maintain the flow are the best and I think the same is true here.

Hardly played many games for Sporting in a league that's not the greatest. Not sure what they expected. I've noticed you have some feisty debates with folk on here about Man Utd Any genuine concern how easy it is to bypass your midfield?

They were on ESPN today against Coventry. A fairly even contest overall. You can see how much they miss a striker though. It was the difference between Coventry creating better chances.

Everton screaming relegation here. I feel like I watched so many games like that in the two seasons we went down under Ashley. I only caught the second half, but felt like a carbon copy of the Fulham game where they played the better football, created more chances, and then get undone by one goal.

The game is there for Forest if they can find a bit of composure with the ball. Right now they're rushing the pass and you can see it's leaving Morgan Gibbs-White quite frustrated. I can see Man Utd struggling at home this year though given how it's once again far too easy to get in behind their midfield. I'd back us to win if we were playing there tomorrow.

I don't imagine financially we'd want a lot, but I am curious to see what appetite there is from Eddie Howe to do the deal. By all accounts Lascelles is an important dressing room influence and removing that leadership early in the season may be seen as destabilizing.

I can't decide if Wilson or Willock is Bruce's best bit of business.

It would be nice to win just because I felt like last season we left both games with a tone of frustration.

Exactly this, he'd be a huge get for a team in the MENA region. The sponsor deals he'd open would even help his club close the profit/loss gap that so many are burdened by. It's not terribly different to Inter Miami getting Messi. He'll be one of the best players in that league and could easy go for four or five years.

It's all opinions init. De Jong and Muto had the same issue really, both were just a bit powder puff, but De Jong only had six months. Gamez I'll give you because maybe he was just old, but then I couldn't quite think of a proper shite right back during that period. Debuchy underwhelmed, Manquillo and Krafth have been fine. Ramage I'll give you but when I think of worst I just imagine can't trap a ball, panic whenever it goes near them, so yeah maybe him. Was Des Hamilton really shite? But by that same logic I can't put Campbell in there because he was just old. That's why I scrubbed Cacapa too because it just feels like elder abuse. Bramble always had a rick in him, but he had that period with Woodgate where he was pretty decent. With Yanga-Mbiwa, I never saw that and I felt he had that same rick tendency. He actually felt quite meek when he played. If we work on your theory that not playing much disqualifies you, are we talking Santon as a shite left back? Paul Dummet? Babayaro? Go way back to Wayne Quinn? I guess you could throw Paul Huntington in there or Davey Edgar.

Denial is the first stage of grief The thing I couldn't really fathom about the Colback deal is what they expected from him for 60k a week. I was privy to a lot of the Sunderland games at the time through work and at his peak he'd been slightly above mediocre. So much so they kept switching him between midfield and left back. I know talent ID is very hard, but the Ginger Pirlo patter was another thing that baffled me.

Alan Smith isn't a bad shout to replace Hendrick in mine actually. Only ever looked relevant at Championship level and even that was via big slide tackles. I'd feel bad throwing him in just because the leg break clearly did him over. Colback is more an emotive one just because I felt like I always saw him move into traffic when a teammate had the ball. He was the opposite of making himself available and never took responsibility. Hendrick just felt amorphous.

A quick head count shows three starters tonight with Premier League experience, and I'm being generous with that description. They summer business has basically been; imagine we could buy anyone....in the Championship. I do feel sorry for them because I bet the fans were rightly elated when they went up, but I can't see anything but a long punishing summer. Even tonight, they've found some joy in getting their wingbacks forward to cross, but there isn't enough quality on either end of the equation. Ryan Giles was probably one of the better left backs in the league last year, but he's seeing first hand how much better Premier League defenders are at reading deliveries. Meanwhile, Chelsea have Maatsen on the bench who was arguably the best LB in the Championship last season

There's a Twitter account - Pythagoras in Boots (I think is the name) - that highlighted his lack of obvious position as a weakness.

Ha, I'd wager I'm older than you. There's definitely some recency bias in mine, but in all honesty, I wasn't able to see games as regularly in the 90s/early 00s outside of highlights on MOTD or what was on telly. I don't have strong memories of the likes of Marcelino/Pistone/Maric. I've read they were shite, but I saw flashes, so I'm not going to profess I had enough evidence to outweigh the more recent picks. Could probably have thrown the likes of Luque or Bramble in there, but I tried to pick players I genuinely thought to be poor footballers and not those that had a poor spell with us.

Worst signed XI I can remember from my time. Sels Gamez Yanga-Mbiwa Boumsong Lazaar Colback Hendrick Thauvin Obertan Riviere Muto

He doesn't deserve to sit in the U21s. Good player that at worst could be a Championship midfielder.

The lad up top looks like he's made of cement. Rag dolling Diasai around. Luton might run Derby close you know. They're big but there's no real quality in there and they haven't even got a long throw tactic like Stoke had back in the day.

He looked canny when we started to build form under Howe around late January into early February. I thought he’d be the little pressing monster, but I never believed he’d be a long term option. he should destroy the Championship.

Love Roger Thames going in on them