The9

On the contrary .

I disagree with that, Reed's done alright but hasn't by any means shown he's "perfectly able" to replace one of the best players the club has ever had - and it took him about 5 years playing regularly to get to his level. It would be an outright gamble, just as starting Ward-Prowse, Gallagher or Targett in every match wouldn't be advisable at the moment.

You appear to have an unhealthy level of denial about players leaving.

Do the Japanese eat Cabbage?

Ok, well your opinion is wrong. As I've already said, Burnley, unlike every other bottom half side we've played, came to attack, which was the only reason we looked exposed. Long and short of it, in a shoot out where both teams are open and attacking we should beat Burnley 9 times out of 10. The 1 was earlier in the season. Second time around, we scored first, and we shut the game down after that, which was perfectly fine. I was actually calling for Wanyama to come on - but not until after we'd taken the lead.

Apart from anything else, I can't see the Prem allowing us to get an emergency loan which is clearly prejudicial to the title race as we have to play one of Chelsea's rivals. Then again, they allowed the Skates to get their parachute payments advanced to get them through and out of the division completing their fixtures, and the whole Tevez and Mascherano Sheffield United debacle wasn't exactly high on the moral compass of fairness either.

Up Friday morning, back Sunday night, booked it early November and cost £180 return for two of us. Bear in mind that we also had to book 2 nights in a hotel which sticks about another £100 on it, and there was the outside chance of it being a Monday night game at the time.

My wife is having a weird "give them the money as soon as possible" panic at the moment, makes no sense.

It was a DD system based on card payments due to the short timescale post-admin and there were certainly some auto-fails (my first payment for one) but there were also shed loads of people who took that as an opportunity to get the paper ST in hand and then stop paying it, knowing there was no way the club could link the physical ticket to the payment. Nowadays they'd just cancel your ST card access.

Can't argue with that.

They still need to consider the collateral damage of an explicit statement. Ooh, can I take the lack of an additional "Nothing" at the end of that post as a sign of respect?

Dunno, wouldn't be surprised. It's surprisingly difficult for them to do this without getting criticised.

Hence my suggestion of a European qualification sticky. It's long overdue. Bloody Granty and ketamine binges, asleep at the switch. Or something.

Booked flights and a hotel bloody ages ago including enough nights to accommodate any kind of fixture changing ridiculousness. I think this is more a thing to encourage people to use the coaches which will be running anyway than any kind of general thank you. I drove Newport-Southampton-Middlesbrough-Newport one time before we got relegated, and did Hartlepool on a Tuesday night in L1, but you would literally have to pay me to go to that match by coach. There's a reason Sunderland is the only ground in the top 2 divisions I haven't been to yet.

To be fair to Burnley, they came to attack which they've done all season in a way most sides in the bottom half don't - plus we won 2-0, and we were a goal up before the (very sensible) move of sticking Wanyama on to give us more defensive solidity once we'd got ahead. If nothing else it showed how far we'd come since Wigan gave us a lesson in Premier League level game management in our first home match back in the Prem.

The long and short of it is there's only so far you can go without a world-class game-changing creative player, and we've hit that ceiling. We don't have a Coutinho, or a Sanchez, or an Ozil, or a Mata, Hazard, Aguero. We score goals through moving teams around and exploiting defensive weakness, rather than someone doing something spectacular or unstoppable. Sometimes that doesn't allow for many good efforts on goal to be created, and as a result of that the focus falls more closely on our finishing if we miss the ones we do create. It's long been the case that we're a team that creates good situations but not necessarily good goalscoring opportunities.

When it comes down to it, we shouldn't need two defensive midfielders at home against a bottom half side. I call this the "West Brom Learning Experience" (though Pulis has somewhat stuffed that up by since making them a top half side). We need one holding midfielder - which in matches where we have the ball most of the time should be Schneiderlin rather than Wanyama, and one deep-lying playmaker to get the ball forward quickly and show for options inside once it's gone wide to give the defence something to think about other than just defending a run down the wing.

Aziz Yebda isn't Glasgow. I think you may have met him, actually...

There's no luck involved in hitting the post. Unless it's deflected, it has literally gone exactly where you aimed it. Decent players aim just inside the post, because obviously it's more difficult for the keeper to get to, but hitting the post all the time just means you're either not aiming it right or you're aiming it well and not executing it properly. Look at Ward-Prowse's free-kicks. They're amazing and near-unstoppable, but when they all go a yard the wrong side of the post they're worthless. If you're THAT sure you have a technique that'll beat the keeper, add half a yard of leeway and at least force a save - it might go in anyway, we might score from a rebound. As for Pelle, if he'd stop making such a stupid near post run giving him no angle at all to turn the ball into the net he'd stop missing half his shots short of the near post as well. I just think he's making his runs either too early or from/to the wrong place. Get there when the ball is between the posts, makes it a lot easier to score. Yes defenders are more likely to clear, but getting the ball with the goal behind you is not usually conducive to scoring. Short of the near-post deflections haven't worked for him all season, he should stop trying to force it. Then again, maybe we're holding it up too long and that's the only place he thinks he can get the ball from a pass into the box. The likes of Tadic, Elia and Clyne haven't been bursting into the area like they were earlier in the season, which means defences are set and more difficult to break down.

Fixed it for you.

Not quite the same thing. If it's "runners up won't qualify", just say "runners up won't qualify", not "runners up won't qualify - and in this situation, they definitely won't qualify". Giving one specific case just opens the door to misinterpretation - as we have seen. So in short, I agree with the overall premise that you've got the qualification rules right, but won't accept that UEFA have made it as clear as they might - which would be to just say "no Cup runners up".

Glancing blow deflecting it towards the corner flag, surely? A bit like that spawny Defoe goal against Newcastle on the weekend where he clearly meant to put it in the opposite corner but sliced it off the side of his boot.

Didn't do me any harm over the course of 30 years playing. Nothing to do with confidence, everything to do with having too long to think about it. Stick me in a position running through on goal with a couple of defenders nipping at me and it's like clockwork, you just move the ball, wait for the opening and slot it. It helps if you're fast enough that defenders don't catch you. But stand there for a couple of minutes with time to think about where you're putting it and you can second-guess yourself. I'd always take one in shoot-outs because as you say, as a striker it's your responsibility, but I had a terrible habit of missing important penalties (and once topped one which was sat in a hole and bounced three times before the keeper got up off the floor and saved it - THAT will make you think). Tadic is bloody awful at pens though.

Mmm, I stił think it's fair to say they should have stated that runners up wouldn't qualify under any circumstances, rather than leave it be explained by exception. Especially when they specifically stated one case when runners up would not qualify. If that's the case in all situations, just say it.

Anyway "extra Europa League place, which is given to the highest-placed team in the top flight's Fair Play table that has not yet qualified for Europe.", which means that not only do England have to qualify for an additional fair play place in the first place, but Saints would also have to be the best at Fair Play in the Prem (excluding those already qualified for Europe). But anyway, yeah, West Ham somehow.