The9

The yellow card for shirt removal came in to stop excessive celebrations around the early 2000s, and was modified not long after to include pulling shirts over heads and lifting the shirt without removing it (I'm expecting Bearsy along in a moment) to prevent players revealing slogans of all kinds. There's never been a justification from FIFA for the amended regulation, though they're keen to stamp out both hijack advertising and political slogans, and some people have also suggested some kind of religious sensitivity over showing torsos, which sounds a little... xenophobic. Suffice to say you don't have to take the shirt off or even cover your head with it to get booked nowadays. Leaving the playing area is a separate safety-based offence to deter inciting supporters.

"Leaving the playing area" in celebration (eg jumping the hoardings, running on the non-grass bit etc) is indeed considered a form of incitement.

They'd be suspended for the next match they were eligible (usually the next season), I don't see anything wrong with that. What's more silly is that teams who play more matches run the risk of having more players suspended for "totting up" offences which are calculated against a fixed date irrespective of the number of matches played. I'm all in favour of competition-specific suspensions. You also mention the shirt-celebration bookings - my problem with those is that "pulling up the shirt to show a message" is also a yellow card, and one of the main reasons for bringing that rule in, and it's very rarely enforced - Bony's done it in the last two matches without a booking. Admittedly his message was sensitive and non-political, but it's still against the laws.

He was beaten by the shot today because it bounced just in front of him and crossed the path of a defender on the way so he had nothing to judge its movement against to determine where he should be diving. He couldn't see the ball for the critical part of its trajectory. The one against Spurs went in the corner, through someone's legs and may even have slightly deflected, again, hard to see it.

Um, because he is obviously absolutely right.

No particular reason why both Sheff U and Spurs matches couldn't be on the same night if they're both untelevised - do Sheffield United have a local thing about not playing home games on Wednesdays if they can though?

Can't even spell "vain". Idiots. Also, who knew Stoke had already played the Skates in the tournament? Not me...

Judging by last night we may well sell 2500 tickets but half of them will be stuck on motorways.

I'm fairly sure it'll be based on all aways with the usual ST holder caveats. Unlikely they'll be able to lock the system to only League Cup games or that they'll want to. It'll be midweek and in Sheffield, can't see us sending that many up there, people have jobs and can't always work around them for League Cup games, plus Christmas.

Winning the League Cup would put us into Europe, not sure how that wouldn't aid the retention of players looking to play in Europe. I've assumed everyone's leaving in the summer again no matter what we do anyway, it's just easier like that.

The exact same line of argument brings you to "I'd love to qualify for the Champions League but it would only put us up with Blackburn, Newcastle and Everton in recent history", by the way.

Wolves have already done it, the fact you don't know that suggests it won't be sending any shockwaves.

4th in the Premiership? Behind 3 crappy Scottish teams or 3 rugby teams?

I thought he did very well not to commit to the overhead kick given that Walters missed deflecting it in by an inch or two.

I know, the side we put out for the 4th Qualifying Round of the FA Cup was the business...

I'd rather win this than come 5th.

Resilient though.

Squad's looking a bit tired, no?

Get in! Lovely cut back by Davis on the overlap for Long to slot home from 6 yards out (straight at the keeper, but they all count)!

If we genuinely have European aspirations though the league we still need the 5 players we needed in January to be a legitimate season-long threat. Starters all over the pitch and bench please, and none of this "making do" nonsense. Every player should be able to slot in without any kind of drop in quality.

Nice clearance then with Stoke on the break.

I didn't say they were, I said Gardos was untested at a Premier League level.

D Ospina, I Hayden, F Coquelin, H Bellerin (C Akpom, 86), J Campbell ...tells me the Arsenal team we beat was not a Premier League side.

Great strike that!

Actually 1/5 full is probably nearer true.