suewhistle

Three days without a post on this thread... I need my fix. Rallyboy, Pamplemousse, come on there must be something new down there to laugh at?

I've just had a look at the poster on the wall here in my home office and the fixtuire list had us down for 8 games in January, and now we've got the Norwich replay, and we had a game on the last day of December too. Of course we're going to rotate, and although it may impact fluency and team work to a degree it's not affecting match fitness. We've played some neat, slick football at times. Our issues are lack of concentration in defence (which could well be due to tiredness) and an inability to score, formerly just from our midfield for the last few years, and now it's infected our forwards. Any decline in the performance of players like PJ or Boufal are due to the difference in intensity and frequency of games, not not playing them. Saying all players want to play as much as possible may be true, but even those of you amateurs players will probably admit you played when you weren't 100%, and could have given one of the less regulars a game (or in many amateur teams, had to play to make up the numbers!).

It'sa bit late for me, Trousers, so please explain. Is it Heisenberg's Ttroll Den or summat?

That's well before I'm up... Ta, by the way. :-)

There's a very good photo accompanying the Guardian match report: Yoshida looking accusingly at Romeu and the latter appearing a bit distraught..

Most of us on here wonder what your nurse has been giving you... Neither the happy pills or the sedatives appear to be working.

That's just what I said here in the pub...

Er... he along with Cedric were in the final of the European Championship. The return of all the players was staggered depending on how long they were there. My only source of rumours is here, so it's a rapidly spinning world of stories that disappear up their own fundament. So I've heard that he's been acting billy-large-cojones in the changing room? Could be. He didn't play in the Europa but perhaps the assumption was that he'd play later on? It's a funny time to ask for a transfer, so one would assume that there's been unofficial interest? What I have seen with my own eyes is him playing below the level I've come to expect: I appreciate he's getting older and slower, and one would have to ask how much is this a factor in both his and the club's actions. China, anyone?

Until the goal I thought Everton looked as bad as us, we'd plenty of decent moves and I was reasonably happy with our perfomance, but what manager plans for his two experienced centre-backs to make such stupid mistakes, or even to lose a player at the beginning due to the crap infrastructure and organisation of the home club. That team has no spark to it beyond Boufal and right at the end JRod's pathetic toe from the latter's set up sums up the whole situation. Criticise by all means, but choose your targets carefully. Calling for the manager's head is the knee-jerk reaction in these situations. To look on the bright side and clutching at straws a bit at least it shows we'd better not sell our best centre-back in a hurry!

I said earlier that perhaps Yoshida had got his mistakes out of his system.. I was wrong. No doubt it will be Puel's fault..

Well, I wouldn't be happy if I were an Everton supporter either. Do their forums have the equivalent of Alpine, who is only happy when he's being miserable and critical? A fair bit of hoof ball in this game, and JR doesn't seem to be getting much protection. So far so good from Stephens, good to see another nipper getting a chance, and hopefully Yoshida has got his obligatory mistake out of his system.. Everton may have been the first team to have dugouts, but they don't seem to have caught up since then and actually put some padding in front of their concrete walls.. A bit unforgiveable at the top level in this day and age.

Was that Merson or you misquoting him?

What, the game that's 0-0 on 81 minutes with lots of negative comments in the live reporting? Ramirez well wide from 7 yards, it sez 'ere..

I read an article about residents of a homeless shelter in London where a surprising percentage of the residents _had_ jobs. But there are some awfully glib answers on here. "Get a cash-in-hand job and save money", "get a room in a house share", "don't spend money on an expensive mobile phone". Realy? Really, really?

This thread appears to be getting smutty. At least memebers gets past the naughty filter! ;-) Thank goodness there's football tomorrow.

You bustard Trousers, I've justed wasted ages watching that dozens of times.. ;-)

Please, please, can I open it now?? Enough of the teasing, but I watched this with a random Cherries fan down my lucky pub. Like many I thought PJH had a bad first half and was impressed with his recovery. J-Rod was working well even before his goals, and looked so much more effective and sharp. Those goals will do so much for his confidence: a close range striker's sniff and one out of nothing - how the team has needed those. Davis looked tired on Wednesday but his half today was so effective. I've just opened a bottle of porter and off for a retrospective view of the match thread to laugh at certain poster's contribution - no names, no pack drill, but you can guess names if you like... :-)

So a rancid pork pie hat then? Off down a pub in PO10 to watch Saints. There may be some Pompey fans to wind up... PS: I didn't mean that last joke...

Strolling off down the pub to watch very shortly: I have a pretty good record there... Pleeeaassse. I can see why Davis and Tadic are on the bench: both haven't been at their best recently and Tadic still looks a bit tentative after his injury. I really don't know for this one, but it would be nice if we just clicked a few times and had the rub of the green. Time for Hojbjerg to score, I feel... See you later.

Because we don't like them? Captain Smith of Titanic infamy came from Stoke, so the families of the crew around Northam never forgot..

Wot? Like this thread? ;-)

He patently won't be. From what I saw he was hopping mad on the touchline. Boufal and Bertrand played pretty well, although the former should have shot when he had the chance. Martina just slows everything down with the odd half decent cross. Romeu will benefit from his enforced rest on Sunday, and Davis could do with one as well: some awful passes and crosses which is most unlike him. I can see why Tadic was brought on, to use his trickery and quick feet against a tight Stoke defence, but nothing was going right today. From early promise it turned out dire. Incidentally, all the Stoke players seem to have massive torsos: do they select them on that basis?

2? Ah, I didn't hear the final details. I agree he should stay there, he's getting the hours on his log book and building up confidence.

I didn't want to mention names but on Pass the Dutchie's post about trolls I did mention I laughed at some posters... As an aside, I notice Fred Gallagher got another goal for Blackburn tonight..

Well, that, at least, made me laugh. I can't say that of many of the repetitive posters on here. There's only one poster that I've ever blocked on here, and he was personally abusive as well as being a general twåt, but even he's been quieter more recently. There are quite a few more candidates for blocking but I can't be ars*d to formally block them, so I skim over their generally tiresome and repetitive posts and occasionally laugh at the absurdly distorted view contributions of one or two others. They all seem to have the same view that their posts are wickedly incisive or amusing. It's not that some of them don't have useful things to say, but it's hidden by the generally unpleasant verbiage and personal comments.