John Boy Saint

Just as an aside, we bought our Europa Bundle on Saturday before the game, there was a chap at one of the windows completing his sale when the lad behind the glass says " I will have to get more tickets". The chap at the window turns around to his mate behind him and says " I bet I will now get a big wedge of tickets" as he turned back around the lad behind the glass returned with a huge pile of tickets about 18"s high. The chap making the purchase just looked on wide eyed with a look of you are not serious, us in the queue also looked on in amazement too........ then the lad said I have to reload the machine. You could hear the phew!

Good to see the reports that Glass Jack won't be coming to us to get in the way, (maybe if were managed by Woy there would have been a chance). Anyway lucky for him as having watched a few of those player funnies saints put up, there would have been a good chance that Romeu would have snapped him in the first 10 minutes of training.

Surprised no one has mentioned the Europa cup cut in the grass on the pitch.

Strange that under Pochettino and Koeman we were just the same final third: slow down - fanny around. As a mate who no longer goes once said walking home post match "it's all a bit after you Claude in front of goal" (bit spooky). Drives Mrs JBS (who I have to admit knows her onions when it comes to football and is far less emotional than me) up the wall. As for all these Targett knockers lay off him, he's stood out on the wing in acres of space doing the Times crossword whilst twirling his thumbs, when he gets the ball it's behind him so he has to check his run, or its behind him and poor and he has been hung out to dry, as for that free kick it wasn't a million miles away from the top corner, if anyone there paying attention noticed Virgil had a word in his ear when they were having a meeting round the ball, wouldn't be surprised if he told him to have a crack. Talking of Virgil, post match on Solent he was pretty blunt in saying the players need to get with the system.

Bloomin hair splitter!! .............. To be fair the first one was lumped on him at shortish notice.

Lallana summed up in his detachment from reality on the Roy Hodgson resignation...... ................He friggin resigned, knowing he had dished up rubbish football at 2 tournaments, with millions sat in in his bank account you dimwit!! When you play Middlesborough Adam, if you spot an empty seat in the stand, that could have belonged to a Steel worker from Redcar who has lost his job and can't afford to go to football, now that IS terrible.

See look what happens when Les nips off to Monaco for a cheeky night away with Mrs Reed, we sign someone which just about everyone on this thread, so far, goes........ Oh ok.

Thank goodness we avoided Crystal bloody Palace!!

Meeeelan nice

Went out in an early round of the head tennis, so got a bit of a mardy face on for the rest of the day, so omitted from the training piccys to stop fans reading too much into his body language.

You can just see the footballing gods playing with us: Shakhtar Steaua Astana

Posted last night on the Euro thread, but thought worth sharing on here. West Ham going out of the Europa league at the final whistle Darke pipes up "thats a shock no one saw coming"........ really? the form book on previous meetings said otherwise. Astra beat Steaua to the Romanian championship. Or was the comment lead by the fact that Romania is seen as lesser country because some folks in the countryside still take a horse and cart to get to work, and by comparison West Ham are from a first world country, especially housed in their new shiny Fairy Castle. Fits in with Peter Dreary's favourite "United had a bad day at the office"..... no they didn't the other team of 11 men played better than them.

Where did the BT taters get the idea that no one saw a West Ham defeat tonight, err they drew in Romania this year got done by them last year, recent history says otherwise chaps....... Or Is the London Stadium all magical like the Disney Castle and stuff making the mighty Ammers invincible?

Ooooo that's really got me searching for an excuse to get home early from work for!! Still them doing us in the Cup last January was the game to light the blue touch paper for a not too shabby remainder of the season. I would take that bit of lightening striking twice especially in September.

I wouldn't recommend that, bound to be a couple of pedants on here lurking in the cobweb covered corners itching for the chance to correct your sentence construction, and lack of umlauts!!

Bit of shame for him to go as he is one of those players you can't help but like. Personally I thought he offered more than Cedric especially bombing down the wing, and more often than not pinging in a good cross first time rather than putting on the brakes, then fanny about trying to cut in then passing it backwards. Plus at 28 still not up himself and willing to take instruction from VVD. However on brief showing Pied does look a good player with vision, and if there is a nipper coming through the ranks in that position it does un block the pathway. Just as many of us who were there for Chris Bairds Exocet from outside the box, that strike v Arsenal on Boxing Day out of nothing will live long in our memories.

Because that removes ammunition on here for "the Manager has no bloody plan B!!!???!!" cobblers to be spouted.

After the rumoured negative comments towards the Academy from Koeman about its product, looks like these lads have seen the pathway to the first team cleared for them. I know it's only 2 games, they do seem to have that pep back in their play they had a couple of years back.

Rumour has it that there was a bit more behind his performances going downhill, apparently he was having a dalliance, the special one was less than impressed with either party and his performances slid as the yarn escalated. He was much better 2nd half (and that's from ST holding relies up there).

I think we look a bit French so far, if you have ever stumbled into a Ligue1 game on TV the football just looks a bit inert, lots of nice passing but nothing to grab you. PSG played Chelsea some years ago in the CL with lots of hullabaloo towards PSG pre match, Chelsea cruised through that game a bit like Man U did against us. I just hope that Puel has the wherewithal to wise up to the fact that the Premier ligule is a different animal to Ligue1. You can't play the game at a Laissez faire pace passing the other team to death. You can't rely solely on a striker who (with some predictability) fluffs his lines one on one with the keeper, or a new striker who has had sunshine blown up his backside already but is looking predictably easy to read already. But the strangest thing of all is under MoPo, Koeman, and (a bit unfair I know) Puel so far is that we have looked very nice in so many games but enter that final 1/3 and we just become a bit pants, how many post match interviews in recent times have we heard the manager saying we just weren't clinical enough in the final 1/3. It's almost like it's just in our DNA no matter who is in charge. Still Like others have said its only 2 games into the season.

Anyone else's sky go acting up?

You get sent off for moaning this season

Cracking save by Hinch from the Dutch penalty stroke!

Exocet of a cross from Redmond would have knocked Dusan's block off if he had reached it!

I do believe that I read somewhere that the current team player performance analysis also go through the Black Box during the season. Someone asked about the manager appointments possibly going through the box, I also recall seeing somewhere that when MP entered the building after, Adkins left, that we had already started the process of identifying potential candidates to replace him.