James

Federici has an injury according to SSN - not dropped.

God, what an absolutely heartless way of putting it. One of the most moronic posts I've EVER had the misfortune of reading on this site. Words fail me. "dredge up" - people's children and loved ones died and for 23 years have been in some way blamed for their own deaths....so you'd just let that go if it was one of your family members would you? Unbelievable. As for the so called 'revenge part' - so are you trying to say that if a crime is committed and the perpetrator isn't caught at the time or in its immediate aftermath then it should go unpunished just because it happened a long time ago? Again, what an utterly ridiculous point of view.

6-1 - Arsenal destroyed us which was completely expected. The defence got murdered by the pace of Gervinio and Chamberlain again that was to be expected. I don't mind taking a hammering but the manner in which it happened was the most worrying thing - we did not dispossess the midfield runner once the entire game, the defence will look bad because of the goals conceded but the midfield simply did not do its job today, Morgan was as anonymous and poor as I've ever seen him, and whilst JWP looks promising he isn't the midfield ball winner we need at this point in time. Don't really know why we signed Davis either as he was utter garbage. There are plenty more games to go, and as many have said it isn't these games which get you relegated. But...we have major problems at the back and KD needs to go (not that we have anyone to replace him with but he simply isn't up to it). We need to be in touch in Jan and strengthen the defence because we won't keep any clean sheets at our current standard. Our full backs (Fox especially) are getting rinsed and our positioning (in general) is absolutely terrible. This might sound a bit odd but something just feels 'wrong' about this season: - We are playing a formation we clearly aren't comfortable with and don't have the players for - We are playing players in positions they've barely played before (AL as a CM) - JWP has come out of nowhere and is now first choice midfielder (fair play to the lad, but has he improved that significantly over the summer? Yet he was absolutely nowhere near the team nor the bench in the Championship last season. He's going to be a good player that's for sure but throwing him in as we have is irresponsible I think) - We totally and utterly failed to strengthen the defence and goalkeeper positions when it was blindingly obvious we were going to get caught out with our current CBs/FBs. - We signed two new strikers despite the fact we are going to play a system which requires only 1 out and out centre forward. - We've managed to sign GR, which whilst an amazing coup smacks of an NC signing - is there any truth in these suggestions that NA was refused the targets he actually wanted in favour of more 'glamourous' players. It just seems that our strategy over the summer was ill thought out and not very carefully planned, if we were going to play the system we are now then I don't understand some of our signings in the window at all. Hope it's not too late to sort it all out and we will improve and pick up some points, but this game exposed some very obvious limitations which we knew we had already and cannot now be rectified until January.

KD was utterly shocking yesterday - it was embarrassing. He's been poor all season yet some have vindicated him because he has saved two of the worst penalties I've seen in years. Needed to be replaced in the summer along with most of the back four. He wasn't so we're stuck with him and we will lose a huge number of points because of it. If Gazza isn't deemed good enough to start the next game then we have serious problems.

This is the problem. We can't learn from these mistakes because the players we have at the back simply are NOT good enough at this level. I can't see us keeping a clean sheet against anyone this season (seriously). Warning signs have been there since last season, Reading came and tore us a new one at our place (our defence was shocking then) and they are going to be down there this season.

Tom Cleverley is crap, only reason he is on the field is because he plays for Man U. Adam is a much better player and would have stuck those chances away. If Adam played for Man U then he'd be on the pitch and doing a better job. Roy's 'new England' is just the same as always, big club mentality with only players from top 4/5 who are all distinctly average. Stifles any talent coming through really.

Exactly. The JH tackle was clean as a whistle, all the ball and just caught RVP who milked it. Was identical to the Lescott-JRod tackle which wasn't even talked about. I don't understand how the Jos tackle was described as 'stone wall' by BBC yet Lescott's didn't even make it into their report. Mike Dean was doing all he could to even up our dominance over UTD and perhaps we shouldn't have given him the chance to give a pen (how dare we touch RVP in the box) but still he gave them everything but we best get used to it.

Exactly - he went off and there was only one winner. Just cannot fathom NAs thinking. He must have been watching a different game to the rest of us.

Cheers Nigel - absolute bloody madness taking off the three best players on the pitch. I just cannot understand it. We just gave it to them by bringing off the main threats. Lambert had Rio and Vidic sussed and they immediately got their tail up when he went off. All this guff about JF, KD and DF - they didn't cost us the game, Adkins did. Had we stuck it out with no subs we'd have held on. So angry right now.

Can Ramirez play? Presumably yes considering the OS said it was all done almost 10 days ago...

What on earth does this update actually mean? The first bit makes absolutely no sense!

Great player, versatile too. Of all the CBs we've been linked with I like the sound of Williams best. Young and fits with our mantra and probably better than what we have.

Agreed. He has a lot more in his locker than people give him credit for. Given his form in pre-season and now the cup he has been unlucky not to start more games.

Has to be Ramirez

Good goal by Lee - can't wait to get him back in the team (should start on Sunday IMO) Imagine Lee--Lallana---Ramirez behind JRod or Lambert - a potent strike force. Really impressed with JWP too - he should start as many games as possible, his pass for Billy's 'offside goal' was brilliant.

God we sound awful. This formation that NA seems to be persevering with could be the undoing of us this season. We do not have the players for 4-3-3 and seem to be undoing all that was good about us last season by trying to fit the players we have to a system which clearly does not suit us. Back to 4-4-2 please Nige.

We will not get "walloped" by wolves. We'd have beaten them last year and this year we have improved the team. Do you actually watch any games before making these "predictions"? Doesn't seem like it.

He was decent in League One, but got found out at Championship level. I always worried whenever he was named on the team sheet. Anyone who rates him ahead of Fox is crazy imo. Fox is a vastly superior player and one which adds a lot more to our attacking play then Harding ever did. Good luck Dan, but it was the right time to move on.

Ridiculous rumour, not sure he's worth the kind of cash being quoted. But of all the 'big names' we could sign I don't think Theo would upset the harmony too much given that he's been here before. Would definitely give us what we need on the right hand side of our front three though. Having said all that, won't in a million years happen.

I think this as well, I can't see how we can squeeze JRod and Lambo into the same team and at the moment JRod looks a lot more mobile. I'll be the last to write off Rickie though.

Good observation about JRod, his control and touch were very good but left wing is most definitely NOT his position. I began to think it would be more and more of a problem fitting him and Rickie into the same team as the game went on. Nice problem to have though as thought both did well today. Shame Jay couldn't have tucked that chance away, but came at him very quickly and didn't really expect it.

Really? I thought for the most part he was one of our best players, bar a few passes which went astray. Strange how people see things differently. But accept that a few on here are never going to accept that Guly can do anything well!

How predictable. Overlook the fact that we bossed the game for over 30-40 minutes with our strongest side out there and focus on the negatives. The attack created plenty of opportunities against a top quality defence, the sharpness will return was just slightly lacking. Defence was generally good, especially Clyne and we were undone by one mistake from Fonte. Sure we need a bit more quality in defence but we'd done a good job with what we have. The alarm bells are most certainly not ringing 'loudly' for anyone else...indeed they probably aren't ringing at all. But, typical WUM post we've come to expect really.

Assuming Davis is fit of course, slightly worrying that even if he does regain full fitness he won't have had any game time with the team. If no Davis, WP to start I think.

JWP looks likely to start the Man City game I reckon given the amount of game time he's been given, that and the fact he always seems to be included in our 'strongest' line ups.