Saint_clark

I'd jump at the opportunity to ship him off abroad for anything over £60million to be honest.

Glad to hear it, should expect better things over the next month or so.

Stunned it isn't United.

Maybe i'm focussing too much on the misplaced passes in the first half, but there were more than a few of them, and some of them straight out of play. It's in my nature to be critical.

Not sure how you can possibly draw any conclusions on Pieds ability as the only times we've seen him he's looked solid if unspectacular (and against much better opposition than Wolves!), as for Clasie the bloke scored away to Arsenal on the way to the final last season you plum.

Yep, if that's the level of performance we can expect I think we should sell him in january and give McQueen and Targett some rotational game time (unless we're in a fight for the top six or fighting relegation - neither of which I think is likely).

Thought he was poor in all honesty, passing in the first half was abysmal and we looked a lot more composed in the second half with Davis dropping back. I have no doubt though that he will improve massively. I think him and Davis are too similar players to play in the same team though, trouble is Davis won't be dropped due to captaincy even though our best team probably features Lemina in DM and JWP on the right.

And yet Austin scores and links up, as did Pelle, as did Lambert in the same formation. I have no doubt he'll get the odd goal but i don't think he'll be an overall success.

Anyone who's seen a replay, can you confirm if their equaliser was offside for the first chance that Forster saved onto the bar?

I like Stephens and Yoshida but it needs to be one of them with a more dominant centreback. Van Dijk if he can be convinced (convinced to do his job ffs!) or this guy maybe...how tall is he?

That's irrelevant to the issue I have with him which is when he has the ball he takes so long trying to find a way to shoot that he has no time left to find a pass.

I'm really not convinced Gabbiadini is going to be a success, not in this formation. He just doesn't link up well enough with the rest of the team unless he's on the very end of the move.

First attempt looked offside?

Anything actually happened to make this seem more likely, or just all speculation?

Getting into a ridiculous analogy, but this is exactly my point. If someone wants to come out, crack on, but they shouldn't need to announce it to the world. How do we know that there aren't gay footballers that have come out to their colleagues and it just hasn't reached the public domain? It's none of our f*cking business what any of them get up to in their personal lives and by building it up and up and up is only going to serve to add to the pressure to anyone considering it and make them less likely to do so.

The fact that it's such a big moment is still part of the problem - it shouldn't be. It should just be another facet of a personality like a favourite colour or food type. Put it this way - would you have the same awe-struck, humbled and touched reaction to being told the ground breaking news that someone is straight? That is every bit as important a piece of information as someone being gay.

Well I for one will never set foot inside St Marys again. FFS, this shouldn't be news. Making it news, making a big deal of it and applauding him as a hero for this only works to exaggerate how "different" he is and make it out to be a bigger deal than it actually is. Batman is completely spot on that the best response to this kind of news should be everyone just shrugging their shoulders and turning the page, not going "OMG what an amazing step forward".

We may not have pressed but we started last season on top, creating loads of chances and just not putting them away. It was only as the season went on, players lost confidence and fatigue set in that our performances became much more subdued and defensive. Don't believe me - just take a quick look at match threads from the start of last season.

...but not in anyway different to how we started last season.

Arsenal looking poor with El-Nenny and Holding playing, why have they not strengthened!?

D'ya know, it was only two days ago I was able to bring myself to watch highlights of the cup final. Good god, were we robbed. Goal disallowed, hit the post, ball TWICE flashed across the goal begging to be tapped in...heart break all over again.

Yeah fair point...Stephens spent the best part of 3 years out on loan before getting his chance with us.

Could be looking at pushing another young centreback into the first team fold then?

I don't know, if they come back with £100million i'd take it, everyone would say we've played it perfectly if that happens.