Stud mark of doom

The bloke next to me referenced the rickie lambert England debut goal when he’d just come on. couldn’t believe it when we had a mirror image goal almost immediately! He had the look of Rickie in terms of being a big strong lad the other players were bouncing off. Who knew that might work with two good wingers? Quick debut goals: Steve Moran maybe - was it against Man City

Lovely touch. i was up at Goodison for this first goal and will never forget that great day at Wembley - both his excellent winner and when he started celebrating slightly too early near the end. I wish him well for the future. The criticism was always that he needed several chance to finish accurately so it’s ironic that he finishes his note with a stray apostrophe.

David and Ken then decades later Stuey and Adam. Armstrongs are like busses - you wait ages for one and then two come along at the same time.

Welcome Kylie let’s hope you are so lucky (so lucky lucky lucky) during your time here. I’d give the transfer rumours thread a wide birth if I were you.

Potatoes were not imported to Europe until after the medieval period, so this would have been as productive as Armstrong as a premiership striker.

Who knew that picking a keeper that could make (checks dictionary) “saves”would be beneficial?

They showed a similar stat on sky - something like outscoring our xG by a goal a game in TE’s first six and underscoring Xg by a goal a game recently. looks like our xg was 1.6 today so 2 is about right

Quick update on Bednarek Porto top of the league - played 18 won 17 drew 1 lost 0 Bednarek has started 16 of those games total goals conceded - 4

Incredible stuff 7th minute of injury time in the final - really soft foul given denying Senegal an injury time winner 8th minute of injury time - Morocco go crazy over an incident that happens for most corners, leading to the ref being called to the VAR screen, to watch along with both teams shouting in his ears. Awards pen. time passes. Lots of anger. Eventually the whole Senegal team except mané go back to the dressing room. Mané then seems to get them to come back out. lots more time passes - at last they are lined up for the penalty it’s the worst panenka ever

Starting to think that this formation has been selected to optimise individual player stats and resale value and, much like our transfer policy, winning games of football isn’t the point.

The ref took his time considering whether it was a red or yellow - pretty sure the lack of any reaction from our bench (or our players, as you say) will have made him think it can’t have been as bad as it looked.

Towards the end of the first half, there was a horrendous foul on Scienza, right in front of our bench. Should have been a red card. I had the same line of sight as the saints bench - I was on my feet, along with lots of people around me and in front of me, outraged. No-one on the saints bench reacted at all - Tonda is just standing there with his hands in his pockets. Absolutely Shocking. Get him out of the club.

From what I saw he seemed fairly ok, so clearly a massive upgrade on Baz.

Has reminded me that Chivers also played and scored against us in our first game back at the top level in 78/79 - a 3-1 loss at Norwich.

First football game I can remember is the 76 cup final, watched on our black and white TV, celebrating in the road outside afterwards and in town the next day. first game was a 2-0 win against Sheffield United in 77/78 and then every home game until the end of the season culminating in our promotion against spurs and a pitch invasion. Within a few years I’d been to Wembley, saw us play in Europe with Keegan, Ball, Channon, George, etc - all before I’d gone to secondary school.

Surely most people with a good knowledge of the game would say the benchmarks are - The Banks one, in some summer tournament in Mexico before most people had colour TVs, and Alan Blayney’s superlative save from Alan Shearer at SMS, on the last day of ‘the hardest league in the world’ season 2003/4 - officially awarded the ‘Sky save of the season’ later that day. I think Blayney’s is generally considered to be the most memorable across the globe. COYR.

Just had a call from my son. teams are out - one change from Saturday Bazunu (long pause) is still playing - Sceinza is on the bench. FFS /COYS

Corner of the goal is generous - the exact middle of the goal also works fine, as Oxford’s frontman found.

The bit that summed it up for me was Fraser getting caught offside - and the commentator suggesting he had “gone too soon”. Not sure how you go too soon where the only play you ever make is back inside to the midfielder, to take the sting out of things, so we can recycle it yet again.

Let’s hope there are no late Christmas presents handed out today…

I was also at Loftus Road that day - quite a good shout for the best away performance I’ve ever seen from us. We blew them away. I recall one of the broadsheets saying we had a successfully imported the ‘catenachio’ style of play from Italy. Was it Jason Dodd’s debut? Benali also breaking through to claim a regular spot. Famously, we blew the champions Liverpool away 4-1 (going on 8-1) at the Dell the following week. Happy days.

I enjoyed us beating Exeter City 3-1 in league 1 in front of a sold out St Mary’s.

If we had swapped keepers for the season so far, we’d probably be neck and neck in the table.

From memory the first Sky game was a Monday night game against Man united in August 92. I remember the air being so dense with firework explosive after the match it was difficult to breath. I think the CKTK game might have been Leeds United the following month - also an evening game. Didn’t the lead singer goad the Leeds fans during their ‘set’?

I thought it was a game where the lead changed several times. I think I recall Danny Wallace saying he’d left the pitch thinking we’d lost 5-4 as there were so many goals flying in (and it was before we got the late 80s scoreboard at the Archers end).