Whitey Grandad

Yes, me too, although it may be down to the whole composition of the midfield and not just him. He got forward a lot more than usual for him and got caught offside a few times. I'd like to see his disallowed effort again, although I think Gomes had already stopped playing by the time the shot was made.

I very much doubt that, to be frank.

I'm tending towards this point of view. I've never forgiven him for his little spat at the start of the season when we missed out on a European run.

An American company president once told me: "Nobody's indispensable. Kennedy gets shot, we've got a new president in five minutes". The man who told me died later of a heart attack on a tennis court and his company continued without him.

Against Watford it worked well but there were a couple of occasions where there were holes where a fullback would have been. Fortunately Watford couldn't exploit them.

The trouble with these predictions is that down at the bottom it only needs a couple of quick wins to completely change the situation.

The sending off was extremely harsh but it was a definite penalty which those in the tv studio and press studios couldn't, or didn't want to see. The forward's (can't remember name) left knee was caught by Wes Brown (?) which caused him to trip. It's there to see if anyone bothers to look closely. As I have said on another thread, the referee is a lot closer and has a stereoscopic view of the incident with a much higher visual resolution. The red card was another matter though. There may have been an issue about studs showing but 'reckless with excessive force'?

I may be wrong but I'm guessing that you're sitting a lot further away than the officials? Added to that they are viewing the situation in 3-D and with a resolution an order of magnitude greater than even the best television can offer.

Yes, he was good tonight. Tends to get closed down and caught in possession at times but rescues the situation with a stretched-out leg. Good to see a full 90 minutes.

That was definitely the assistant's call. I'm central Kingsland and it all seemed OK to me but I'm looking across the line, not along it. The assistant's in the best position in the ground.

Balls into touch? This isn't rugby, you know. Ball in play or out of play is almost always the assistant's decision.

They can be the most serious but often have a miraculous recovery!

That may have been a 'transfer window injury'

Malade

I'd add to that poor formations, which goes down as poor decisions by the manager.

I think his problem is that the game is too fast for him. There was a ball on Saturday that should have been his but by the time he'd looked up to see where to put it he had been closed down and ended up loosing the tackle. The game seems to pass him by.

Me too. It leaves wide open areas just where the fullbacks should be which are very tempting to the opposition who always have an outlet ball which their pacy forwards can chase into. Why is it that every other team has forwards who are faster than our defenders?

Sounds plausible. Next Monday is the 17th January and there's still two weeks of the window after that. It could be a case of wait until then and review the situation.

The strike cost me a 3 hour delay this morning at my hospital appointment. The poor consultant was handling everything on his own. Still, it was worth hanging on and waiting. I've finally been signed off after just over three and a half years after my bypass. There was a big mob of picketers at the car park at Soton General. I was thinking how ironic it would have been if one of them had been hit by a car and had to go to A&E. It was very tempting.

Ridiculous

And free up a loan space, as has been mentioned above.

It's a philosophical argument but it would have been a different draw.

Bad temperament.

We've been round this logic before. We might have drawn Stoke but we shall never know, and to be honest it doesn't really matter. Let's just say that if you changed one of the names you'd have to hold the draw again and wouldn't expect the same outcome. Either way, were out of it and it's time to forget it all and move on to the next.

That all depends on how well he does with us At the moment I would say that we're stuck with him/blessed to have him for the foreseeable future.