Sheaf Saint

What's happened to him? During our spell of good form a few months ago he was putting in MOTM performances week after week. But recently he has gone massively off the boil and when he doesn't perform we surrender all control of midfield, and we can't drop him because we literally have nobody else in the squad who can play his role.

Well I kinda expected us to lose tonight but I didn't think the performance would be this bad. Everything has gone to shit since Salisu got injured and Broja stopped trying. It's easy to blame Ralph but anyone who has to select a CB combination from Bednarek, Stephens, Lyanco and Valery immediately has their hands tied. In CM, Romeu looks a shadow of the player he was during our decent run, and Stu & Ely just don't create enough. Let's face it - we have a severely limited squad cobbled together on a shoestring budget, and any manager would struggle to get them playing consistently well.

No, but perhaps KWP was spent and the only logical like for like change was Tino.

You're assuming it was tactical.

He has been for quite some time now.

Adams immediately improves our attack.

Oh fuck the fuck off.

Well one thing we have learned over the last two games is that an out of form Broja playing as a lone striker simply doesn't work.

Cork showing straight away that he has been ordered to shithouse Forster at corners.

That's bonkers. It clearly wasn't working so what does he expect will happen?

Watching the replay of the second - Cork's reaction is very telling. If he knew he didn't touch it then why didn't he celebrate immediately with the rest of the Burnley players? Looks to me like he knew he got a touch and expected it to be ruled out.

The only consolation I can think of is that the last time that happened, we won 3-2.

This. When he doesn't play well, we look awful.

Broja far too selfish.

Absolutely pathetic showing so far. Burnley (Burnley FFS!) could and should be winning by 3 or 4.

Romeu just stopped and let Weghorst through there. He's not on his game at all tonight.

They've been fucking garbage but scored with their first foray into our defensive 3rd. Brilliant finish though. Can't deny that.

Oh FFS.

We should be. Romeu put a free header just wide.

Can I assume you also believe women shouldn't receive maternity pay for the 'personal choice' of becoming a mother then?

Are you suggesting we shouldn't allow him to observe Ramadan?

Same team as Saturday then. Hopefully we won't be surrendering quite as much possession this time.

He just doesn't get it does he. He's so detached from reality that he thinks he can ride this out and just bluster his way through the affair in the same way he has blustered his way through his entire life so far.

If you want a prime example of excessive spending not resulting in the expected success then look no further than Man Utd. Newcastle spent a lot of money, yes, but Howe is undoubtedly a much better manager than Bruce and has managed to extract more out of the existing players as well. The new signings alone are quite obviously not the sole reason for their upturn in form.

Indeed it is ridiculous. No point even having VAR if it has such a limited remit. On field refs should be allowed to ask for replays of anything they want, and VAR officials should be able to notify the on field ref of any incidents where there has been an obvious error.