Sheaf Saint

Have to laugh. West Ham have been completely on top for the entire half, and now find themselves 2-1 down having expected to go into HT in the lead.

Reading equalise!

Not looking likely at the moment... http://www.hahasport.com/v-2/18/86/v-388726.html WHU are all over them - they just can't get the ball out of their own half.

I did find it a little cringeworthy that he decided to use his victory speech as yet another opportunity to take a massive swipe at Labour over the war in Iraq.

Wwwwwibble

My brother is currently living and working in Doha - he reckons it's a sh*thole. In all seriousness though, these opportunities don't come up all that often so you should take them when they do. I moved to Sheffield for work in 2004 initially for a year, and I'm still here. Not quite as adventurous as Qatar admittedly, but so many things that I take for granted in my life now are all as a result of making that decision

Actually, I think if I was going to see it at The Smithsonian i would prefer to see it in its worn state and showing its mileage. Would seem a lot more authentic then.

It's a wonderful thing to have such a good academy that continuously produces excellent prospects, but it would be even better if we actually got to see the fruits of it for ourselves rather than Arsenal/Spurs etc... Maybe if/when we return to the PL we might get a few more of the emerging starlets sticking around a while longer. It's worth noting that of all the names mentioned so far on this thread, the only one who went on to produce the goods for us instead of bailing out at the earliest opportunity of a bigger payday was MLT. Although that's probably more of a reflection on football in general than it is on the the club and/or academy.

Excellent windmilling from the Bradford keeper I thought

I've already said we will need to score two or more goals to win on saturday, because I am fully expecting him to score at least one against us.

Why boo him at all? He did a decent job for us I thought, and his supposed slagging of us after he left has been massively exaggerated. I thought his comments were perfectly fair. The abuse he has received from some quarters about it has been nothing short of disgusting IMO.

He probably would have had Alonso if he didn't lose his concentration and run wide. Stunning drive from the lad though.

I think I love Billy Sharp!

Diouf really is a nasty ***** isn't he!

West Ham have equalised

Cov 1-0 Pompey

Barnard on for De Ridder.

Ooooh. close from Sharp

The script was written... Billy Sharp: Take a bow son

And comfortably dismissed Barnsley as well.

Burnley 2-0 WHU!

I very much doubt it. Our game is only 3 weeks away and even if he does miraculously recover from a torn hamstring in that time and plays against us, I doubt he will be as effective as he has been during their recent run.

After lastnight's showing, there really can't be a single decent argument in favour of starting Puncheon ahead of De Ridder. Punch was so one-dimensional and gave the ball away so much we may as well have been playing with 10 men. As soon as De Ridder came on and moved to the right, he started to cause their defence all sorts of problems. I know Adkins likes to use him as an impact sub, but given his recent performances from the bench I really feel it's time to give him a start because I reckon he could tear a new one out of the Donny defence.

Indeed. I couldn't see many empty seats from where I was sat and we made a fair bit of noise at times. I would guess at more than 800 as well.

I too am now back in Sheffield, and I just posted this on the main reaction thread... I didn't think it was quite as comortable as some on here seem to be claiming it was. The build-up to our first goal was lovely and deserved a goal, but there was more than a slight suspicion of handball from Jose before he crossed for Jos to stick away the second. Thankfully, the ref was pretty poor tonight so he didn't see it and the goal stood. Lallana reeeeeeally should have scored when he got put clean through in the first half - it looked harder to miss from where he was but we were up the other end of the ground so it was difficult to see just how tight the angle was. It was evened up a little later on when Hull got in behind from the right wing and the striker who had managed to get goalside of our defense blazed over from 6 yards when he looked odds-on to stick it away. I thought we lacked a little bit in midfield at times and gave the ball away far too cheaply. Cork and Morgan never seemed to get any time to play the ball and looked rushed which might explain why we never really got our passing game going. Kelvin made a couple of decent saves in quick succession near the end, although they were saves you would expect him to make to be fair, but apart from the goals we didn't test their keeper at all. Can't really remember much in the way of clear chances. Lambert had a very quiet night by his standards. He won a lot of headers but invariably there was nobody on his wavelength to latch on to them. Lallana has had many better games than this but did well in the build-up to the first goal and caused a few problems down their right. Jos and Jose seemed to cope very well with pretty much everything that was thrown at them, except for one scary moment when Jos miscontrolled in our area and nearly let their striker in with a clear shot, but he recovered well. Fox had a good game on the right but I thought Richardson got caught napping a couple of times and gave their let winger too much space at times. My only real gripe of the night was Puncheon. He was an absolute waste of space. Offered nothing going forward, and although he did track back and help out in defence he was far too static. There was one moment when he came back to win the ball and laid it off to Frazer, and he had acres of space to then run into but he just stood there ballwatching. He was always too far infield or too close to Richardson to ever be effective, and I don't remember him making any kind of meaningful contribution. As soon as De Ridder came on and went to the right wing, immediately he got down the channel and started causing problems to the Hull defence who had, up until that point, had a pathetically easy ride down their left. It wasn't pretty, but it was a solid team performance overall. Never panicked and looked calm and assured. We saw earlier in the season with the game away at Reading how teams can press us hard and snuff out our attack, so it is nice to know that we can go away to a very well organised and in-form team like Hull, who employed the same tactic of trying to shut down our midfield, and still come away with the 3 points. With the other results going our way as well, I'm a very happy fan tonight.