Sheaf Saint

Yeah he made a real difference when he came on. Good to have him back, and his lack of minutes at the AFCON may have been a real blessing for us.

Not having that. His arm was up because he was running at full tilt and it's not possible to run with your arms straight by your side. It wasn't in an unnatural position and there was no movement of the arm towards the ball. He actually tried to move it out of the way. Never a penalty.

Perfect response to Tuesday's blip. Something something... we're shit away at top teams.. something something.

Oh FFS stop going on about that non-penalty. It clearly wasn't intentional.

Or he's just doing what he's been instructed to.

Home fans are quiet aren't they.

Great save Baz!

We look instantly better now Charles has gone off.

Aah, that caught Mara by surprise and he couldn't get any power on it.

Never. You could see he was trying to move his arm out of the way. Would have been very harsh.

Stephens is clearly not the answer to the Manning problem. They're finding far too much space down that side.

True, but if Che had the the highest combined amount of goals and assists in the top 4 divisions this season, as AA does, he would have a bit more credit in the bank.

Alexei Navalny has died of completely natural causes after feeling unwell and collapsing in prison.

"Told he would be keen..." These kind of media rumours always amuse me. Told by who, exactly? There's nobody who could possibly know that who is likely to be talking to the media about it at this stage.

It's not as if other teams' managers have only just sussed that out. The reason they have been so much more successful at it in the last two games can be ascribed overwhelmingly to the absence of Downes in midfield, who is infinitely better under pressure than either Smallbone or Charles.

Have a word with yourself - it really wasn't that bad FFS. Yes we were well off our normal game, but despite the obvious deficiencies we still had the better chances to score before they got the first goal (which had a large element of fluke about it thanks to the deflection off Smallbone). If either of those had gone in it would have been a totally different game.

He's only just returned from injury and is still getting back to match fitness.

Nope. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4279641.stm

Remember going to this fixture in our relegation season in 04/05 and nearly getting frostbite - was snowing at one point I think. Drew 0-0 after Prutton had an open goal from about 3 yards and somehow managed to put it over.

Only if it's played forward. In this instance the ball was played backwards before it came off Smallbone, and the player who was offside was the one who passed it in the first place. https://youtu.be/t0MAco6Lzio?t=192

If the ball is played forward off a defender to an attacker in an offside position, it's not offside. This has always been the case, it's not a recent change.

People who consistently say "hundred percent" instead of just saying "yes".

I would add Edozie to that as well. He looked like the only player who was likely to make anything happen up front all night, and hit the bar in the first half with a snap shot that any other player would have put into row Z 9 times out of 10. Agree with the rest of your assessment though. Smallbone is not as bad player but he's just not a DM, and neither is Charles - yet. When we surrender that control of midfield, our entire passing game collapses because it relies on the right players being in the right place to receive the ball. Manning still scares the crap out of me, especially when he comes over to take the corners on our right. They never come to anything and it just leaves him hopelessly out of position. Noticed it at Rotherham recently but they weren't good enough to punish his terrible positioning. We need Bree back, and soon. I'm not panicking just yet. The unbeaten run was bound to come to an end some time. Just need to make sure we don't dwell on it too much and I don't think Russ will allow that anyway.

Because it's more fun to get promoted via the playoffs than it is to go up automatically, apparently.

Yes it was.