Midfield_General

AZ Alkscaar (Tissue)

Well that was shit, but we got a point, as opposed to how it usually goes where it’s shit but we don’t get a point. So that’s a step forward.

Ref now blocks off Lesley’s run with a perfectly timed body check Jesus Christ

This ref is a fucking joke

He certainly looks like a jockey, but probably not the kind you meant

Highly topical Ali G fancy dress in the away end there. Who does that

Suga was good when he came on against Liverpool. Looked like the player we bought, who we saw pre-season, bombing on on the overlap and getting crosses in, before Russball completely stymied the strengths of his natural game and made him look ineffective. Not entirely convinced by him defensively yet, but I'm excited to see more of him going forward, as it could give us another attacking option that we desperately need.

I do agree, it's more a case of a complete lack of options anywhere else. Dibling is the only one I see where as soon as he gets the ball, you feel the ground lift and it feels like something is going to happen. I agree that it's a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a raw 18 year old, and in an ideal world we'd ease him in much more gently, but bearing in mind that in all likelihood we'll only get one season out of him and he'll be off in the summer, the selfish part of me says we just rinse him as hard as we can while we've got him and wring every last drop of contribution from him before he goes.

Personally, as long as Tyler has two legs and can stand up I’d have him ahead of Sulemana. I hope Juric builds the team around him the way Ball built the team around Le Tiss. He, Fernandes and Lallana are the only real quality we have. All need to be playing, and in roles where they can impact the game, as much as they possibly can.

Sulemana ahead of Dibling?

New instalment of the Human Centipede franchise described as ‘lower budget’

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think he'll deliver a better points per PL game ratio than RM. So on that basis, I'm in.

I used to find watching La Liga boring as a kid. Very slow, very tactical, not as much tackling, just nowhere near as fun to watch as the 100mph blood and thunder of English football. Now there are hardly any English coaches/managers at the top of the English game, and most top clubs here have foreign coaches, it makes sense that the overall style of play throughout the league has changed too. It's generally slower and more possession-based now because the foreign managers have brought that with them, not only by playing that way themselves but also by influencing how others then think the game should be played. It's slowly turning into La Liga. Which may be more technically pure, but the focus on 'control' means it's far less fun to watch, in my opinion. Give me a tactically inept end-to-end three-all ding-dong any day.

This whole thing about ‘he would have done better if he had better players’ is just mental to me. Any manager can say they would do better with better players, that’s just obvious. Good managers make the players they have, better, and find ways to make them greater than the sum of their parts. That’s literally what makes them good managers. Martin never got that, and literally made the players he had worse by forcing them to do stuff he wanted to do but that they weren’t comfortable with or capable of. The absolute opposite of good management.

Club can't even be bothered to spell Brereton-Diaz's name right, lovely stuff.

Totally agree. What's the end game for the owner of club like ours, unless money is literally no object? I've always thought of Crystal Palace as a similar sort of club to us, and - whatever you think of him - Simon Jordan's book about realising his dream and becoming owner of Palace, his lifelong club, is a really interesting read. He spent £40m of his own money on his club, and ultimately his reward was losing the lot, which nearly bankrupted him, and being spat at in the street by Palace fans. The book's called 'Be Careful What You Wish For' and is a very eye-opening account of the reality of football club ownership.

My money's on Plymouth after they sack Shrek

Literally feels like no-one is really running the club at the moment. The days off, not even bothering to consider a managerial contingency plan until Dragan saw first hand how shit we were and phoned up at half time to say ‘sack him’. It’s amateur hour. Given that Rasmus and Co’s only jobs are to run the football clubs under their stewardship, you have to wonder what they do all day if they aren’t getting ahead of basic operational stuff like this. It’s basically negligence at this point. If I was Dragan and it was my money, I’d be cleaning house about now and starting again with a whole new team. The current lot have failed at every conceivable level this season. As a ‘leadership’ team they aren’t fit for purpose.

Sky TV hasn't had any connection with Sky Bet since 2018. They sold their remaining stake six years ago and now they're completely separate companies.

I'm ambivalent about Corberan but what's more alarming in that story is this bit, if accurate: "Saints are still in the early stages of seeking a replacement for Russell Martin, who was sacked on Sunday after an emergency meeting of the board, in the wake of the 5-0 home defeat to Tottenham. That performance hastened a decision that the Southampton board were reluctant to take and, as such, the club had not been actively working on finding a successor." I know everyone thinks SR are a bit shit, but are we really to believe they hadn't even thought to start putting the feelers out until half-time on Sunday?

If that’s accurate then I’m sold. Get him in. (Apparently this sort of simple competence is the depressingly basic level to which my standards have been lowered)

Quite. I don't think we ask for much, despite hearing a few times that we are somehow deluded or entitled as a fanbase to expect better than the shit show that this season has been so far. The general gist seems to be that we've basically all accepted we're going to get relegated, and that's life, we just don't want to look like cunts doing it.

I would like a manager who: - Thinks passing to a defender who is under pressure and a few yards away from his own goal is suicide, and tells his players not to do it - Doesn’t sneer at the concept of a newly-promoted team considering finding ways to ‘grind out results’, in order to put a few points on the board Not too much to ask is it

Really? Well that’s a newsflash, you should have mentioned it.

Which is weird, considering their keeper has just been voted the best in the world for the second successive year.