saintant

The complete blunder by SR of not signing a capable experienced goalkeeper is worse than their failure to sign a striker - they are allowing a youngster to be hung out to dry week in week out which is clearly destroying his confidence.

Almost certainly.

Not only surrounding the ref, our players should have been squaring up to Pope and letting him know what they thought of that reckless challenge - imagine what the Newcastle players would have done if one of their's got clattered like that - look how they reacted when Bruno got a few digs that were minor in comparison. We are just not nasty enough and so get bullied.

You can't just count our misses when you say we could have gone into the second leg 2-1 up - if you include Newcastle's misses they'd probably be going into next week about 5-2 up.

Disgrace that. It was dangerous play and an outfield player doing it would have conceded a free kick and been booked as a minimum. Referee bottled that by not even awarding a free kick.

I think even if he doesn't we're still fucked.

I think Mara has a very bright future but he is not anywhere near to being he finished product. Got to hope he's a quick learner because I see real talent there.

Could have been worse. DCC's total lack of pace exposed although to be fair he got dragged out to the wing where he's always going to lose a race against Isac. Alcatraz had bright moments and will be a good player for us with a few more games. Adam Armstrong caused them problems with his pace and running. Che did what he always does and missed our best chance - was a poor attempt. Mara did ok and is worth more games and Edozie was lively until final ball. Our passing is still pretty poor. Don't give us much chance now but at least we're still in it I guess. With a decent forward and midfield enforcer we do have the makings of a reasonable side but will we get anyone in? Newcastle are a horrible side - very easy to dislike.

Alcaraz has done well as far as I'm concerned. Plenty of potential there.

Disappointed with Orsic so far - he's playing in no-mans land in that he's neither getting forward or helping Sailsu deal with Trippier and Almiron. Alcaraz and Mara have had decent moments. We should be getting a free kick for Pope poleaxing Djenepo and he should have been booked.

Can I safely assume we'll give Bruno the freedom of the park?

Janny B on the bench 🙂

Protect him from what? The league is more important and we dont have a game for a while.

Who knows?

Why no Lavia?

Still nothing to see here. Rasmus continuing to move at the speed of a glacier.

Where have we heard that before?

Don't think there can be many expecting anything other than a defeat - maybe a battling draw at best. The level of vitriol will be down to team selection, tactics and performance - pick the right players/tactics and have a right good go and we can't complain even if we lose. Let's see what happens.

We need some size, strength,stamina and power in midfield, the engine room where box to box players operate - we lack this vital ingredient plus a few others too.

Very glad Jones at least recognises we need bigger, stronger, more aggressive players because we must be the most weak team in the league. Get some big athletes who have a bit of aggression and they'll do the work the weaklings can't.

I think you overlook the fact that if Jones takes us down he is unlikely to have the backing of the fan base and things will become very toxic.

I know all that but no need to make out we're not aware of what's going on. Just tell the truth.

You'd have to play way below your current standards to balls up the first leg against us 🙂

Why is the club trying to make out they wanted to recall Bednarek - Villa couldn't wait to get shot of him and my understanding is that they sent him back because he wasn't good enough.

And we all know how long these 'minor' knee injuries tend to linger on for.