hypochondriac

Have we ever been confident of a win away to Newcastle? I would suggest absolutely not. Wolves not a bad team but admittedly I would have like a draw so that is a disappointing result. The next five games will tell us how this season is going to go imo not these first seven.

Agreed. I predicted 8 but 9 would be pretty good as you say and would put us on more than 1 point per game.

He's not wrong. We've done really well this season against the big teams and proven we can take points. We almost did again today and I think we would have been a good bet for a point without the red.

The season doesn't literally start now obviously but our potential for serious points does. Many of the games in this first seven are what I would consider to be free hits. These are games where one player on the opposition bench costs more than our entire first eleven. Given the lack of investment and our current position I think the points return from Everton, United, City, Chelsea and West ham and even Newcastle away is about as good as can be expected. Now is where we must deliver as you say. I wouldn't call our start to the season a disappointment.

I can't see how you can say that at this stage. Some very credible draws against top teams and we aren't even in the relegation zone! No chance Norwich finishes above us and Newcastle looking likely to go down at this stage. Could easily finish above about 4 others too. We could easily go down but we will know a lot more after the next five.

I think it will be tough to beat Leeds and Burnley. Should get at least one hopefully two wins against Norwich and Watford and I've got no idea against villa.

I think we can do it. Obviously ings is a big loss but other than that we should have more about us than last year.

I can see why he didn't in this game when caution is the main thing. Generally I think we've done really well against the big teams this season and played those games decently. The big test now is if we can actually take the game to some of this smaller teams and that's where Armstrong will be crucial. I hope the team shows some ambition.

Good chance for Diallo to step up. I'm hoping to see more of Armstrong as well. Who else would we have in the middle?

Isn't the point that the ref was asked to look at it again and then he made the decision?

I wouldn't have been surprised had it not been given but there's an entirely legitimate case there for a red. Its not an appaling decision its merely an arguable one.

OK so a really difficult start to the season. I'll be honest, I looked at the fixtures at the start of the season and thought we'd struggle to have more than a couple of points on the board by October so in that respect we've surpassed my expectations. Positives are that despite the horrendous fixtures we're not in the relegation zone and now is where we should be looking to pick up some valuable points. The next five league games are: Leeds H Burnley H Watford A Villa H Norwich A These will have a big bearing on if we are looking at a relegation scrap this year or not in my opinion. Big games and all of them we can get a point from at least and hopefully a couple of wins. I'm feeling positive and I've seen enough about us this season to think we can get a decent return. I'm going for 8 points from these five and a bit more comfortable by December.

It wasn't an appaling decision get a grip.

They won't overturn that in a million years.

It's not a shocking decision that it was given but it was a strong yellow for me.

Spanking I reckon.

They're all pretty awful but I'd back him to create something over some of the other wingers. Good to see us trying out a few other things.

I'd actually prefer Walcott in the team over some of the others.

Yep. Just got a full tank for my third car from costco. Lovely stuff.

I filled up a full tank on Saturday morning in North Baddesley with no queue at all and my wife filled up with diesel Tuesday morning in Shirley also with no queue so I haven't encountered any issues so far.

I absolutely love the gays it's just the bisexuals I can't stand. It's just greedy.

And that's fine but given that we had already had one for joining, it would be very unfair to simply never allow the public to be asked given how much had changed since we had joined. Let's suppose we had never had a referendum, the clamour would continue to be huge for people to have a say and the issue would not have gone away.

That's clearly absurd. By that logic you'd have daily referenda just to ensure that everyone who turned 18 the day before didn't miss out. Nobody speaks for "the country" and just like 1975, we waited an appropriate amount of time and after the common market had evolved beyond all recognition before putting the question to the country again. Nobody serious is suggesting another referendum now in the same way that nobody serious should have been advocating for one had we voted to remain.

In what way is there now a new generation in place?

I think that if Ralph gets his act together we can get done better results. Our defence is better than last year but our midfield and attack is currently poor. We badly need Armstrong back and we need to play some of our pacy exciting players. Walcott was a completely pointless signing and we don't have many options offensively. If we get some injuries in defence then you'd have to say we look like relegation candidates.