egg

Oh come on, players who want to act up, will act up regardless of where they want to go. If you're suggesting that it's only Liverpool who 'tap up' players, that's very naive thinking.

To be fair to Lavia and Liverpool, players will usually speak with (at least via their agents) potential buyers before the clubs do a deal. I've got little doubt that the same will have happened with Manning and Charles, and ditto any players we have in the pipeline. The issue here, I think, is that the lad genuinely prefers Liverpool and to be honest why would any young player who actually wants to play, go to Chelsea? By hook or crook, Chelsea have upped the anti ( they did the same with Rice - did they really want him though...), and the ball is firmly in the court of Lavia/his agent/Liverpool. £5m can easily be found between them to get him to Liverpool.

The kid needs to appreciate that he's a saleable commodity. If he wants Liverpool, and their offer is £5m below the asking, then £5m needs to be found between Liverpool, Lavia's wages, and his agents fee.

Behave. All this wishing him bad times is daft. He's given us great service - have a bit of class.

Tank

Producer

What do you mean?! These tweets are brilliant - it means we're keeping Lavia AND JWP.

Putting Perraud at CB was as logical as putting pepper in your pants.

The expectation that he'd have stayed is hard to fathom. He's a hired gun, and would obviously want the money and the bright lights of the PL and Europe. I suspect he realises that the England ship has probably sailed, but he strikes me as a determined bloke who'll keep trying for a spot. Fair play to the lad.

I CBA mate. It's irrelevant. He played a short, back from injury, full back at CB and quell surprise we got smashed by a league 2 team. We had Stephens available and Charles. It was a shocker.

I repeat, that wouldn't have been my team.

Simeu didn't get near the squad for a reason. The kid could barely get off the bench on his loan spell last season.

That wouldn't have been my team. It was ridiculous. From that line up though, if Bree was at CB, I'd have expected Meghoma or Perraud at RB.

Bree has played there for our B team. When I saw the line up I expected him to play there. Perraud was a mental decision. If Selles or Jones had put that side out, people would have got their pitchforks out.

Tower 🗼

Hopefully Mara hasn't got much of a future here after Martin's comments last night. Sounds like a few others have pissed him off too: "I think it's a big lesson for Sekou and a few of the guys, you need to be all-in in being a professional. All-in, the way you train, the way you play. Don't train one way to play another, train the way we train, we work the way we work so we can go out on the pitch and deliver a certain level of performance. "And tonight we had too many people that didn't really. Too many that just weren't brave enough to play or didn't want to play the way we really want them to play the first 20 minutes and we paid for that conceding a really poor goal. "We had nine players who played in the Premier League on the pitch, who I presume would deem themselves Premier League players. You have to be better than that. We showed fight in the last half an hour and it was too late by that point."

So plan B is lump it to big Paul?

I agree, and it was actually 8 starters who'd played premier league football. That line up should not have struggled against a division 4 team.

We're not playing a championship team tonight... keep ball is losing us the game. You're not wrong though. It was 3 wins for the possession heavy team in league 2, 4 in league 1, more in the championship. Based on last weekend, it seems to be the better the standard, the more relevance there is to possession.

It's the reality check for the people who are keen to point out our high possession stats. Some highlight it as if it gives us a genuine match winning advantage? On Friday it counted for something - that last 10 mins or so of keep ball was impressive. Tonight it's counting for nothing so far.

Yep. Possession doesn't win games. Geeky stat - across all 23 of last weekends league 1 and 2 games, only 7 teams who had more possession won their games.

They looked shit in their local derby with Shaftesbury as well.

To be fair, Luton didn't really play football, we do (now). Easy for someone like Bree to look half decent winning it and pinging it forward. Much harder when he's expected to play football.

You sure? Has to Bree or Perraud with Lyanco surely.

Strange team. Gotta be one or two out of position. I'm guessing Bree at CB with Lyanco, Meghoma at RB, and Charles in midfield.