egg

Fair point, although if Broja isn't a big big player I'd be surprised....but for every Shearer there's more than one Jeffers. Livramento - agreed, he looks superb.

It's not the "for now" part I necessarily take issue with (although having seen what Broja has done for Albania I'm not convinced that Armstrong is beat his current level) it's the suggestion that Armstrong has a higher "ceiling" than Broja, ie that he has more potential. We see it very differently - Broja will be a special player imo, Armstrong won't.

Yeah, but he got Pi in there and that made more sense than the suggestion that Armstrong has more potential than Broja.

I was trying to avoid the Broja stuff on this thread, but any suggestion that Adam Armstrong has the potential to be a better player than Broja is laughable. Armstrong is a poor man's Ings, whereas Broja seems to have the lot - pace, power, height, aerial ability, dribbling skills, and an incredible finish (not just Saturday, but his finishes for Albania have been top quality). He'll be a massive player. You're harsher on Adams than I am, but his finishing will never reach the standards that Broja's is at now, and in all other areas, Broja is better for me.

Ha! I was trying to be subtle Del, but there ain't a stat for spotting a cool finish. On topic. I doubt there are stats for how quickly a player gets into defensive position or how quickly his football brain works, or how quickly he spots the play, or a run, or otherwise uses the ball. Those stats will show how much better we are with Diallo than JWP.

Agreed, but he needs to play to do that. For me we looked much better with him in the team. He has much better defensive positional play than JWP. Diallo can see where the ball is likely to break to and gets in position, JWP is more zonal and deals with what falls his way. It's going forward though where Diallo is better, not just running with the ball at feet, but the speed with which he moves the ball on. JWP slows our play down, and Diallo's performance on Saturday demonstrated that.

Yep. Ridiculous to call that finish a tap in. It was a very assured and calm finish under pressure from the defender and the keeper. He made it look easy, doesn't mean it was.

Agreed. Class act. Strong, pacey, good positioning, reads the game well, and starting to use the ball better. He's only going to get better.

Oh come on, you weren't being labelled "mental". Rather the suggestion that we should hire Eddie Howe as Ralph's assistant was criticised, and rightly so because it wasn't a great suggestion. Howe is a manager in his own right. He wouldn't want an assistants gig. Ralph wouldn't want an experienced Premier league manager looking over his shoulder. An assistant manager ain't likely to be our saviour.

White

Absolutely. Referees should be accountable, and their should be transparency around decisions. Rugby has got it right.

These conspiracy theories are hilarious. Dean has nothing to gain by going out of his way to treat us unfairly, and everything (well his job) to lose. Trying to support the argument with stats is a proper straw clutching exercise. The latest stat in that red card list overlooks the small fact that JWP wasn't given the red card by Dean! All he said was take a look, the foul was a shocker (which it was) and the ref gave a red card (which it deserved).

He also said “You know that when Mike Dean is the VAR, he will send him to have a look at it (the monitor), and then it was okay from me, I think. He gave it." He added: “But this is his job, I don’t want to say it is his fault because I haven’t seen it so far." Struggling to see anything particularly wrong in any of that, factually speaking, but I guess the insinuation of bias will mean he'll get a financial slap.

State

Loan payments may not have started, but I suspect interest is accruing. Either way, loans have to be repaid, and it's pretty obvious we're in a mess financially if we get relegated - acknowledging that we'd have to sell players all but accepts that, and replacements will need to be funded.

Seattle

Yep - I'm guilty of it, I suspect most of us are!

Good line up. I reckon that's a top 4 team. Pretty amazing that the likes of Mane, Bale, Shaw, and Danny Wallace can't even make the bench. We've had some great players down the years.

You say "we could have tried moving on redmond to Norwich" and also that he is "not good enough for premier league football". If he ain't good enough to play Premier league football, we won't be selling him to a Premier league football team. On the rest of it, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I can say with certainty though that people would have whinged to high heaven if we'd signed Andros Townsend and only spent £1.2m on Demari Gray.

I have no doubt that many of those Hungarian twats are racist, and their reaction to the knee has exposed them for what they are. That achieves nothing though. The branding is out there, and it's been in here. Zaha, Toney et al highlight the stupidity of that branding.

Daydreamer

I don't agree that there was an issue to be highlighted. Racism exists. We know that. The issue is what is the solution, if there is one. The conversation has come down to some people believing that the knee is part of the solution, and others feeling that it ain't working and won't. We then people saying that all of those who can see that it ain't working must be racists. That's a sad fall out from a well intended thing, and that is a bad thing.

For me it's no more complex than this action has achieved nothing positive, and never will. I'm not persuaded by your shifting along the spectrum point - I'm struggling with the concept that racists can be shifted from their ideology by footballers taking the knee. In short - lovely idea, but ultimately a counterproductive one.

Influencing what opinions? How do the opinions of right minded people non racists need to be influenced? Is this campaign going to influence racists to not be racist?

Nice theory, but didn't go well. The front 5, or whatever it was supposed to be, just weren't making enough runs. Grealish looked good until he was taken off, Foden decent enough, Kane shit, ditto Sterling, and barely noticed Mount.