S-Clarke

£51m now.

Cracking finish that. His touch and composure was top class. Great run and intelligence too.

Maybe we can package BBD in a box labelled Dibling? Could work.

The natives are really not up for this Martin train. Plzten hit them with 28 shots today, could have got 4 or 5 goals on another night. His defensive coaching is still top notch.

Back to my eyes bleeding again then.

Yeah, horrendous. Not much more to be said really. Not even close to being a competitive team. It looks very much like an early season game, lots of rustiness etc, but for the wages and rep some of our players have, they have been technically horrendous. None of them seem to be able to control or pass a football. I don't like 3 at the back, never have done. I think it confuses the entire shape. Charles lost on his own in the middle, Fernandes isn't a partner in the CM role - he needs to push higher. We need better alongside Charles. We need such an injection of quality in the attacking wide area's though, but sadly what we have out there is almost £20m plus worth of it, which we need to ditch first, and none of it is good enough. A real problem area for us. (I'm not including Downs in that, way too early)

Every summer we're linked with a 'coup' level signing, but we never manage to pull it off. I'm not getting myself excited over Eduard until there's more evidence to support an actual move. It's all hope and speculation right now.

Pretty poor, didn't do much. More sub appearances for Anderlecht than starts. He was injured and in and out of the team too. I hoped it would be the season that announced him, but sadly it was just more of the same form Sam - so the club are well within the rights to ditch him at this point.

I notice that ABK isn't even mentioned or spoken about anymore, not even included with the 'Aribo/Edozie/Dibling' cohort training separately. I can only assume he's not even present at the club and is keeping fit away from the group. He's always been proven to be an incredibly bad egg around the place, he has been kept away by multiple managers. It can't just be rumour at this stage. I'd personally accept buttons for him, just to get him out of the club.

I don't think Aribo is part of the squad anymore, he'll be off sonnish. I thought the use of BBD yesterday was quite telling too. We threw everyone on the pitch at the end, even Ross Stewart, but he stayed on the bench. I'm sure the club are hoping for a bid to come in for him too. One of the worst attacking players I think we've ever had, almost certainly not suited to any form of high pressing football.

Factoring in wages and loan fee, apparently it 'could' set Everton back £25-30m to sign Grealish for just 1 season. Seems a daft investment if I'm honest.

I'd say the 10 would be the purchase, either Rudoni or Eduard (i'm not trying to spell his last name). Then use the loans to fill out gaps and lift the quality over the rest of the squad. Keep the loan possibilities open until the end and we could maybe grab a CM and a wide attacker as starting loans with PL quality. Defo need to focus on paying $$$ for a 10 now though.

Very strange takes. Leave them to believe what they want I guess, they're beyond deluded. They'll come down with a bump sooner rather than later with reality hits.

Yeah there was a bit of a tap from Coady, which just moved him those inches away from getting to the ball. No drama though, Stephens was there!

100% what I said yesterday, it sounds jokey but it must have been a reason. He favoured the ball cyclers in Downes and Smallbone who just crab the ball. I'm not entirely convinced Downes is a good fit for us now, but we'll see. Part of my feeling for him has bene soured by his mid-season antics though. Charly was another one who saw a forward pass and made it, but unsurprisingly he was also ushered to the scrap heap.

Just to give some fair balance, we did win quite a few games in the final mins in the last Championship season too. Whilst fitness comes into play, you've also got to factor in the strength of the substitutes in comparison with the opponent. Inevitably quality will wear teams down. But one thing I did notice yesterday was the ''who gives a shit about philosophy, just get as many strikers on the pitch at once and push the CB's up'' - and it worked. Under Martin we'd have spent the final 10mins passing between CB's and CM's.

Who believes in this guy? | FollowFollow.com

Not really seeing any negativity, there's nothing better than a last min win. There needs to be realism with it though, it wasn't perfect. It would be daft to stand there and proclaim it was all unicorns and rainbows, it really wasn't. Great feeling today, long time coming, but there's a lot of work to be done.

He's got his fans up there already.

I saw some commentary, apparently the fans are going absolutely mental at some of the subs. Boos at 60mins.

My feeling is that he'd be even better with someone more mobile and stronger alongside him. I wouldn't say no to £15m for Downes if it was offered, allowing us to go and buy some proper power in there. I think that's what we still lack.

I've never been sure why Sheff U are up there as peoples favs to win Top 2 this year, I don't think they'll be anywhere near. Lost two of their best players in their CB and Souza in CM.

That was my takeaway too, a bit clumsy on the ball. Didn't really see his pace. He'll only get better.

How the fuck can he say that? The ref was all for them. I didn't mention the ref above as it would have been too much of a rant, but it was like he'd been promised a role in a Hollywood film if he'd favoured them. I've not seen such a one-sided ref performance in such a long time, it felt blatant.

Yes, this is a good post. It really did highlight the fine margins. I'm pleased for him that it fell his way though, it's weird to say that a save in the 85th min with us 1-0 down contributed to us winning the game. It was a big moment though! Like you say, I hope the keeper we bring in is more than just squad fodder. We need someone to pressure him and be good enough to step in.