S-Clarke

What's Eric Black up to? (joke)

Yep, they turned that around quite well. Just need a point to confirm 6th. We probably need a point to confirm 13th - shall we just do a deal now?

I must admit, I'd be pretty cheesed off if my forward line included Firmino, Salah, Mane, Jota, Origi as options. I mean christ, what an absolute load of chuff!

Looks like West Ham's season has fallen off a cliff at the wrong moment (Losing to WBA atm), but you can be sure we'll come around on Sunday to prop them back up again.

Henderson is injured, not sure he'll make the Euro's. Don't rate Rice to be honest, just another bog standard water carrier. Mount will play further forward as he should, but we don't have any proper top level 'CM's in my opinion. Certainly no one in the ilk of a Lampard/Gerrard or Scholes from those days.

Isn't this the same logic we applied to the Long signing? ''Nice lad to have around the place''. Personally, I've been torn all season. I can see the plus signs of getting an experienced player for free who has played at the highest level all his career, but on the other side I see a player who looks to be done at the top level and lacks the strength/presence to make any impacts on games at this level. If we sign someone else and he has a bench role then it may not be too bad, but I'm not sure we can. It stinks of a PR signing to be honest, home coming and all that waffle. At the end of the day he really isn't going to improve us I don't think - he certainly hasn't in the season he's been here when you take the season as a whole.

Agreed, not an amazing player by any means. Bog standard really. Central Midfield is an area where England don't really have much quality, in my opinion. We're debating Rice, JWP, Kalvin Phillips, Winks in CM.....compare that to other leading nations and we are absolutely light years behind. It doesn't take much to get a game in CM for England atm, especially with Henderson out.

Leeds changed Kalvin Phillips for Struijk at HT and that seemed to transform their midfield. Not sure what was up with Phillips tonight, but he was wandering all over the place and leaving huge gaps. Struijk came on and just sat there and they were much more solid as a 4.

What a crappy season this has been, City will win the league - by a mile - on no more than 86 points. The standard has dropped massively this year of all the sides, possibly because of the condensed fixtures and no pre-season I guess. It's been a terrible season for most, probably bar West Ham and Leeds. Lots of sides will improve next year, they have to.

All that really shows is that with better defenders in front of Forster, he had less exposure to shots/less opportunity to make mistakes. As the quality of CB's in front of him reduced over the seasons, so did the shots on goal and thus his weaknesses became more apparent as he was tested more frequently. McCarthy has never really been in front of a decent defence and he has always been in teams conceding alarming amounts of goals. Generally though, neither are good enough if we are serious about doing anything in this league. As backup, yes, but neither should be a starter if we have top 10 ambitions.

I've never been sure what credentials Davis had to become one of our first team coaches to be honest? He just seems to have gone straight into the first team coaching setup on the merit of being 'one of the lads'.

The reality is he can't do much, but it's better to at least have a crack than to recycle the ball backwards. Who knows, it may hit a defender on the backside and go in.

Yeah I was probably being kind, either way it's a shit position to be in. Cheers Les.

Can't be all on Tella, but he's the only one with a bit of life about him in the final third. He's still got some way to go though as whilst his keenness and appetite got him into good positions his quality/final decision often let him down. If you put better players around him we'd be having a laugh I think.

Not so much final third shot conversion, just general chance creation. We played well in between the lines, got right at their back 4 but the final pass was often rushed, poor, miss timed, it was all a bit too hectic which usually equates to a lack of quality. There's a lot good about certain parts of this team in terms of how we press, play between the lines, but the lack of quality in key areas really does show up against decent sides.

I would agree that this isn't a stick to beat Redmond with, he was better placed on both occasions to take a shot. Like you said, he often passes up responsibility so it was better to see. Although he still lacks any real quality, which isn't going to change. Need to replace him truth be told.

Played well enough in the first half, just not enough quality at the top end. Tired in the second half and the better players Leeds have came to the fore. Sometimes you just need to hold your hands up and say the opposition are better in terms of quality and guile, and Leeds are - especially in the final third.

Exactly, not sure what people are getting their knickers in a twist about. Another thing to bat Ralph for I guess. Same as Jankewitz not playing.

None of our goal keepers are good enough. It's a shambles that as a club we've got ourselves into a situation with 3 goal keepers who cost us nearly £26m between them, earn upwards of £100k+ between them and they are all pretty much the same - average as hell. Capable of decent stuff, but equally capable of howlers. We probably don't have the funds to get better because there aren't any clubs out there willing to provide us an return on investment on any of ours at the moment. Sad state of affairs really. Still carrying the left overs from the Reed and Wilson era.

I'd probably describe that performance as all talk but no action. You have to be honest and say that Leeds are just a much better team than us, it's sad that a promoted team can overtake us so quickly but that's what a lack of investment can do. Overall we played well enough between the lines, but the difference was at the top end. Tella was lively, but a bit erratic and manic. Theo, umm. Yeah. Mousa...yeah. Adams battled well but he needs better around him. JWP and Armstrong played well, but tired massively towards the end I felt. Vestergaard did ok, Salisu was ok. McCarthy's performance summed up our goalkeepers really, capable of pulling off a decent save but equally capable of being an absolute moron. I know we don't have the funds to replace but we really, really, really need a top goal keeper if we are to be competitive. Bit of a disappointing evening really, but better quality teams will always hurt you if you are so blunt in the final third.

It seems to be setting up for a Bournemouth v Swansea final tbh. Very boring. Brentford always seem to choke in the games that matter, so I don't hold much hope for them next week.

The table has pretty much taken shape now, bar the top 4. For the purposes of the league remaining interesting then Liverpool needed to win. If they'd have dropped points than pretty much every game left would have had nothing on it, bar prize money. At least we might get the entertainment of them screwing it up on the final day. Everton look to have blown any chances of European football and you'd have to think, based on their start and their summer spending, that equals a bit of a let down for our dug out friends. I think their squad is still a little unbalanced though, not many goals in that side apart from Calvert-Lewin and he just had a purple patch at the start of the season. I see Everton fans calling for Carlo to get the sack though, who do they think they are? Yes, a disappointing season in context of their expectations, but their squad isn't all that and it came clear in the end. There are probably mentalists in their support base who'd sack Carlo for Eddie Howe.

Mike Dean was VAR I believe. Mason was ref. The double acted reunited a week later in that 9-0 abomination, with Dean as Ref and Mason and VAR and we had the Jan red card etc. A very costly couple of weeks which probably cost us our top half finish.

The Villa game was an aberration for VAR. The handball, clear and obvious even in real time, which was missed. Ings offside which wasn't offside and the lines weren't even drawn correctly. Shambles that game.

Entertaining game that, Palace deserved winners though. You can't defend like Villa did against players like Zaha and Eze and expect to get points. I wish we'd have signed Eze, imagine him in our 11 rather than Redmond or Moussa - we'd be so much better.