S-Clarke

Haven't felt this good leaving St Mary's since the Koeman days, our consistency at home has been great.

I saw him as a poor RB at the start of the season, so I'm absolutely stunned that he's now turning in decent displays at CB. My MOTM last night, he's very proactive in his play and very engaged. This is all down to simply phenomenal coaching. No one would have seen a CB in Valery, but somehow Ralph did and has made him more than capable at it as well.

That's the tie I was forgetting, I knew there was another. It's weirdly on Monday 7th though.

I probably worded it badly, but I meant 'discussing the starting 11/moaning about it' is irrelevant now.

I did have underwhelming reactions to Bertrand I think. We'd sold Shaw for £30m and signed a replacement on loan etc etc. (who was relegated the previous season). He certainly was great for us for 2 years, but pretty shit for the remainder of his contract though. and I can remember having a mini meltdown with us missing out on Brandon Williams, that aged well.

Why are you still moaning about our starting 11 for the game? We won it, the starting 11 is now irrelevant and the manager was proven right. Just as he was against Coventry, which brought similar reactions. I also wouldn't class today as scraping through, it was fairly comfortable all told.

It took him a while, but I think that's because he wasn't the sort of player I was expecting. I was looking for a KWP type at left back, which is why I was maybe a little underwhelmed at the start. But. he's tenacious, terrier-like. He hasn't got the driving runs or skill of KWP, but he has heart and the right attitude and that alone immediately upgrades our LB position for the last 3 years.

I think we're doing a discredit to the likes of Stephens, Perraud, Smallbone, A Armstrong, Diallo etc who are fully capable. We still had KWP, JWP out there too. We've got ourselves a really decent squad full of depth at a profit, amazing effort by everyone.

It'll be interesting to see how Chelsea play the summer, they won't be sold by then in my opinion so they clearly won't have a pot to piss in during the window. So, do they sell the players who have value (Broja, the other Tino, Gallagher etc) or do they bring them back and incorporate them into the squad? My hunch is that they'll sell the 'sellable' ones to try and raise some funds. I think we'll be out priced though on Broja though, he'll go for £40m ish and that's beyond us.

Not sure why people were so put out by the team we selected, we've got a well coached squad nowadays with good depth in most places. That means that our level never drops too much which is huge credit to everyone. I didn't think we played badly at all, even first half. It was a bit frantic to start with but once it settled down it suited us, as we had more time on the ball to probe and that's where Perraud popped up - he's been threatening that in recent weeks. Second half we had a little bit of a WHU barrage, not huge...just a little we had to withstand, they got 1-1 from a really crappy bit of a goalkeeping but we didn't let that hit us and we took it to them again. Cracking impact Broja had, changed the game in respect of his pace and control. The third goal was a worldie by him. Onto a couple of negatives - I think tonight was a game too far for Long, he can't really cause a threat against experienced PL defenders nowadays. Moussa...I hope he goes in the summer and we invest in someone decent who can actually contribute on the pitch, he's absolutely hopeless. No amount of Ralph coaching can improve him now. Game is up. Lots and lots of positives though, my MOTM was Valery as he's not a CB but he looked assured back there. Stepping out well, reading danger well, recovering with his pace well etc. Granted, WHU only had Antiono isolated but he still did a job against him. Not sure he'd do well in an aerial bombardment, but he's certainly capable in games like this. Jack helped him massively though. Perraud gets better and better, settled in now and is a proper full back. Adam Armstrong, for his limitations, put in a cracking shift. Really stretched them and his pace caused them all sorts of problems, he just lacks a certain edge to his game though. Not sure if that's confidence or not though. The way the quarters will potentially line up is very daunting, let's hope for a tie at home against whoever. If we're away at Liverpool or City it will all feel like a total waste of our time.

At the time of being linked with Elyonoussi, I described him as a quick/pacy player who will add speed to our attack. I obviously watched the wrong player at Basel. To be fair he's somewhat redeemed himself this year, but he's probably the slowest number 10 we have!

Burnley didn't turn up tonight, they were so, so bad. Maybe that's their level. Leicester just had that extra bit of quality to play with, but they weren't amazing themselves. Everton/Newcastle/Leeds breathing a sigh of relief, but I can't see any of them going down.

It's since 2015, and that's why we're nowhere near. Our academy fell through the floor after 2011, signs it's on the way back now though. If it was done in say 2010 then we'd be way up on the list having sold Shaw, Lallana, Chambers, Chamberlain in that time frame etc.

Leeds would have been better off getting someone experienced in English football for the next 6 months or so, they need someone to come in who will shore up their defence first and foremost as they play too on the front foot. I know Big Sam is ridiculed but getting him in for 6 months, tightening up that defense, then going again in the summer as a PL club for someone like Valverde is probably a decent course. This guy is exactly the same, he plays a front foot style too and I don't think it really suits Leeds without Phillips and Bamford in their side.

Generally I think Howe is doing a decent job, if you looked at their squad prior to the season you'd say they're probably good enough to stay up as was and Bruce was having a disaster. Willock, Wilson, Fraser, Almiron, Saint-Maximin etc - decent mid-table and above players throughout their core. I even quite like Schar and he's decent to build something around. He didn't have a quick start but he somewhat steadied the ship I felt, he's had to wait to get certain players fit and up to the right level (Fraser in particular) and now he's reaping the rewards. He obviously knows how to get the best out of Fraser as Bruce never managed it. The additions in January aren't world beating, but they've added more experience and know-how which can only help. They'll still lose games between now and the end, but I can see them finishing in and around 40 pts which would be a job well done. The next step is seeing if Howe can take them to the next level, i.e pushing top half/top 6 as they're clearly going to spend like maniacs in the summer. I'll be interested to see what happens next year as the expectations will be on a whole new level.

They've got Nicky Hammond, if that's who you mean. More of a consultant and advisor than a DoF though, he wouldn't have had any major influence in their signings.

They don't have a DoF yet though, that will be Dan Ashworth once his gardening leave is over. Until then he is unable to have any influence over Newcastle. Their current signings have been overseen by the legacy scouting that spent £40m on Joelinton. There is no doubt that Howe had a significant involvement, probably the primary involvement, in every single addition they made in January.

I think this is step 1 of removing his involvement, he's got to try and sell it now. Not sure how easy that will be though, so it could put Chelsea in a very, very tricky position for a couple of years. Broja is probably going to be needed by them.

I thought Everton have played quite well tonight. I can see them getting the points required without much trouble. I still think the bottom 3 will be the bottom 3 as it is tbh.

Skates 0 - 3 Fleetwood Bit of comedy for our afternoon.

Hmmm, you do start to worry about Brentford if they lose this one. They're right in it now.

Feels like the whole club is in some kind of unusual positive symmetry right now. Good place to be.

This is what you get with Belisa, it's a right old ride for a time but when it goes wrong....it often goes catastrophically wrong. They miss a focal point as they have no centre forward really, Bamford has been a huge miss as has Kalvin Phillips. I don't think they'll go but they're be in and around it for the remainder now.

No, I don't particularly think we're playing 'better'. We just have more strings to our bow I feel to see games over the line. The pragmatism has come from a bigger squad and more varied options. We definitely benefited from whatever we did in lockdown re: fitness, we did catch teams out I think who maybe weren't as prepared as us. We took that into the following season though and played the same way really, dominated games and controlled things as we stormed to the top of the league. I don't want to speak too soon but it looks like our 'awful run' was more of a freak rather than the norm, that's what I think a lot of fans were feeling and why we didn't pull the trigger (glad we didn't). The lack of squad depth and the use of players who weren't quite ready are reasons as to why we fell through the floor. Or it could just be that Ralph prefers years with even numbers.

I doubt it, England will carry on from within I reckon. I don't think they'll go Foreign.