S-Clarke

Has anyone ever seen a worse centre forward in recent years than 'Ole McBurnie' ? He cost them £20m! He can't shoot, control, pass, score, hold it up. He's looked equally shocking for Scotland. Bizarre player.

Managers discretion I guess. He thought we needed more presence up top and decided to cash in on a squad player to get that player.

It's impossible to comment on any attitude problem. He's just someone who wants to play football and start to build a career, that's all I see. He was rash and stupid on his 'debut', but I find that hard to even attribute to being a debut or any sort of 'performance' because he lasted 1 min. I'm assuming aintforever also came to the conclusion that his red card offence was performed on purpose to get back at the club.

Why? He's had a truly dreadful season. A very poor goal keeper. Worse than our average ones. One 'decent' game, of which he's still conceded twice, doesn't change my view on him. He's dross.

Fulham's unstoppable surge to the Champions League has been halted I see. Dreadful result for them given that their next 3 are Spurs, Liverpool and Man City.

I'm guessing you are a referee.

I hate the protection afforded to referees. They are kept inside this safe bubble, god forbid you criticise them at any point. Even if it's fair to criticise, you are fined substationaly as a player or a manager (I'd expect Dunk to get a fine after his comments yesterday). He's clearly not injured, but honesty doesn't travel well in refereeing circles.

Doesn't look too bad - Callum Slattery is set to be sidelined with ankle ligament damage for a number of weeks, but the injury does not appear to be so serious as to force the annulment of his loan to seek treatment at his parent club. He had made six appearances for Gillingham since joining the League One side on loan in January.

Gary Linaker made a similar point last night as well. He said having to 'stop' and wait for the opposition/referee etc to be ready adds delay to the game, makes it stop start, and removes a big percentage of the advantage to the fouled team. It's right to think that if you are fouled, you can do what you want with that free kick - as long as someone isn't lying prone on the floor with physios on the pitch! It's up to the opposition to ensure they are switched on and ready for any scenario. Credit should go to the benefiting team if they think outside the box and speed it up, but they're penalised.

Chelsea snared him, as they were doing with all young players at that time. Stockpiling. The attacking midfielder spent four months with Southampton before being spotted by Chelsea – just one year after arriving in the country – and signed to a scholarship. His progress was swift, and Musiala made his league debut for Chelsea's U18 team aged just 15 years, two months and 13 days.

Very interesting comments from Ralph here. His first admission that the young players just aren't good enough? And as expected, he wants money to build a squad.

That is a fair point and unfortunately it's something we've not done too well over the last 4 seasons, which has contributed to the extreme pressure on our squad.

WTF Mason? Seriously, what was that mess? He made a clear commitment to allow the quick free kick to be taken. How on earth can he then change his fucking mind? It's not Dunks fault that Johnstone wasn't ready in goal. Dunk clearly asked the ref if he could take a quick free quick, to which the ref agreed, blew his whistle...he took it, he blew up just before it went in for reasons that I'm not sure about. It strikes me as a ref who realised he made a silly error of judgement allowing the quick free kick to be taken, but once you commit to a decision you have to own it - surely? That has to be one of the biggest abominations I've ever seen. And it's him again.

That was a pretty fair result in the end, the action at the end of that game (last 5 mins) didn't paint a fair reflection of the game. Wolves could have nicked it tbf, but prob wouldn't have been fair. Newcastle lost Saint-Maximan and Almiron to what look like notably-long injuries as well. Just in time for what is their most crucial run of the season...

He's a pretty solid, reliable left back. No more than that. The club had two issues at the time of his departure. 1) We had Bertrand playing regular, he was clearly at that time the better and more established option 2) We wanted to buy a striker to add competition, replace Austin and add a forward with more attributes towards a Ralph system. In an ideal world we'd have kept Targett and he'd have been used as part of the squad, he'd have ended up playing a lot of the last couple of years tbf. But, we felt at the time that a first choice attacking option was the priority. We made the decision to cash in (For a very decent fee, it has to be said) on a squad player to bring in a first choice player to another position. If we'd have kept Targett, we wouldn't have brought in Adams. The problem with this approach is that over time you reduce your squad depth, as we have found. You're also relying on your first choice option remaining injury free and as good. We weren't able to bring in a Targett replacement which added to the risk.

I hope we don't play Stephens in the middle by default, if there are others available. The only sound reason for doing that would be added experience to the side, but he just doesn't have the strength or genuine mobility to play there. His touch is decent but nothing extraordinary and pretty much par the course for a CB, not a CM. I get that Ralph may be a bit nervous to play Alex again, but he has to be trusted. He had a moment of stupidity and it's through those moments you either grow or vanish as a player, he deserves a replay. We also need to be taking into account that Ralph will be trying all sorts, he needs options and he needs to know what works and what doesn't in all situations. I don't think Jack is what will be classed as a first option...but given the situation he could well be required at some point, so it makes sense to get him slightly accustomed to the role if required.

Well that's not great news. I'd say at least it will give Diallo a chance to bed himself in, but he's injured as well. Such a promising season has turned into the biggest cluster fuck, ever.

I think I speak for most in saying that I wouldn't want a zillionaire to turn us into City or anything crazy like that. I just want an owner who has as a clear philosophy and plan for the club, just like the manager with the first team, and is able to support the manager and provide some flexibility in moulding the squad how he sees fit in a sustainable way. What we're doing at the moment is unsustainable to the other extreme. Like you said, you can't stand still in this league for long.

We're dreadful for 1/3 of most seasons tbf. The Southampton way. The difference for me is that you can see what Ralph is trying to do. With Puel I never really understood what he was trying to implement here. In the main his football was dour and we limped to 46 points in the end, with something like 5 wins between January and May (admittedly not much better than we're on at the moment!) He wasn't helped with the sales and that was probably when our recruitment started to go to the shit, we didn't reinvest the Mane/Wanyama/Pelle money as well as we had previously. Him and Ralph are the two best managers we've had since Koeman, but I will always prefer Ralph. That's just my opinion.

Leicester pissing away their European season...

You have to judge it with some context, surely. 8th is better than 11th, sure, but 52 points is better than 46 and in my eyes tells a better story of the season.

There were some highlights, no denying that. But whilst we beat Inter, we pissed away a decent opportunity to actually progress against Hapoel at home and Sparta away. The lack of ambition at home to Hapoel was crazy. Two seasons we cocked up Europe, very frustrating. It just didn't feel right, some players came to the fore in spite of Puel....but it just didn't seem the right fit from the word go. I didn't enjoy that season as much as the previous 5 or 6 and it was all a bit downhill from there. We should have replaced Koeman with someone able to carry the momentum, we just floundered after that and in truth, bar last season, have never really recovered from that appointment and the recruitment which was forthcoming.

Where have I said anything about league position? Why judge a season on league position, rather than points? Surely that's going to lead to an incredibly skewed view of the success (good, or bad)? I'm basing Ralphs success on the points accumulation, not where he finished. He achieved 52 points and sat in 11th, whereas Puel achieved 46 points and sat in 8th. That's in black and white and is fact. It doesn't take much to work out which was the better season. The points tally is the most revealing factor of a good season, and in most cases that will also lead to a decent position in the league. 46 points and 8th was total freak. We were 2 points behind Stoke all the way down in 13th. It was insane we finished top half. That was certainly not a good judge of a season and I still hate it when people jump up and down and say ''You hounded out a great manager, he got you 8th, in a cup final''. You try and sit watching his games for an entire season. I was dying inside watching his team and so were thousands and thousands of us.

Points wise, he did. 52 points over a single season compared to Puels 46, which looked better than it was in truth. It was pretty clear to most that Puel was the wrong man for this club and league. It just didn't fit. Ralph does fit, what he's trying to do isn't at odds with this league or the fans - maybe just the squad.

He's performed better with this squad than any of the previous managers did. He's in the main using the players the previous managers bought in, they are still a bad mix IMO. In the main we've struggled with this group of players under multiple managers, the first manager we've had to bring some sense of cohesiveness to the rabble is Ralph. I'm not making excuses for him, I'm just stating the facts. It's not great at the moment, clearly not, but don't let this spell cloud his entire tenure - which in the main, has been good.