S-Clarke

So, in essence, you agree with CBFry about adding variety to the league over wanting the same 3 promoted. Not sure why you had to make a meal out of it.

L1 looks a bit daunting for little old Portsmouth now. Sunderland, Charlton, Ipswich, Wednesday, Bolton? They are going to be struggling to even compete with those clubs around, even at that level. Fun to see.

Great read that, I will always be a massive fan of Nigel. He was the main reason there was so much positively around us for a good few years. Those L1/Champ years were easily my favourite years supporting this club, the most success I've ever seen as a supporter anyway. The whole energy in away games/traveling to away games, home games etc was just great. I know some fans argue that he didn't do well with us because we should have won the league, in either season, but that's a bit of a silly way to look at it in my opinion. He wasn't with us for the start of 2010/11, in which we had a terrible start to be fair, but we still pushed hard to finish top. We didn't finish top of the Championship, but who on earth expected a top 2 from the start? 2nd place alone was an unreal effort given we'd just been promoted. We weren't far off either. I think it was the Reading game at home where Jason Roberts scored that prob put to bed our title hopes, but the ultimate aim was achieved. Great years, great memories. I'd love to get a feeling like that around the club again.

These variants are never, ever, ever going to stop. Not for the rest of our lives. It's incredibly boring now that we have to get scare mongering over each one. If they zoomed in on the common cold or the yearly flu, they'd find 10004204204204 variants of that. It's just how viruses work, they mutate. Why aren't scientists telling us that to remove the panic? But no...they're not, so If we are literally going to go full on panic mode on every 'variant' then we might as well pack it all in because this is never going to end for the rest of our lives.

Not sure if it's just me, but the last two seasons/years have kinda moulded into one for me anyway

It hasn't been a season of many important results really, we were always safe and never really going to threaten the top end. I'd say the biggest win was against Newcastle at home, just to take us top of the league for that short period. Something many fans have never actually seen, no matter how short a period. Nothing else has really happened of any importance beyond that.

Personally I think he's exactly the type of profile we are missing to be honest. Bit of experience, bit of leadership, doesn't need time to 'adjust'. Straight in. If we can add a couple of these experienced heads along with younger talent then this is a positive approach. Unsure why people are so concerned about resell value, let's worry about the here and now for once. Obviously it might not happen though!

Losing Eze is a massive blow for Palace, according to some rumours they had lined up Zaha's sale this summer in light of Eze being a ready made replacement. The fee for Zaha was going to help them rebuild their squad and replace all their out of contract players. I think they're a bit stuck now.

I hope Jake makes a good career for himself at the lower levels, I think he could turn out to be a decent Championship player in time.

I always had CM as a position we needed to strengthen, without selling anyone. So this is a positive as this guy is experienced at the highest level. He will be known to Ralph from Germany and I think, for that price, that is a proper shrewd bit of business. Very good calibre of player. My only worry is that now other clubs will see him available for that price...

Yeah, that's a fair one. I really like him too - could turn into a very good CM for England for years to come. Might be too soon for him this year though, but his progress at Dortmund has been frightening.

Back on the market and ready to mingle from December onwards I'd think. That's when clubs get sight of the Allardyce alarm.

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.