S-Clarke

That's probably a case of after the horse has bolted tbh.

Yeah can you imagine - team finishing third, 95 points. Loses in the playoff final to a team who scraped 8th on the final day to finish on say 60-65 points That gap is crazy, and it would show in the PL as it would further erode competitiveness between the promoted sides and the rest of the PL if that started to happen.

Don't try to fix what isn't broken is my view. The playoffs still create a competitive league, and even in the final weeks you have teams often down to 10 or 11th in the Champ who still have a sniff. It's not like the 'top 6' in these leagues works as a closed shop. The league table so far this season demonstrates that. I don't see any genuine benefit of complicating it and adding additional places for playoffs.

I keep seeing posts like this, but it's probably because he was never going to stay in the Championship due to his wages. We always needed to get rid of him. Let's not re-write history and pretend Onuachu was the second coming of Pelle though, he was absolutely horrific.

You'd probably be surprised, we'd actually lose a lot on free's. Smallbone, Stewart, McCarthy, Fraser all OOC and Jelert and Long leaving from their loans. We'd have Charles, Armstrong and Manning with just 1 year left and we'd probably have to sell at that point (Charles would certainly have takers). Thankfully, the good news, Stephens and Bazunu would be down to 1 year left on their deals - so that's a positive at least. (we're probably going to offer Bazunu an 8 year contract though, I can see it in my nightmares) But I could see us losing Charles, Downes, THB, Robinson, Edwards etc for fees - but they wouldn't be huge. So factor in those possible sales, with the guys on frees as well....we're basically in a rebuilding situation once again, but with less money.

Christ, I'd forgotten that 3-0 game. That left permanent scars. fricking David Healy.

They have shown they can make good picks, but they're few and far between. It does seem strange how the same scouting network can spot someone like Fernandes and bring him in, but in the same breath approve and sign Brereton-Diaz. Something just doesn't add up, it's like we've got two scouting networks working independently. I get clubs make bad signings, but the drop off from our few good signings to our bad ones is huge - it's not even that they're not 'as good', they're fricking trash.

Not sure learning the ropes is totally fair, more a case of learning the squad and players he has and how he gets the best out of them here. I know people rewind to pre-season saying that's when a manager does this, which is fair in most cases...but we had such a churn post pre-season, so since around Mid-Aug we've kind of had to reset again and he's got another load of new players to adapt. The point I usually start seriously questioning managers is when they start seeing a different game to me, that's when they're waffling and flapping around with their answers (so brave, so proud, front footedness, I've ignored my principles etc etc - all that shit). But Still is still seeing the same game as me and he's calling out what we're seeing, not trying to cover it up or smarm his way out or have on-camera mental breakdowns like previous managers did. I notice people are saying it's a negative that he's so moody and not very positive, but if you step back he's actually mirroring exactly what we're feeling like to. He's as frustrated as the rest of us because he knows what's needed.

I think it was 20 actually, it was abandoned around 70-71mins. The cut off for a 'replay of the remaining' is around 75 mins - I reckon they'll both be forced to replay the 90, but it'll happen next year because they'll spend the next few months arguing. It's basically the equivalent of quitting Football Manager when you don't like a game, and reloading the save previous.

Sadly, what doesn't help him is that his make up is a little moody/lazy, which is part of him I think and how he comes across on the pitch. When those sorts aren't delivering (which he isn't) he looks 10x as worse. My problem with this signing isn't taking punts like this per-say, it's that we keep taking punts on these sorts to be our main men down the spine of the team - and we don't learn. ABK, Bazunu, Mara, Edozie, Larios, even Charles when he came to us first. It's nuts when you don't have the genuine depth in quality in the spine as it is, because it means those young 'lads' have no scope to grow - they literally have to go from day 1, some swim (Tino/Lavia) and some completely sink, which we've seen far more of. For a club which prides it's self on developing, we're doing a fricking shit job of it as we keep throwing these young players out to dry without anything around them. We added 'proven' players at full back, wide areas, 10's etc - but the constant ignorance of the spine is what does it for me, if that isn't right then everything else is pointless.

The problem we have is highlighted in that post - we have poor keepers, full stop. Not one we can fully trust, and choices are made on selections at what they're less bad at. It's a very unhealthy place to be as a club.

I was just being a tiny bit picky tbf, but yeah 99% of that on McCarthy for sure.

I absolutely love it when a striker has a shot at Bazunu, feel so comfortable as his crisp wrists drop it into the bottom corner.

Quarshie is a good shout too, I thought he was good. Maybe he played a tiny part in the goal as he wasn't setup to receive the ball correctly, but that's being ultra picky. I thought he did the basics fairly well and he's got something about him. There's definitely a case to start with two new CB's at the weekend for sure.

I don't think you can moan about his interviews, he's as fucked off with the stupid give aways as the rest of us. He doesn't tell them to pass the ball to the Liverpool player in the penalty box, I'm sure of that - that's on the players in-game non-brain moments (of which there are lots). He sees it as we all see it really, frustration and good moments let down by the same cycle of so many years - self inflicted sabotage in play.

I think I speak for most of the fanbase in that we all feel much, much more comfortable with McCarthy in goal. He's not perfect, of course he's not, and it's a shame we're having to choose between him, Long or Bazunu - but here we are, and for where we are I feel safer with McCarthy.

I like Jelert, I think he gets a league crack now. Jander - I hope he's fit, I thought he was key in that first half. I don't like Downes and Charles together. Armstrong keeps his place on the right, left is up for grabs still - I don't think Leo grabbed it by the scruff today, he was OK but not 100% yet. Fellows could play left side, or even Robinson back into the fold. One of Stephens/THB shouldn't start, any of the CB's put in a case - but probably Wood for me. Obviously the no brainer is McCarthy in for Bazunu, but sadly that 'give away' made the 'club choice' easy again for the weekend, so we know how it'll be.

That's also my feeling, I'm a little bit cynical in that regard! But you see it all too often, players step it up for the big TV games at the big PL ground, and then shirk away in the bog standard away days at Sheffield United or Derby etc. Proof will be in the pudding in the league games, that's where it matters.

I think the choice is this - GK who cannot play with the ball at his feet or GK who cannot use his hands or make saves. I'll take the risk on number 1 tbh.

I think Armstrong starts for now, he injects that little bit of life into the attack - movement, jinking runs etc. He's not the best player by any means, but I think he offers us more right now in that role.

Let's be honest, his role is transitional. We know how it plays out, same as it played out with Wilcox and Shields. He's here for a flying visit to leave us with some iffy choices, and then onto the next one.

This is my take. It's one of Downes or Charles, I don't think they're any good together.

He's 'raw', but as we all said, we didn't need a gamble striker when our options weren't convincing as it was. The two ends of the pitch remain our problem places, most of our goals will need to be from wide and AMC imo. It'll interesting to see how his stats look come the new year.

I never expected the thrashing most predicted, as these games never go like that. Lower league side to PL side - lots of huff and puff, good moments, but ultimate defeat. It's pretty much the nailed script, so no surprise. It played exactly as I thought it would in that sense. Did we play OK? Yes, I thought we saw more today than we have seen in previous, especially the first half with the intent to press and press quickly. We moved the ball quicker on the transition which is what made us look dangerous, but ultimately it's the quality in both boxes which will make or break it. Their first goal was everything really. Poor up top, should have scored. Poor at the back by arseing with the ball, almost immediately after the miss. The second half, in my eyes, wasn't as 'good' from an intent point of view. I thought Liverpool had more of that 2nd half, especially once Downs came on and Jander went off - I thought Jander was really key to the press in the first half, and him and Downes worked really well together. I'm still not convinced that Downes and Charles can play together, it just doesn't look right to me. Charles scored a good goal, but when those two play together it just feels like the midfield has no control. Still early days for Downs obviously, but we lost all attacking control when he was on the pitch. Nothing stuck. His touch was out of this world, in a bad way. You have to hope and assume it will get better, but it was a risk (as was said) to buy a gamble striker when we didn't really have reliable ones as it was. The pluses for me though were Jander, I hope it's just a tweak. I like Jelert, happy to get up and down and was defensively sound I thought. The centre backs were good, Wood especially for me. McCarthy, bar the thing he really shouldn't do (play Russball) did a good job. The goal kind of summed up why I think a lot of our players are thick as fuck, because he did exactly the same play at Newcastle at the start of the PL season last year - same result. Weird stuff. Overall it means nothing if we don't take this into the league. There were things to take away, but also stuff not to get carried away with as it was a really shoddy Liverpool setup in the main, but we gave a better account than we did under Martin in the FA Cup for sure. Boro will be a tougher test at the weekend.

The VVD was the genuine turning point for me, it had gone slightly downhill before that, but to piss £85m or whatever it was up the wall on utter trash killed us stone dead. And that was the end. To think most of the VVD 'fortune' was spent on the likes of Carillo, Elyounoussi, Vestergaard - criminal. 85m for a club like us should have set us up as a PL club for many years to come, but we fucked it.