S-Clarke

In isolation I don't think Jack has played badly - but it's unsettled the team unit and there is more space between the lines than there has been for a while, bigger gaps between the CB's etc. It's not all on him personally, but since he's been back in the team we have been conceding goals at ridiculous levels. I thought we looked much more balanced when he went off yesterday. I think the problem we have is that he's the 'captain', so needs to be shown to be playing etc. I think we went too quickly making him captain, AA was perfectly fine during that run we had - and he merited a place in the side, so you didn't end up shoehorning him just because he's the 'captain'.

You need subs to make an impact and I don't see it. Aribo and Rothwell both impacted the game when they came on, Fraser did when he was used as a sub. Sulemana's impact was getting dispossessed for 2-1 and having Bednarek screaming at him. Sulemana just plays on the periphery of the game, he can beat a man ends up but there's just no product to that - so it's null and void really. I know people say he'll come good, we've got to let him mature etc - but there's no point, because he won't be maturing or coming good with us - he's off in the summer whatever happens with us, guaranteed. So from a here and now point of view I don't see any point in persevering with someone who won't be here after July, it feels like he's just passing through.

This thread is polluted with more nonsense than usual, and that takes some doing. Anyway, weird game - it felt like we never really came out of our shells, went 2-0 up (Deserved) but we were never battering them or creating stacks of opportunities, it felt quite muted and 'easy' - and I think the easy element of it rolled over to the players in the second half, conceding those two goals was out of sheer complacency as we'd dawdled our way into that second half. As soon as we needed to show urgency again, we overpowered them and got two more goals. So we were clearly too good for them, but just a frustrating bit of complacency in the middle part of that game which made it tighter than it should have ever been. We're scoring stacks of goals, so that's a positive - I don't think we're giving up stacks of chances either, they're 'moments' and the teams are punishing them all at the moment (the second goal was a great hit tbf) Good to go into this crazy 3 week break with 6 out of 6, it's frustrating having teams playing again before us (so the table will look odd again for Boro at home) but all we can do is keep plugging away.

If we don't go up we will lose almost our entire best 11, I think we all expecting that tbh. We'll obviously have a lot less to invest to replace those, but you only have to look at the likes of Ipswich to see it can be done. You don't need to spend a fortune, although it ultimately helps. If we don't make it this year, I still expect us to have more than enough about us to sustain a playoff push next season. Failure next year is when it will be game over in terms of competing though, unless Dragan continues to pump money in.

I much prefer having the points on the table than games in hand tbh, it does look very daunting and pretty much done and dusted when you look at the table this morning. 10 adrift at this stage is just too much, game in hand or no games in hand. The fat lady is certainly freshening up her voice.

Preston don't want that because they have Plymouth away the following weekend (we don't play that weekend because of Leicester's FA Cup game). We could just offer staplewood to PNE for a couple of days next week (once we've played them), then they drive on off to Plymouth on Friday. We won't have another game until the 29th so we could be given a day or two off to free up the facilities to PNE.

I don't think there are any real differences finishing 4th or 3rd to be honest. Makes no odds. Both positions still get the second leg at home, which is the only real advantage you get from the 5-6 positions. I don't buy the notion that teams in 5-6 are weaker, they'll be just as hard as the team in 4th or 3rd. Playoffs are a lottery, form, points you've accumulated and where you finished in the league table goes out of the window. The best advantage is the 2nd playoff leg at home, and 4th or 3rd gets us that. I still would like to finish 3rd as it means we've got momentum, but finishing 3rd won't give us any 'tie' advantage.

Absolutely, everyone involved should be.

There comes a point where professionalism comes into play though, you just have to forget playing any philosophy and just shut the game down. Make it bitty, make it ugly - exactly what Sheff U have done in this second half. The enormous gulf is still there, but they've just dug in a bit. 10 men or not, we just let Leicester and Utd do exactly what they wanted for 90mins and the players should be ashamed of themselves for the rest of their careers, certainly the ones who were part of two.

Subs have killed the game, shame. Shows how crazy a 9-0 is, let a lone two of them. We were special kinds of shite in those two games.

0-6.

Any team who starts with McBernie up top is pretty much pub level.

I think he was linked after we lost Koeman, but he wanted bigger/better and we ended up with Puel. He has been a manager of better pedigree than us though tbf, did a good job at Chelsea.

Tbf they're lucky he isn't playing, it would probably already be 10-0.

It's pretty obvious that it's how we're trying to fit Stephens into the side, I don't feel particularly comfortable with that if I'm honest. We've got good enough attackers without him getting in the way. We tried it at home to Millwall, he played everywhere, I think it confused the hell out of us. It's not as if he's playing particularly bad, he's not, it's just an odd way to deploy him when we have good enough attackers to do the same role.

This season has been a total waste of Sheffield United's time, they've not even given it a go. They sold their best players from last year before a ball was kicked, really odd set up there. I don't think they'll be any sort of threat next year, it's hard to recover from a season as bad as this and bounce again. They don't even have any good players for Championship level as their best players from last year were sold.

I'm so glad we were never daft enough to pick AMN up on a free. he really is an appalling footballer who will drift into mediocrity now. Wouldn't even be any good at Champ level.

In most seasons you can get away with one blip, two blips will be pushing it and make it pretty hard - but dooable. Two blips in this freak of a season, with the point tallies the teams are getting, is pretty much game over. I still hold a tiny bit of hope in the possible, given that we play all 3 in the mix with us, but it looks an incredibly tall order now. We basically need to win every game. I think we're on for high end 80's, low 90 point wise - which in most seasons will probably squeeze you second, but this season will likely be 4th. The top 2 this year will be hitting 100+ points easily.

I don't think you'd ever see anything other than positive, even if he kicked the ball into our net I'm sure you'd find a way to say it wasn't his fault. Anyone with an ounce of football experience will tell you that he needed to drop off, and someone with awareness would have known to do that. Either a lack of communication, a lack of awareness, or a mixture of both - both Bednarek and Manning were at fault in varying degrees there, it was nonsense from both of them. Even Martin agrees as he described both of them as nonsense in that moment.

I've watched it back a few times, my initial thought is still the same. He was caught in no mans land, he didn't need to be on Bednarek's arse like he was. He needed to have awareness to drop back so we were more protected against the counter. One flick or one poor header and you've taken out two defenders, rather than 1 and it's curtains - and that's what happened. It's dreadful positional awareness from him, so bad.

He played ok yesterday? Held the ball up well, brought others into play - was key in the equalising goal with his quick pass out wide. Thought he was a bit unlucky with a couple of his efforts as well, all in all it was a good number 9 performance.

This hasn't been talked about enough imo - we were utterly relentless in how we moved through the final thirds, chance after chance - didn't we hit the post 3 times? All coming from drawing the press by playing at the back, and then bang, bang, bang - through on goal. It was a clear demonstration of how this high risk philosophy can benefit hugely in terms of chance creation. Honestly Brum couldn't have complained had we won that 4 or 5 nill yesterday, would have been an absolute travesty had we not won that one. We were levels above, just kept getting caught by individual moments.

We seemingly thought he was worth that, as he's our current record signing at £23.5m. And I imagine we'd be looking to recoup close to that when we sell him in the summer.

Not every human being is the same, some people are really sensitive and are affected by things like that. The thing is he didn't even need to go onto twitter to specifically look for that comment, it had been retweeted and just ended up on his normal feed I believe. Not everyone is made of steel and that's why those nut jobs on twitter get a massive kick out of it.

Leeds won 9 on the bounce, went to Huddersfield and drew. Nothing is guaranteed in the run in, especially with the relegation battle going up to 12th place. Every game has something on it.