S-Clarke

Come on, you've got to be happy with that!

For goodness sake. Can't they do the reaction AFTER the draw?

Same, no idea why.

Yeah, who gives a **** about this now. Man City were ****, Newcastle were good. Job done. Now DRAW FFS

Home game, against anyone. or away at an NPC or L1 side.

Needed that goal. He plays like a wasp that you just cannot get rid of. I wouldn't say he's the most cultured footballer, but he will cause teams problems whenever he's selected. He's a great option for us to have.

That was an excellent result, showed all sides of us. (including the bad sides, unfortunately) Not happy with the way we surrounded it a bit in the 2nd half, we were very sloppy and kept putting ourselves under pressure. In the first half we were terrific, Stoke were poor, but we should have had more than the 2 and it wouldn't have been as nervy! but Stoke were always going to have a spell, and what a spell they did have. I really don't understand why Stoke fans were laughing at us for calling them physical, what did i just watch? Them putting us under enormous pressure, hitting the ball in the air, winning headers, throwing their bodies at it etc. It's not pretty, it's damn right ugly, but it works for them. It's part of them. But to grind out a 3-2 win in those circumstances shows great character, great grit...and it also shows that we have a great goal scorer. Bit nervous for the draw, no idea why.

He did pretty well against Arsenal, last time I checked they were a PL side.

He's always negative, for some reason.

Fortunately for us, we don't have a squad filled with as much complete and utter dross as Sunderland. I struggle to think of a good player they actually have.

He's clearly struggling so bad to get his idea's across if he's coming out with excuses like this....

Would be much more fun to achieve a European place through a cup win. Not even that keen on the Europa league to be honest, it's such a pointless competition.

Really not sure why anyone would want to join Spurs right now, they're a complete mess. In a very bad way in terms of a squad/balance. If Jay tries to push for a move there (no evidence to suggest he will, though) then he needs his head seeing to. - same goes for Morgan.

Think you're getting him confused with Emnes? pretty sure Kenwyne plays for Cardiff in the npc!

Either Alpine or his son would be acceptable I think.

They're not really poorly placed to be honest. They're a win from 4th. Hard to read much into the standings right now if we're absolutely honest, all very tight from 4th to 18th. I expect them to be strong, probably better that they are. If they put out a youth team, you watch us struggle...

This was their side in the last round: 22 Butland 04 Huth Booked 05 Muniesa 17 Shawcross 02 Bardsley 15 N'Zonzi Booked 16 Adam 24 Assaidi (Crouch - 87' ) 07 Ireland 18 Diouf 10 Arnautovic Booked (Moses - 85' )

£10m lol.

Would be totally dim and short-sighted to blame MP, but wouldn't put it past some.

I remember that game, came away feeling proper chuffed that we'd beaten a really good side....in the grand scheme of things back then! It's been a truly amazing 5 years, just an upward trajectory.

Villa reacted pretty stupidly to their first 4 games. Now that's what you call a call operating in the short-term. It will end in misery.

They didn't create anything of note, we lost a bit of control in the 2nd half, but they still didn't cause us any headaches generally speaking. Crouch was their outlet for 60 mins or so, and we quite often just stood off and allowed him to win the first ball - with Crouch it's very often all about the 2nd ball in the build up process. That's what we seemed to focus on at points in that first half. It'll be interesting to see how they go on Wednesday. I think we'll probably see Diouf up top, he's not the most refined player, but he has pace which will undoubtedly open the game up more.

We don't have Boruc, he cannot be recalled from his loan - and he'll leave on a free in January I reckon. GK's are Davis, Cropper and Forster (Gazzaniga seems to have been sniffed out by Dave Watson as a poor imitation of a GK...)

Is that the same as when he said ''Southampton will not sign Gaston Ramirez'' ? To be fair, he's right. I can't see it being possible. Top 6 maybe, if injuries are favourable and we get our fair share of luck along the way. But going by how Everton and Spurs have struggled this year (And Swansea last year) I'm not sure if I can get too excited about finishing in a Europa League spot......financially it offers nothing, other than games against far away eastern European sides on a Thursday evening.

I remember threads like this last season - we need to quell exceptions slightly at the moment, because when we do start slipping a bit (which we will) then people will start getting a bit OTT over how we're doing. At the end of the day, we've taken advantage of a very favourable fixture list at the start of the season. The next 3 months will really test our strengths and personally I'm very interested to see how we do, because this is where we fell away last season - so this is the acid test for the new lot. Squad wise I think we have more, not just in terms of numbers, but options and ways to alter things. Jay isn't far away either, so you've then got Long, Mane and Jay competing for a role in the attacking 3 - it's a very good situation to be in. The only concerns I'd have would be in 2 area's. Pelle is so fundamental to the way we play and the way we defend from the front, so losing him for any period of time will be a significant loss for us as we'd have to change the way we play. Fraser Forster has also had an excellent season so far, he gives the defence confidence in front of him and is strong and assured when coming for the ball - I don't think we've got a GK who can come in and dominate his area as much as him, so we kind of need him to stay with us all season... But compared to last season when we were an injury away from Jos and Guly, we're stronger in the defence and midfield area's. But as has been said, the next 3 months are the acid test, so I'm not going to get too carried away right now.....will wait and see where we are after Christmas. If we can pull off some big results against the big boys, whilst still maintaining our ability to see off the lesser teams....then we have an opportunity to do something amazing, because the core 11 will give any team a game.