S-Clarke

Yeah, that does seem slightly pointless? Will have to see how that actually works over the coming years.

It could well catch up with him eventually, but he's always played lots of games each season looking at his records...so we'll have to see how he copes in this league. I do have to wonder what the hell is going on with Gallagher though? It's just a wall of silence from the club, it must be quite a bad injury? He was in and around the squad last season and has now vanished off the radar for what I can only assume is to be an injury (may have missed something official on that?) But he's the only player who can do a similar type of job as Pelle, but we do have alternatives - more so than last year I think.

You got a bit of a bargain there! Very solid buy. Where was that bundle out of interest?

Yeah, the impression I got from Koeman is that he'll start - in fact I think he's been chomping at the bit to pick him. He's obviously fully fit as he's been playing regularly for Senegal in the last few weeks as well, so fitness isn't an issue. I'd stick with him, rather than bench him....but play him from the left from the start, he looked a little unsure on the right. (and isn't he a natural left sider anyway?)

Not clear cut though, to be honest. I thought he should have put one in against Arsenal, but his overall game is what's improving. His touch, movement and general 'target man' play is coming into the fore and it's making us a pretty formidable attacking outfit. I reckon he'll finish with somewhere between 10-15 goals, which is a fair return I reckon.

Slightly more confident now. Mutch, Barton and Sandro, Kranjcar and Taarabt all unavailable for this one according to their forums. And they're all predicting 5-0 / 7-0 losses for them. Quite a happy bunch.

Yeah, at this stage you can kind of map out a route and it looks likely that we'll have to play a City or a Chelsea to get to the final. But we beat Arsenal on their own patch, so who knows what could happen here. I think a result such as the one we had will give belief to everyone, If we're as pumped up as we were on Tuesday, then we'll sort out Stoke - no worries.

Avoided the big ones, all that can be asked for I guess.

Does Jack Wiltshire actually ever do anything apart from fall over, dive, and moan at players and referees? Pointless footballer in all honesty.

Come on you forest!

I'm so glad we didn't spend £15m on Townsend.

It went in didn't it?? Good enough for me!

Not many really, had my disagreements and frustrations as all of us, but if you want you can see that I've never had an issue with Les Reed. How about you actually have a debate and discussion for once?

Not getting carried away, just saying it as it was. They did communicate though, but obviously Ralf did waffle a fair bit. Reed's statement was assured and to the point, and the board clearly did man up and responded to all the stories with a pretty empathic 'NO' to Morgan. I think we can see now that the club was forced to sell before it could buy, not because of finances, but because the players were being complete and utter dicks. Morgan has himself now probably realised he was too hasty himself, and if only the other players had given it a chance they could have realised as well. But we got good money, reinvested it as promised, and retained the 2 players they promised we'd retain. It was shaky at some points, but I think overall Reed knew exactly what he wanted to do.

The issue we had last year was that teams sussed out our game as the season went on, some were still unstuck by it...but ultimately a lot had ideas of how to stop it, and we didn't seen to have any alternative. We were also handcuffed by having to bring Jos and Gazaniga into the side during the November/December run (I think) and that did affect us. We obviously aren't going to stay in the top 4, but I feel we now have a stronger overall squad to avoid such a collapse as we had last December. We are obviously riding a wave at the mo, we will come crashing down at some point....but hopefully the strength of the squad this year ensures that the crash isn't too hard and we can recover quickly.

I never ever understood the stick Reed got during the summer, I was one of those who said he's one of the guys we need to trust - yet he was wrongfully vilified at every opportunity. But it doesn't take a genius to work out he's done a good job for us. He's been involved throughout our 5 year rise, and I'm fairly certain he has had his fair share of influence on that. He was the one member of the board who kind of kept a bit of footballing sense during the summer, when it seemed as all was falling away around us.

I remember that, an ultimately frustrating evening though, as we let Cardiff back into it after being 2-0 up. As most games were in that Burley season.

I wonder if he'll ever tinker with a 3 at the back setup as well? We've got the tools for it. Also worth remembering that Toby is also seen as RB cover and also DM cover, so there will be plenty of opportunities for both I reckon.

To be fair, I wouldn't say Arsenal played badly either. They were well up for it, but we were so good that we kept them at arms length for most of it. They had world cup finalists in that line-up, so it wan't what I'd say understrength or massively weak. The weakest area was probably the back 4, but we still had to nullify their threat - which we did really well.

This is my worry, I think they'll sit back, but play on the counter. They have pace and ability on the counter as well, so could well cause us problems....and Austin is someone who seems to always cause us problems. I'd love to see Mane up against Isla though.....I thought Isla was a great signing for them, but it's clear that he's not quite 100% yet....so let's throw Mane at him...literally!

Touch, hit, BANG.

I thought he looked a bit dodgy last night myself. A few dodgy headers, poor control on a couple of occasions. He seemed to be the experienced head back there in a completely inexperienced back 4, so it may be harsh to judge him on that...but he didn't look amazing, not £16m amazing anyway.

Not worth thinking about any more. They decided they wanted to go, so they're gone and we moved on emphatically. I wouldn't have any back because we replaced them so well, maybe for squad cover, but as it stands none of them would start in our side at the moment.

Really happy to see Deano in particular, I think he's been great for them in the games I've seen him. He was never a skilful show boater, but just someone who would receive and pass...just keeps it moving. I bet he never imagined he'd be playing alongside Cambiasso when he was let go by us!

Looks tremendous. Got no worries about him being called in at any point. How does our academy keep churning out this level of player? It's incredible.