S-Clarke

Looks like the feed from the Britannia has gone

Jones should have scored that really, all opened up a bit too much for Stoke there.

Great goal, great play. Take a bow do prado

terrific find mate, no ads either!

Guly has done a decent job covering so far down the left..

5 mins have gone. Game over surely.

Puncheon keeps slipping..!

I wouldn't have thought so.

Let's all just calm down a bit.....let's see how the game pans out before throwing our toys out.

Looks like Yoshida at right back, it is quite odd if I'm honest. Not seen the bench yet, but assuming we have a few knocks.

Yeah, Yoshida is pretty horrific at full back. Etherington, should, have a field day.

Good point, missed that. Assumed that was Clyne. Well we've obviously gone to match them up height wise. Going by the amount missing, I reckon we must have a fair few knocks.

Interesting selection....obviously didn't see this as a game for Gaston or Yoshida, which I do kind of agree with. Guly will play the number 10 role, Rodriguez on the left I imagine. Thought Boruc might have been given a shot though.

He seems to be a regular member of the squad, although doesn't play a great deal for them. Although he's got some pretty decent CB's at that level to shift! I think he's only got a couple of caps, last one came back in November.

This would be a signing we have no right to make, given the players stature and our position - so it's par the course that we'll try.....nice.

The Butterfield one is very odd, not quite sure. Can only imagine he's a big part in the background in terms of squad morale, and training routeens. He's probably getting a fair wage for PL player, so he's probably not massively bothered! I'm not really keen to ship Lee out, just yet. I think there is a player in there, but we just need to find him again.

I dunno, I think it's just a coincidence. Baird or Willimason didn't turn out too badly, and I don't think Matt Mills is too bad a player either. But the DNA machine at Staplewood seems to be programmed for small, blonde, pacey players at the moment. Until that's changed, I can't see any new CB's on the horizon...!

I dunno, I just know that the Staplewood development took a u-turn as there was ''uncounted'' for costs which needed to be put upfront in order for it to carry on (They found out that the Dome needed to be knocked down and rebuilt again, when originally it was just going to be attached to the main pavilion). Until this obstacle was accounted for, work couldn't happen. So we could have been left with a building site, and loads of temporary huts for months and months...or the club could quickly fire through some money to get work going again ASAP.

I think there will be movement in and out. We've got some players on our books who need to go for the sake of their careers. (Seaborne, Dickson, SDR, Chaplow, Barnard). Ok, we won't get much for those - but they're off the wage bill at least. We could get a couple of million for Sharp, but not much more than that, and probably 500 odd K for Hammond. Unfortunately I don't think our ''unwanted'' players are going to fetch much in the way of fee's, but It'll free up wages and I'm sure there is a little bit of money available to add. There are a few who may expect 6 or 7 new arrivals, but at max I reckon we'll see about 3 new players.

Looked a lively little player. would imagine he'd be looked at for the development squad though.

I go with that. He was in the team of the year for 3 consecutive years, I think that's more than enough proof from the professionals and the stats that he did a damn fine job for us.

Well, if you go with the club...he's just out for the next game....until the next game, and he's out again for that one. Seems a really odd way of hiding the injury, because I think to most of us it's pretty obvious that he's out for a good few months at least, so why do we just have to hide it away? Weird. I guess we can use it to our advantage, slightly, but I'm sure the scouts within other clubs would be pretty aware of our ''real'' injury situation. But yeah, we need more in the wide areas - we did anyway, but we now do as pretty big priority in my eyes.

You're just guessing what the loan was used for, who knows? It was taken out long after our transfers had happened anyway, so (again, this is just a assumed guess from me) it's more than likely to be related to the ''further'' improvements which needed to be made at Staplewood. That seems the more reasonable explanation for it anyway.

Could well be, he was on our wanted list in the summer.

After a bit of a baptism of fire at the start, we've got to grips with the league and seem much more competitive in the games we play. At the start of the season I felt we were naive, not just the players, but the entire management structure. We seemed to assume we'd be able to play this expansive, flowing game, and win lots of games. The reality is that we didn't strengthen at the back sufficiently enough in order for us to play that game safely. We just found ourselves getting caught, again and again and again. Quite embarrassing sometimes. But credit to the players and to the management, because they woke up to it and we've progressed nicely since the WBA game in my opinion. But I'd have to say, overall so far our attacking side has been excellent, there's very little wrong there - other than a lack of cover in the wide area's, but our attack matches up with most of the other teams in and around us. Players such as Lallana and Lambert have stepped up, and are still pivotal to the way we play. Puncheon has surprised the hell of me, and that's credit to him - he always did have ability in there, but it was always a question about his mentality. The defense was, and probably still is, a concern. For me, the jury is still out on Yoshida - I'm not 100% comfortable with him if I'm honest, I think he's a little too rash in his distribution and clearances. His reading of the game and positioning is top notch though, that part of his game is high class - but it's the other area's which let him down, but in recent weeks he's shown that he's getting there - slowly. Fonte has, for me, been our best centre back by a long way. There were a fair few question marks over him at the start of the season, and probably rightly so based on his 2nd half of last season (which still confuses the hell out of me). But what we had was a composed, classy, centre back - that never changed, and we've got him back again, full of confidence. I think he looks more than comfortable at this level and has looked very sharp in recent games, he seems to grow with the captaincy - good choice for it. The full back area's are decent, young, pacey, energetic - no problems there for me. Could possibly do with a bit of cover at LB in the long run, but Shaw has stepped up and has turned himself into a pretty impressive 17 year old left back. Class act. My main frustration so far this year, and probably everyone else's, has been the goal keeping situation. After the Villa game, when we signed Boruc, I looked at our options and thought ''we look pretty well covered'' - but it just hasn't worked out. Gazzaniga seems a gamble, which hasn't yet worked out for us. Davis is backup at this level at best, I'm a big fan of how he's stuck with us but he's not good enough for this level as a regular starter. Boruc is an odd one though, when he played he didn't do much wrong in my eyes....yet because he upset a few fans, he's seen as this villain who we need to ship out in January....Personally I'd put him in goal and keep him in there, our most experienced and talented GK by a long shot. Overall, we're in a decent position. We've got our heads above the pit, we've got the teams above us in sight and we've shown we're getting better. We'll still have our blips and defeats, I'm sure, but I think we've got a lot more about us than other teams down there - which is why I'm getting increasingly confident about our chances. The 2nd half of the season could surprise alot of people...