S-Clarke

Morgan was excellent, but tired towards the end - understandably. Fonte saved our bacon though, so i'll give it to him.

Who knows. I think it shows what Adkins thinks of SDR though.

That's pretty much true. Players who I felt pretty comfortable with have shocked me, as they look completely and utterly out of their depth. As good as we can be going forward, these guys look destined to continue making the same mistakes, game after game. Still believe it's going to be a case of ''score more than you'' until January, and hope we're still in touch.

You are a bit nuts Art. (He's also called Adkins)

Andy Carroll will have a field day against our defence, let's be honest!

Mayuka is still not quite 100%.

It does pain me to say it, but we just don't look anywhere near good enough. We weren't helped by injures to Gaston and Clyne though, but the reality is that we cannot afford to lose that sort of quality because we have no backup of equal or similar level. The fact that Chaplow came on said it all, great servant but he's never a PL player and our squad is thread bare with the injuries we have. Let's hope they clear up quickly and we can get the likes of Clyne, Gaston, Mayuka out on the pitch. Without the quality they provide, we've got no chance it pains me to say. Let's hope we get to January with our head still above water as our CM and CB area need addressing in terms of cover, and additional quality.

Puncheon actually had a knock, he signaled around 5mins prior to his sub - and then went down the tunnel. There's not a hell of a lot Adkins can do. We are being ripped apart by injuries at the moment, we look like we're made of glass. The reality is that we're pretty threadbare all over at the moment. The international break couldn't have come at a better time. With the problems we had with the squad, getting a 2-2 draw has to be seen as a positive in my opinion.

No worse than Lambert. He's got great movement, but his touch let him down on a couple of occasions today. He'll come good.

Weird way of doing it if I'm honest. The whole walk up to a football ground is sound tracked by ''Come and get your programmes...only £3". Shame, that's the end of an era. I thought they'd have kept some of the fellas on - but they'd be more mobile, obviously not.

Great player for us, although the way he left was a little sour (Although i guess he saw what was coming quicker than we did...!). I did enjoy that season with him and Claus at the back, and will never forget that stunning goal at home to Cardiff.

Dangerous team though, full of PL quality. Much better than Wigan in that respect, and they have a hell of a lot more about them than Villa. Will be very, very tough today.

That's what I've heard anyway, prob bull****..! But Gaston is out, Morgan is out, Clyne is out, Mayuka is touch and go, Cork is out - "apparently". So we're down to pretty much the bare bones. Bit worrying cause I don't think we can afford to lose that group, as we don't have equal replacements for them. Guess we'll find out in about an hour or so!

Mayuka is still carrying a knock, believe it or not. We're riddled at the mo.

Hope he takes his chance today.

To be without Morgan and Gaston in the middle will be such a huge blow. We really can't afford these sort of injury's in the central position.

I wonder why.... conveniently not mentioning his name, as he knows he made himself look a little silly on that!

Well, it's not like Alpine to get it horribly wrong, is it?

I think that's a fair view. The long-term goal is for us to be a self sustaining club anyway, generating it's own players and not needing to spend millions on additions from Europe. But I guess you do need a jump start to get it off the ground. I don't think it's massively concerning, but it's hard to make a real conclusion on it without any real detail.

I can assure you that none of our player transfers have been paid for entirely upfront. But this is pretty much common practice across the field.

It's hard to make any real comment on any of this at the mo, as neither of us really know what's going on. But I would agree with the general view that being relegated will put us back years. It will render the last 3 years absolutely useless. I don't care what anyone says. We will have to start all over again, with less muscle and less quality players. So, for me, we have to stay up. I don't see us as being able to retain and bounce back.

Well, this is hardly surprising. We've fallen out with 3 contractors to date. So this is the 4th. Not going to comment on why, or how, or what's happened before but it's just irritating.

I'd play however you have to play to stay up. Otherwise, what's the point?

what a flaming goal that was