S-Clarke

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

God, I wish we were playing QPR this weekend. They are so bad it's untrue.

That's usually how the script goes!

I think that's the formation we are evolving to. What I can see is this... ----------GK------------ ------CB -----CB--------- WBR --------------WBL -------CM----CM-------- AMR------AMC----AML-- -----------ST----------

I accept your points, and I do think Chaplow was probably the only viable alternative yesterday - but I think that's kind of scratching at the bottom of our squad if I'm honest. He's full of energy, but always on the edge of being sent off, or giving away silly fouls. Not sure he'd have been the best in the circumstances yesterday If i'm honest, and other than that we had no real alternative. It does show that with a few injures, the midfield area which was pretty well stocked, starts to look quite thin.

Yep, you're probably right. But you can't discard managers just because they don't have experience, the only way they'll get it is to experience it. Adkins isn't stupid, bright as a button, and he'll learn as he goes - as will the team as a whole.

You can't keep changing the keeper to stop conceeding goals, the route cause is not as clear cut as the GK.

What an effort by Cisse. Good game this. 2 pretty average sides, truth be told. I'd fancy us to create shed loads against both.

He probably used to be. But there's a reason he was let go on a free, and no one else wanted him.

QPR look absolutely horrific. Hughes is not going to last there, surely. Looks like Cesar is pretty much finished. Awful goal keeping. Odd signing.

They're not a bad side, they've just made too many signings for the sake of making signings. As you said, no real thought behind them (as shown with Green, and then Cesar) He also believes Granero is a world class player, which I fail to see. What has he ever done to be considered world class?

They've got a bit more grit and experience about them.

That's pretty much it. It's lazy just to blame the CB's, the ease in which Everton players ran at our back 4 on Saturday was slightly alarming and it does kind of spring up question marks about our lack of cover @ CM. I spoke to someone today who said that if we want to attack and play football as we are, then we'll always give the opposition chances. I don't think that's true. I look at the likes of Bilbao as an example from last season, when they didn't have the ball they worked their arses off to pressure and get that ball back. But it all boils down to ball retention, if we keep hold of the ball then they're less likely to have chances...! And then when we do need to pressure them, we'll have more energy, as it can be seriously sapping to be out on the field chasing the ball for 90 mins. I think we've been sloppy on the ball at times this season and we've given it back way too easily, now if we can really retain it then we'll concede less goals. Sounds simple...! But it always requires a bit of patience from the stands. When we've retained the ball previously and have gone back to the GK, and to the CB's etc then all I hear are moans, and groans ''GET IT UP'' etc. Why? What will that achieve? Nothing half the time, other than the ball being headed away and picked up by the oppo...but at the end of the day, when we do pass it backwards the opposition haven't got it and they can't score.

In terms of a player that would immediately fix a shortcoming in our side, it has to be Baines. I still think Clyne is a bit of a square peg at left back, he can cover there - but he's primarily a right back.

annoyingly, Evertons second goal came from them waltzing straight through the middle...!