benjii

That would only work with a boner? If that's true he's got to go. Can't have boner's being swung around in the dressing room.

I don't think anyone's saying he's irreplaceable, more that you can't allow one or two players to dictate the management of the club.

But maybe the club has identified a system as giving them the best chance of success in the long-term. The squad will evolve to fit that system. To begin with, some players won't fit it all that well. I don't know if that's true or not but it's a possibility. You are basically advocating adopting the formation/style used by most of the "Big 6". That's fine but they have better players than us so by doing that we are unlikely to finish above them very often. I can live with that but a lot of people seem overwhelmed with despair at our recent league position. Maybe we have decided our best way of being "disruptive" in the long-term is to develop a different style. Leicester - not a great example as it was a complete freak season, but anyway - won the league by playing a fairly unique style (coupled with large helpings of luck). They certainly wouldn't have won the league by trying to be facsimile of a Klopp, Pochettino or Guardiola team or trying to play like Arsenal. I've no idea if that's the long-term strategy at all but it's an explanation. Maybe Puel is being stubborn by design.

Yes, but actually, that's a slightly hyperbolic take on it by the Echo. Makes sense to leave Cedric out seeing as he has a head injury and Martina isn't exactly setting the world alight so sensible for Stephens to get the experience. Reed would always have been likely to play given Romeu wasn't rested over Christmas. Sims has been around the first team for a few weeks and Boufal is unavailable. Plus Sims has looked really decent. McQueen has proven perfectly capable against better opposition than Norwich and apparently Bertrand has been ill. So, really, the only surprise would be if Hesketh starts and if any of the other youth players also start. I don't think picking the others is some sort of big gamble.

We are not badly off or in a "kind of state". But if you spend £30m+ on an infrastructure project you're probably going to carry some debt.

You liked Lee Todd?!

Wasn't crap at all.

Agreed. If he's causing problems then he can, as he would say, "feck off". He's nowhere near technically good enough to be much use in Puel's system anyway. To be clear: I have no actual idea if Shane Long is disgruntled or gruntled and whether he is causing any problems at all. In fact, if we are talking about just one or two prominent players then they can all do one. Even if they think Puel is useless, he's not some Poortvliet style joke appointment; he has a reasonable pedigree and deserves some time.

Yeah, Long's a decent squad player but if he wants out then I'd sooner have Gallagher, to be honest.

Mickey Evans. Basically, crap, but scored some vital goals for us, looked like a wurzel and headed the post.

That's not true at all. A lot of teams don't try to set up with five lines, as described. Instead of making banal guesses, try engaging your brain.

We set up, in terms of basic formation, exactly the way described in the opening sentence.

Quite. We rarely pressed high with Koeman and we often played some pretty turgid stuff. If we had just scored a few more goals at home this season there wouldn't be this incessant whining about "boredom".

Just a stream of consciousness, unstructured, immature waste of copy, really. He should have posted it on here - would have fitted in nicely.

Well when expectations are unrealistic they are likely to irk. Did you seriously think we'd be unveiling some great striker within the first couple of days of the window? You know how this transfer window usually works, right?

It was no more or less blatant than the one he ignored for Bournemouth's third goal but he wasn't trying to "big up" his own advantage at that point....

I can't remember that. Was it late in the match?...... I'd probably allowed my attention to drift by then!

Is it? Only if you're a complete wimp really.

If you challenge with two feet off the ground you might get sent off. I agree it was a bit soft but if you fly in like that you give the ref a decision to make. Their pen was a nudge in the back. Fair enough to give it but then in the build up to their third goal their player did exactly the same to Bellerin to create the chance and the ref ignored it. I felt he gave more 50/50s to Bournemouth overall.

And he actually blew up just before six minutes which was wrong because Arse scored in injury time. He should have added another thirty seconds.

Three goals, loads of subs, red card melee, injury stoppage. Six minutes was about right. And overall the ref favoured Bournemouth in that match.

Dinlo AFCB fans calling the ref a ****** despite him giving them a soft pen then not giving a foul against them in exactly the same circumstances before their goal. Muppets.

Awful from Oliver. Ignored a foul on Bellerin there that was exactly the same as the soft penalty he gave in the first half. Of course he was desperate to give the penalty to show what a wonderful advantage he had just played. Rubbish "look at me" refereeing.

That was awful. The problem there was presumably that the linesman didn't see the flick on the pass through (Silva was on from the first pass but it was deflected by a City player, I think). The ref must have seen the deflection though and must have noticed that Silva looked miles offside so should have spoken with the lino.

Same thing happened against Swansea the other week. I think it was Dyer who was in the same situation. As far as I understand it, he should still be considered as playing them on - even if he's off the pitch - ie. deemed to be on the goal line. In theory, you need permission to leave the pitch (accidents notwithstanding) and by "counting" people you stop the farcical situation of someone deliberately stepping off the pitch to avoid an offside. The corollary would be that a striker could stand in the goal mouth behind the line and not be offside!