benjii

Obviously a penalty. Hahaha

That's crap from Bertrand.

Which is how we have started. Lol at you.

A couple is definitely less than 5 though.

How do Arsenal not get that handball earlier?! Swiped the ball away with an outstretched arm, FFS.

There's a thread on Irish Travellers that may be of interest.

Pretty sure that if we had Romeu and Diallo available then JWP would be covering at RB. Presumably Ralph thought Valery was a defensive liability - and perhaps Stephens to a lesser extent- so has given Bednarek the position but it is does massively stifle us going forwards. If that match wasn't in the context of a long run of defeats then you'd say we held our own, played alright but got undone by the one moment of quality in the match. But seeing as that moment is never coming from us, it's all a bit depressing. I thought Armstrong was our best player. Forster looks confident again. Djenepo did OK and if he had just got that shot on target then we would have scored a lovely team goal. Redmond should be behind Tella, Watts, Chauke, Lee Holmes, Kayne McClaggon, Omar Rowe and Your Mum in the pecking order.

Here's a proper implementation by refs and authorities that aren't gutless nerds.

With all the injuries I think we've got to reinforce the midfield and play it quite cagey, like we did against Chelsea. We still have a chance of grabbing a goal with JWP, Vesty and Ings in the team. I'd go with: --‐-------------Big Mc------------- ----Bednarek----Vest----Salisu---- Djenepo - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bertrand - - - - - - - JWP- - - Jankewitz- - - - - - -- - - - - - Armstrong - - - - - - - - - - - - Ings- - - - - Adams

With all the injuries I think we've got to reinforce the midfield and play it quite cagey, like we did against Chelsea. We still have a chance of grabbing a goal with JWP, Vesty and Ings in the team. I'd go with: --‐-------------Big Mc------------- ----Bednarek----Vest----Salisu---- Djenepo - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bertrand - - - - - - - JWP- - - Jankewitz- - - - - - -- - - - - - Armstrong - - - - - - - - - - - - Ings- - - - - Minamino/Adams

Because procurement law is not criminal law.

What does "already proven" mean in the context of a Premier League striker? Anyone proven to score goals regularly in the PL will be well out of our budget. So, what, Glenn Murray, Chris Woods, Ashley Barnes? We won't be signing a "proven" striker. Frankly, if Ings is leaving then as soon as we get a few more points on the board we should Hojbjerg him and give Tella and Nlundulu as many minutes as possible to see what they can do.

Do their fans still think Hojbjerg is great?

A wet fanny can take a hell of a pounding.

Our shape is a complete mess. Gonna concede a bunch unless we're very lucky.

Can't see it. You'd surely play Stephens there ahead of either of those. It will be Djenepo at RWB and it will be a mess. Also, Redmond over Adams is a mistake.

This.

LOlz

Yeah, cracks me up. "I fast for 16 hours". I.e. I eat dinner at 8.00 pm and then have lunch at 12:00 but skip breakfast. Fucking magic fast, that. Almost Saintly.

We didn’t get the fanny though. 😔

You don't have to be a dick or be "nasty" to be a captain, you just have to be able to keep calm, communicate, set the tempo and keep doing the basic things well under pressure. I am not sure it is leadership, per se, that we miss, it is more mental toughness. The problem we have is that we have a number of players who are capable of doing really impressive things on their day, but regularly mis-execute simple actions when under pressure. They will play a ten yard pass just behind their team-mate, killing a move. They will take a sloppy second touch when they need to move the ball on. It manifests in different ways in different players. Romeu is "nasty" but that yellow card he picked up yesterday was stupid and an example of someone making a poor choice in a moment of pressure. He knew he was taking a yellow when he made that challenge but there was no need to do so; it wasn't a foul that needed to be made, it was early in the match and he was on a knife-edge for the rest of the match as a result. Redmond needed to play an easy 15 yard pass in front of Ings but chopped it too square. Adams has no composure on his left foot. Armstrong delays the pass for too long when carrying the ball laterally across the pitch. Djenepo's legs behave like he has just fallen out of a deer's fanny. Ditto Walcott often. Mental strength is about composure and consistency. You can achieve that whether you are "nice" or "nasty" but you need to set the example and you need to be consistent in your own application. The reason the best captains are the best captains is because they are dependable. Team mates look at them and they know exactly what they will get.

We could lose every match from now on and I think we would still finish above WBA and Sheff U and we'd probably also have about a 40% chance of finishing above Fulham too. Maybe we will lose 21 matches in a row and stay up.

He makes the simple look difficult.

Get Adams on for Redmond or Djenepo. It's another game there for the taking but our lack of quality in the final third is painful.

The only way to achieve sustained PL success is by spunking money as part of a vanity project, and for that you need multi-billionaires. That's just a fact. You are about to witness two of the most expensive mid-table mediocrity campaigns in history thanks to Everton and Villa. The best way to generate a return on an English football club is to do what Markus did and buy a lower league team with good infrastructure cheaply and then do what Kat did and get rid ASAP once in the PL. Frankly, any takeover financed through investments from private equity or similar is doomed to failure if it doesn't flip the club on to someone else within a few years and whether that happens to plan or not will be more down to luck than judgment. Plans to create an international web of clubs sound nice - and I guess it's an upgrade on Gao's "vision", which is non-existent - but won't create any kind of meaningful brand and won't have a direct impact on the first team. Unless we spaff significant amounts of money on the first team we will be a mid-table club who might occasionally have a good season but may also get relegated the next. I don't rate Gao at all, as an owner, but he does at least have skin in the game. I would rather him than a cabal of people with less to lose as individuals being spun meaningless visions by a Yank who probably doesn't really understand the game in England at all. I'd actually be up for a ramshackle, "fan on the board", fans co-op structure for a few years. Won't happen, but would be a laugh and would connect the club back to the community. It would lead to relegation, but that will happen sooner or later anyway.