HarvSFC

Seems like the ball went past Perraud, Salisu, Lyanco and Bednarek all a bit too easily there.

On a day when the self-proclaimed almighty Newcastle take a defeat to League One Cambridge with their starting eleven, minus Wilson, where Everton with 11 men get taken to extra time by Hull and where Watford get smashed 4-1 by Leicester, I'll take today. Even if I did expect the worst when it went to 2-1, but fortunately that was only for a matter of seconds. It was too comfortable when we had eleven men, it felt like the typical Southampton first half performance, and in typical fashion we couldn't run out comfortable winners and had to make it a bit more interesting. Shame we couldn't give the youngsters a run out, but the experience of Long became the unlikely hero. I'm surprised we didn't hear more from Swansea trying to reverse the fixture to be played at St. Mary's given the Football League club's are supposedly feeling the loss of revenue from the last two years hard. I know we're not the glamour tie, but we usually give the whole of the Northam to away fans in the cups and you'd expect them to sell out given Swansea fans can't attend matches at home, but can away matches! Would have been more than what they received today at the least. But, I have no sympathy for Swansea not playing for a month, even if the commentators did keep crowing on about it. It's their own fault. All football clubs are going through the same situation and we've had a strong consistent matchday squad throughout. Onto the next round, which is the important thing. I'll take Boreham Wood, or Kidderminster, please.

Damn, he looked alright in a back three against Tottenham too, but he’s hopeless as a right-back. Weird that he used to be our bright hope when we had Cedric. Now we’re spoiled at right-back.

Is Forster trying that kick it straight out of play tactic again?

Bale and Yoshida are back. Massive.

Aston Villa would be taking a risk on Bissouma, given what's happening off the pitch, equally Brighton may look to cash in.

These stats heavily favour the goalkeepers who are effectively the busiest in matches. I know McCarthy would have been one of those, so he’s an anomaly, but Areola being the best in the league, now he’s West Ham’s number two. De Gea and Mendy aren’t the 16th and 17th ranked keepers in the league. Ederson isn’t behind Pope, Meslier, Dubravka, Leno and Sanchez. This is why it’s a risk to sign goalkeepers in particular from relegated sides, as they work the hardest and get the most attention for making a save. McCarthy won our player of the season the year we almost went down and now we’re all looking for an improvement being the case in point. Johnstone was the hardest working last season, as West Brom conceded the most goals, we were second, conceding eight fewer. So, for Johnstone to feature ninth in that table, isn’t actually too good, as he conceded 26 more goals than Areola did, at a fellow relegated side. 13 more than Aaron Ramsdale did in an abject Sheffield United side. As I’ve said before, Johnstone is 28, had one Premier League season in his career and went down and some West Brom fans will be happy to see him go at the end of the season, as we will with Forster and would have with McCarthy if the extension is true. On the other hand, Henderson was one of the key differences between Sheffield United finishing 9th, conceding 39 goals and then finishing 20th, conceding 63 goals without him. I just feel as though Johnstone will be another stop gap goalkeeper and we’ll be wanting a new one before we know it, as it will become apparent that he can do the simple saves, but can’t pull off the game winning ones, which is the current issue with our current two.

The problem with Les Reed was that he did of course have some success here, but then it felt like he believed he had “cracked” football and tried to replicate the same moves, but failed big time, ending in us completely breaking our philosophy, hitting the panic button and turning to a dinosaur in Mark Hughes. Ankersen seems a lot more planned and certainly has a better CV than when we appointed Reed, although I understand we did bring him in as a League One club, so couldn’t be too choosy. I remember when we were drawn against Midtjylland when we were at our best. In my ignorance I didn’t know who they were, other than having Tim Sparv and thought we would walk them, but they made light work of us. I see they have also won their league three times since Ankersen got involved, having never won it before. As for Brentford, they’re another Cinderella story. They have a new stadium, but even that capacity is only 17,250, such is the size of the club. They hadn’t played in the top flight since 1947, but here they are, 12th at the midway point and not really in danger of relegation in their first season. I guess there would have been question marks previously of whether Ankersen’s methods could work at the very highest level and while there still are having only been half a season for Brentford, this group now feels confident and I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do with us and if Ankersen and co. can push us up to the higher level, which is the Europa League, like he has done at his previous two clubs. And of course, Semmens and Crocker have ran us well for the past couple of years on a shoestring budget. I’m not sure why Gao didn’t sell us down the river to the first bidder/chancer, pocket the Ings, Vestergaard and JWP money alongside the PL income and run off into the sunset, but credits due, there aren’t any glaring alarm bells about this group.

The man likes red and white stripes.

Tottenham should have requested a postponement tonight and played the game once Hojbjerg became unavailable.

JWP, Broja, S. Armstrong and perhaps A. Armstrong are the only players in the squad capable of scoring a goal from nothing. Got to keep them, as they're like gold dust for us, and that's with the unlikely situation of Broja staying.

And so it begins! If we can find some gems from the City academy, like we have done in Chelsea's then great! City have a load of clones coming through, who are all good footballers, passers and very technically gifted. Two of those being Palmer and McAtee, who looked comfortable in his debut against Everton last month. Delap hasn't really stood out when I've seen him play. Born in Winchester, but likely moved away soon after with his dad.

If we can continue as we are without needing to sell to buy every single time we want to bring in a new player, then I'm all for it.

Brentford have rinsed the Scandinavian market and have eight Danes alone just looking at their squad on Wiki. I wouldn't mind us going back to doing that.

Rangnick makes Solskjaer look like a genius.

Trippier would have got early odds on his move to Newcastle too.

Graham Potter's one of the most overrated managers in the current game, and his Brighton side is always excused by "if they had a goal scorer, they'd be a lot higher."... So would every club. His highest finish with Brighton is 15th, which was also Chris Hughton's highest finish with Brighton, with just one fewer point. They haven't progressed since the sacking. You can't say he hasn't been backed either. Bloom's one of the best owners in the game, in my opinion. In Potter's first season he signed Tossard for £18m, Webster for £20m and Maupay for £20m alongside Clarke, Mooy and Lamptey, who all cost a few million. This summer they broke their transfer record to sign Mwepu for £23m, Cucurella cost £15m and Sima cost £7m. Now, for the most damning stat... Potter's win percentage at Brighton is 28% over 107 matches. Pellegrino's with us was 25.71%, albeit over a fewer amount of games (35), but he was considered a clown! The most league games Potter has won in a league season is 9, Pellegrino won 5. Puel's win percentage was 37.74% from 53 and Hasenhuttl's is 34.81% from 135 matches.

How many league matches do you reckon Liverpool are going to play without Mane and Salah? I’m going with 0.

I don't hate all of these, but they're the most "annoying" in their position for me: Schmeichel - Always in the refs ear and trying to get involved in decisions, despite playing in goal, will go charging up the pitch to have his say. Also known to snake previous managers. Walker - Just a bit of a thick twat. Probably harmless, but his actions at the start of the pandemic showed no awareness. Van Dijk - No explanation needed. Alonso - Needed to fit two LB's in this team as they're the two worst characters in this league. His shit defending can also impact the team. Vile man, who lives a very pleasant life and is lauded by Chelsea fans, despite taking the life of a 22 year old while drink driving. He paid a £60k fine, half a weeks wages for him and moved on. Benjamin Mendy - Shit footballer and a shitter human. Bissouma - Another bad human. Fernandes - Cheat. Cry baby. Mr. Penalties. Lallana - No explanation needed. Sigurdsson - Zaha - A child in an adult's body. Vardy - Good player, but pretty much ruined a second half of the season for us and got no punishment.

Thought he may have retired after leaving us, albeit sooner, but the club did the right thing to stick with him for as long as they could. Sad, as he did seem like a good prospect at one point. An obvious highlight of his career will have been playing at the San Siro. Hopefully with the time he has had, he has a clear idea of what he is going to do next.

I don't like Brighton from the League One days. They had some horrible little individuals like Poyet, Taricco and El Abd and of course have Lallana, while Maupay is a bit twattish too. Wouldn't consider them south coast rivals, though, they can continue with their weird and manufactured one with Crystal Palace. I don't like Liverpool for their victim/everyone's against them complex, despite many bending over for them. Newcastle are getting the same after their takeover. Everton, Aston Villa and West Ham have deluded fanbases.

I will put my head on the line here and say that no one is replacing Gao this year. Even if we're priced at 0.10p in the next 3 hours it won’t make a difference as the camp is not healthy after their heavy Christmas dinners and whoever the guys are that make those decisions are now taking little action. Why it’s not being done now I don’t know but the source who has radio links with the club* said nothing is being planned. *He's my builder.

Indeed. Which is why their local journalist reported this morning that some of the players who were injured earlier in the week were back in training today, as of course they have to get some preparation/training in before the match on Sunday, if it was going to go ahead. It is likely that the Premier League made the decision to postpone the match prior to the learning of Newcastle having players back available, who they had to bring back in today as it was pretty much last minute to get those players ready for Sunday, as they believed this morning that the match was going ahead as planned. All about timing.