Lighthouse

I can't recall seeing Ramsdale or Bazunu playing that ball and it's certainly not one that any manager would have wanted him to play. Yes we play out from the back but that ball to Fernandes was never on. Even so, we didn't lose the ball and Downes had a perfectly good oportunity to deal with it, until he smacked it straight at Szobozs... the Hungarian fellar, trying to go long down the pitch. The first goal was a McCarthy and Downes mistake. Whatever his instructions were, McC shouldn't have played that. Even in spite of that moment, we were 2-1 up after 65 minutes. We were half an hour from winning. Playing out from the back had zero to do with what happened from there. Zero.

What kind of passing out from the back was there in the second and third goals we conceded? Even the first is on McC for very poor decision making and Downes, who miss kicked whilst trying to boot it long up the pitch.

You’re in for a very nasty surprise when Russell does eventually get the sack and players like McCarthy and Sugawara keep making mistakes.

He’s 18 in we’re basically relying on him to be our best creative player in every match. If we’re not careful he’ll be the next Livramento or Lavia.

Cant really fault the team too much for that. It was a decent enough performance overall but ultimately individual errors have cost us a result against comfortably the league’s best side. McC is our third choice keeper for a reason, Downes is far from the finished article and Suga…. I really want to like the guy but he just serves up clangers with too much regularity.

If that ball ricocheted very slightly off his legs in that scramble, it could have been in our net five seconds later. He’s had a good half overall but he got a touch fortunate there.

That was actually a decent half of football, I think we did alright considering the opposition. Paul looking decent enough on the ball, although if we’re being completely honest there was a touch of fortune about that moment just before half time. Obviously we look weaker at the back without JB and Ramsdale but there’s not much we can do about that. McC is our third choice keeper for a reason and we’re going to have accept mistakes like that to an extent (Downes and THB far from blameless either).

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Darwin Nunez at this difficult time. A truly haunting passage of events which will live with them for decades to come.

It wasn’t. It was a stonewall foul right on the line, which unquestionably continued into the box.

Never in doubt.

You’re saying it was a good choice to pass to Fernandes there?

Which he did, even though it was obviously the wrong thing to do.

Who had 35 minutes in the Lallana sweepstake?

Panicked and poorly thought out distribution has always been his weakness. Unfortunately this is a consequence of having to play our third choice keeper.

Gaaah, unlucky.

Abysmal from Downes.

Behave, there was nothing decent in front of him, although quite who he thought he was actually passing to I’ve no idea. Were looking alright here so far.

Not a penalty IMO. Having a couple of brighter moments now.

Agreed, it’s fantastic. We’ve hardly had any possession, which we all know is worse than asbestos.

Yep. It’s back to good, honest ‘Pennant crosses it for Zigic to knock down to Phillips’ football. None of this namby pamby passing boll*cks, we’re getting it in the mixer for the big man (who’s got good feet).

I’d quite like some much improved results, personally. I think it’s a tall order with the limited talent we have in this squad and I don’t think that a couple of absolute batterings in the hope that Moyes comes in (no guarantee in that) and saves us is particularly wise. I mentioned Ralph because it’s literally what some people were wishing for two years ago.

I think you’ve both missed the point there. Hoping for us to get smashed so that we’re forced to sack the manager is a foolish endeavour and rarely works out well. I’m well aware that the managers in question were different two years ago, but however you want to dress it up the majority of people wanted Ralph sacked.

No, the worst case is 4/5-0 or worse thumping where our GD takes an absolute hammering. Some people need to get over this fantasy that we need a seven or eight goal thumping, so that we’d be forced to sack Russ and someone like Moyes can come in and 1-0 us to safety with 31% possession. People said all this stuff about Ralph two years ago, almost rejoicing in that 1-4 against Newcastle because it looked like we’d finally be forced to sack him. Look how that panned out.

Why would you get annoyed about a made up story from a random Twitter account?

Talk about Jekyll and Hyde, you never really know which spurs are going to turn up.