Lighthouse

They could always distract people from the war by releasing some more Epstein files. They distract people from that by invading Russia. Sort of an 'old lady who swallowed a fly' strategy.

Just copying my own post from the match thread. Glad to see the MK goal getting remembered by other people. It often slips under the radar because it was away in League 1 but it really was a cracker. Tiss vs Blackburn - esq in awareness and precision.

I can't fathom why people are incapable of opinions on Bazunu which aren't hysterical over exaggerations. He's not even been at the club for several months and yet every match thread seems to have a couple of dozen references to him being, "a disaster, crisp packet wrists, literally never makes a save, the worst goal keeper I've ever seen play football, cost us automatic promotion twice," etc. and hardly any about other worse players or the change in formation. Why can't it just be a modest improvement, along with a back four, a target man striker, Bree back in the team, Wood and Romeu dropped and no Fellows at WB? Two years ago we averaged 91 points with 'the disaster' in goal, which is better than we managed with Kelvin in 2012. I can live with that personally, I don't feel the need for hyperbole.

He might save one of them, we'll never know. They're certainly no worse than the goals Peretz conceded against Wednesday and Charlton. The team is set up different now and we aren't still trying to pretend Romeu is a professional footballer. We're defending much better as a team, have a better shape, a large physical focal point up front and the likes of Wood and Romeu are out the team. They're all important factors in our improvement.

We lost because our finishing was dreadful, we only scored once from a set piece and we ran out of ideas. Then at the end of the game we allowed one of their players to basically jog straight through the middle of our team and score from about eight yards out. Some people feel the need to blame Bazunu for everything, so I can only assume in this game he was wearing an outfield shirt with 'Romeu 28' printed on the back.

I was late to the party and only watched the last series to see what the fuss was about. There were some decent individual performances but the actual storylines just had me a bit 'meh'.

It's hard to put them in order but for games when I've actually been in the stadium it's competing with: Osvaldo vs Man City Thomas vs Ipswich Lambert away at MK Dons Lallana vs Hull Pelle vs QPR Plus a whole smorgasbord of free kicks from Lambert, Vignal, JWP, Bale and randomly Chris Baird.

Remember in 2011/12 when Bristol City beat us home and away and those six points, plus Pompey's deduction, sent the latter down? Be a shame if that happened again.

Peretz is a better keeper than Bazunu but it's nowhere near this level of hyperbole. We might have a few more points but if you think we'd be automatic promotion candidates with Will Still in charge and Peretz playing behind a back five, with Wood in the middle and Fellows and Manning as wing backs, I disagree.

Ramsdale in danger of double figures at the Nou Camp.

Our soldiers wouldn't be any help anyway. They always hide away from the front line, apparently.

Any result which benefits Saints is always the preference, Pompey are an after thought. Having said that I don't really see Derby finishing the season above Wrexham anyway, if we finish below the former then it'll be in 8th not 7th IMO, so it wont matter.

The diplomatic equivalent of shouting, "Mummy!! He hit me back!"

I'm glad Charlie Kirk is finally getting the respect he deserves.

You’ll get situations like players taking a step back at the far post to win a header getting fouled, or someone’s legs getting taken out doing a Cruyff turn or step over at the touch line. Or you’ll get certain situations where it’s better for the keeper to just blatantly rugby tackle an attacker because an indirect free kick is better than the current defensive situation. It’s an unnecessary change to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. A professional footballer like Shea Charles should be able to mark a man without stepping on his heels. The fact that they were going away from goal just makes it even more unnecessary on his part.

Way too open to interpretation, that’d cause a hundred times more issues than it’d solve. Charles was clumsy, it was a foul in the penalty area. Stonewall penalty as it should be IMO.

Sadly Diamond blew her knee ligaments out filming the last series so she's not been in this one. I wouldn't kick any of them out of bed for eating Pringles though.

After the trip to CR we bemoaned our side getting beaten by a crap team in the relegation zone. With hindsight, that game was basically the start of an absolutely monstrous run of form from them, which would comfortably have them in the playoffs extrapolated over the whole season. Won’t be easy.

Seems like you're making up a conversation to have with yourself, as I've never said or implied that. He should never have been in charge of signing players and neither should Tonda if we get promoted. The players we signed in summer '24 were dreadful and were never going to get close to staying up under any manager.

Yep, you've spotted the point there, I'm glad we agree. If we go up and sign more 'back up' to our current squad we will get annihilated again in the PL, Tonda, Russ or otherwise.

You think Wood, Edwards, Lallana, Fraser, Cornet, Sugawara, Archer and BBD would basically have been fine for any other manager than Martin, even though Juric and Rusk couldn’t do any better with them? Weird how no other PL club came in for them in summer.

A repeat of last season will depend on whether we sign PL quality players or bottom half Championship ones. If we repeat the latter, the manager will be basically irrelevant, as three different people proved last season.

Lordy Lordy… I’m off to mow the lawn. It’s been a pleasure chaps.

F*ck a duck, that could have gone anywhere.

Why? All West Brom did is basically what we’ve done today, arrive with a well drilled plan to stop us playing our game and keep it water tight at the back. You can’t win them all and sometimes you just have to put your hands up and appreciate an opponent did a professional job.