Lighthouse

I have difficulty with this concept as I thought he was sh*te at Hull.

Between them Cork, Mayuka and Guly haven't scored in their last 120 games. Isgrove is very raw. Gaston... away from home... I wouldn't bet on that side beating even Barnsley.

The alternative being Lambert getting injured. Without one of those two leading the line I doubt we will be have enough to get the job done, even against a team line Barnsley. Remember last season when De Ridder, Mayuka and Lee failed to get a shot on target at Leeds.

Hardly a reserve team. Players like Gaston, Lallana, Cork, Wanyama etc. are all going to have a big role in our first team at some point this season. It's not like we will be playing the U18 squad plus Ossie up at Oakwell. I would argue he will be more ready for Norwich if he gets 60 minutes under his belt in a decent away game. It's hardly going to knacker him out.

If there's a form team in English football at the moment, then Barnsley isn't it. 4 League games, 1 point, 12 goals conceded, bottom of the Championship. They scraped through the first round on penalties after a 0-0 draw at home to Sc*nthorpe. Today they let in 5 goals at Blackburn. So having said all that, I think we will lose 1-0. What team would you pick? I'd give the new lads (I include Chambers in that) a decent run out with no real pressure on them. Davis Chambers - Yoshi - Lovren - Fox Cork Wanyama Guly - Gaston - Lallana Osvaldo That SHOULD be enough to get the result.

You can't just assume we would have won if Sunderland hadn't scored first. Neither team really looked like scoring for large periods of that game. We may ooze class on the ball but our delivery was very poor today and our finishing just as bad. Lambert and JRod were especially guilty of giving the ball away and wasting chances. We need a big improvement in the final third from the team.

And yet they came away with a point and came very close to getting all three. They were very poor but clearly had a game plan to frustrate us and it nearly worked.

It's easy to talk about the goal we conceded playing with nobody on the posts. It's not so easy talking about the 5 goals we might have conceded having 2 less players defending the box. No system is 100% infallible. We've conceded once in our opening 3 hours of football, not bad going.

We seemed to be trying the same tactic which worked so badly in last season's fixture. Hoof it long at O'Shea and Diakite and act surprised when they win the header. Our final delivery was poor. We had a lot of possession but did little with it. JRod and Lambert looked poor, giving the ball away very carelessly and wasting the rare decent chances we did create. Sunderland were absolutely terrible but we didn't make them pay for it. Still, it's another point on the board. I'd have taken 4 points from our opening two fixtures if you'd offered it to me a week ago. 4 more than we got in these 2 matches last year but we have some serious homework to do if we are serious about top half.

Oh yes!

Lambert and JRod just walking into challenges. Ossie has done nothing so far.

Sums up Lambert's day really.

Unlikely, Ossie is Italian.

Lambert looks like someone put ketamine in his breakfast at the moment. Slow and not controlling the ball well at all. TBF he isn't getting much decent service. As I type that, decent ball in from JWP. Poor header.

Lost our way the last 5 minutes or so. Need to regain composure.

Good effort from Jay. We are playing well IMO.

Great header. Great save.

Oh f**k.

Good blend of decent signings and youth players. Full of praise for Wanyama, Lovren and Shaw in particular. Some concerns about Ossie's attitude and how he will fit into the team with Lambert. Doing the right thing with 3 decent signings instead of buying about 12 like Sunderland.

We played very well at West Brom, I wouldn't say there is any particular need to throw Ossie straight in, I think Poch has made the right decision.

THAT is why F1 needs Spa. More excitement in a 10 minute Q3 session than we had in 5 years of racing at Valencia. If only it had rained for a minute longer, Di Resta would have pole.

First time since we got promoted when I've thought we had a Premier League quality bench. Cork, Clyne, Gaston, Ossie and S. Davis all excellent options to have.

Not going this year, work stops play. Gutted. Red Bull looking good for race pace in practice, Lotus pretty decent too but Raikkonen is pretty crap on Saturday afternoons. Merc off the pace so far but they often are in practice sessions, could just be sand bagging. Oh and McLaren are still dreadful. There is rain forecast for this afternoon though, so it could affect qualy. Incidentally, Grosjean has raced here twice before and never made it past turn 3 without crashing into a British driver. Lets hope he can change that this year.

Sounds like a USAF WW2 bomber. However if this is from Football Rumours it might as well have been written on a cows arse with a marker pen.

Because we like to rotate around the front 4. If Osvaldo is up front, Lambert could be in the hole which means there is one less space for players like Punch, Lallana, Gaston, Davis, JWP, Guly, Isgrove and JRod. Personally I don't think we need any more wingers or strikers at the moment.