Lighthouse

Just shown the Sunderland goals for the second time in 15 minutes. Now they are 'explaining' the Yeovil game again without any actual footage. Have they not got the rights to show half these games or are they just trying to wind me up?

The Championship is over. If anything I think the gap is only going to stretch over the rest of the season. I'm just hoping Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Lotus get their act together for next season. Vettel winning the next 5 World Championships would be quite dull.

No, he is clearly getting rather 'excited' by Fonte's lovely hair-do. I can't say I blame him, Jose has excellent hair.

I think it's more that De Ridder just didn't suit out style. We don't play with quick wingers bombing it down the wings, we have skilful wide players who cut inside and overlapping fullbacks. De Ridder had the talent. His touch was decent, his movement excellent and he could finish when he got into a decent position. He just never looked on the same wavelength as the rest of the team. His runs went un-noticed or were always at the wrong time. No he probably isn't Prem quality but he isn't the disgrace some on here make him out to be. He was a nice bloke who tried hard and had the occasional moment of brilliance. Good luck to him.

I would be absolutely astonished if you couldn't. Never in a million years is a LC midweek game away to Barnsley going to sell out.

Hardly classic Spa. Makes me not feel so sad that I couldn't go this year.

And now Osvaldo. That should definitely be on the Bingo card IMO.

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.