Wes Tender

That was very kind of the ex-Skate manager to put the best team in the land out of our path to the Cup.

Having dominated much of the first half and two goals to the good, West Brom came out much more motivated in the second half and put us under the cosh to get a goal back. Rondon's strike was a worldy and McCarthy had no chance of getting anywhere near it. From that moment on, they were really in our face and a combination of great goalkeeping from McCarthy and some last ditch defending kept us in it, with the ball hitting the bar, Bertrand heading off the line and some wayward shooting from clear openings for West Brom. Whereas I was reasonably OK with the team selection, even more or less ambivalent at seeing Redmond selected, here was another opportunity missed to play two up front and see how Carillo and Gabbiadini might work together. Having them together for 10 minutes at the end of the match doesn't allow any conclusion to be drawn. Redmond didn't do too badly and for once when he got the ball, his first inclination was to run forward with it, which was a pleasant surprise. From this point of view, some pace was a potent weapon against West Brom's ageing and slow midfield and defence, so they were always susceptible to be hit on the break. However, yet another match goes by with the goals scored by either one of our defenders or midfielders instead of a striker, but thank God at least that there are these goals from elsewhere. Once again, I thought that Pellegrino was slow with the substitutions and personally I thought that leaving Hojbjerg on and bringing Romeu on instead of Redmond or Ward-Prowse would have cut off a lot of the West Brom threat when they started winning the 50/50 balls in midfield and piling forward. McClean in particular was a livewire threat, although walking a red card tightrope. Bringing on Josh Sims proved to be a good move towards the end, as he was a handful, a box of tricks that caused some real problems for slower tired legs in the West Brom defence. One wonders whether he might have had even more of an influence had he come on earlier to offer an outlet to hit them on the break. I can see the usefulness of a last roll of the dice to bring your goalkeeper into the box, but Foster's stay there when the chances had gone, hoping for the ball to return, were ridiculous and asking to be punished by a long distance punt towards goal. Ultimately, what counts is the result. For all their shots on goal against ours, two of ours ended in the net and only one of theirs. We defended stoutly and had no chance with their goal. They defended poorly for both of their goals. We are still in the hat and in the last eight. Although Pellegrino is still a crap manager and this win buys him more time, this is the FA Cup. Even allowing for our manager's lack of tactical nous, we still do have the players capable of giving even the glory teams a match on the day. It very much depends which of our teams turns up on that day. Just in the last few weeks, Bournemouth have beaten Chelsea convincingly and even West Brom have beaten Liverpool. Getting into the semi-finals is unlikely, but not impossible

I'd forgotten about that. I haven't heard anything further, so must assume that the forensic examination is still ongoing. At the rates that those people charge, their fees must now be larger than the GDP of most third World countries.

If we had played against Liverpool as we did against West Brom, we might have got something out of the game, as they certainly don't possess one of the best defences in Europe. If we play like we did against Liverpool for the next five games, we are down into the Championship.

About two weeks ago, West Brom beat Liverpool 3-2, knocking them out of the FA Cup. Did Liverpool play a weakened team against West Brom because they ought to have had enough clout to have overcome them with their galaxy of star players? No, apart from the GK and left back Moreno, it was exactly the same team that we played today. So West Brom played a full strength Liverpool team and beat them. The difference is that West Brom played two strikers up top, closed Liverpool down, denying them space and got in their faces, wanting it more. And although Pardew manages a team he inherited in freefall, he still has probably more about him tactically and motivationally than Pellegrino. On the face of it having heard the team selection, it at least seemed that we were for once intent on playing our strongest midfield with Romeu, Hojbjerg and Lemina, but I suspected that we should have also strengthened the back line to the maximum with three CBs, as with Liverpool's pace, it cried out for Yoshida to play. The weakness also lay up top with the usual stubborn bone-headed obstinacy from the Argie pub team manager to play two strikers, preferring the more lightweight Tadic and Ward-Prowse to supply the lone, isolated Carillo, who offered hardly anything, certainly no more than Gabbiadini would have. This incompetant manager looks as if he could be about to make it a double of strikers made ineffectual by not having a partner up top to play off, so that we might as well not bothered signing Carillo and saved ourselves £19 million. Although our defending for Liverpool's first goal was comically inept, we nevertheless managed to give a good account of ourselves until they scored their second. But even with a full second half to make amends, we came out meek as lambs, no drive, no desire, no effort, a totally unacceptable display from the players and further tactical ineptitude from Pellegrino. What does he say to them at half time? Does he not have any abilities to motivate players, to instill the belief in them that they can turn the match around? Obviously not. I can't recall a second half performance under him that was much better than the first half one. And then the substitutions were almost comical, as if it involved him sticking a pin in the list of names on the bench rather than employing any mental agility to tactically negate Liverpool's threats, or to increase ours. Once again, the Northam showed their contempt with chants of "you don't know what you're doing". Lemina had to go off because he had picked up a knock, but when he was replaced by Boufal on just 57 minutes, it was immediately obvious that the midfield was weakened. Liverpool's tactically far more astute manager Klopp, immediately realised this and replaced Oxlade-Chamberlain for Millner, adding muscle to their midfield. From that point onwards, we were being overrun in midfield and totally lost our forward threat and any service towards their box. Then on 71 minutes, he brings Long on for Ward-Prowse, who had been one of our more creative players. OK, Long gives us pace and a never say die attitude, but by that time, we just couldn't be bothered to break at pace when we had possession, so as usual, by the time the ball found its way forward, the Liverpool defence was solid as a rock. The final act of total incompetance was bringing off Romeu for Davis. Davis should have been on, if at all, when Lemina went off. Had we the intent to have made a match of it and gone for Liverpool's throats in a do or die attitude, then Long or Gabbiadini should have been introduced at half time to accompany Carillo. But Pellegrino only considers two up top when the match is already lost. So here we are, back in the bottom three, two weeks to wait until we can do something about it with our next match. Even though a loss against Liverpool was largely to be expected, the lame way that we played in the second half will have had our heads drop, so that team spirit will be poor. Other team around us have had some results go for them, so that they will fancy their chances playing us. It is futile expecting that we can rid ousrelves of this talentless oaf of a manager, so unless there are three teams worse than us, then hello Championship again next season.

That was one of the longest 95 minutes I can remember. Thank God for our strikers Stephens and Ward-Prowse and a fantastic goal from Lemina. A shame that our defending leaves much to be desired. But I'm quite happy to score more than we concede, although I'm not sure my nerves will stand it. For once I thought Pellegrino got the tactics more or less right, although I would have liked to see Gabbiadini come on instead of Long, if he wasn't to start with Guido. Lemina MOTM, so why hasn't he been picked for the last couple of matches? Honourable mention to Cedric for getting up and down well and some very good crosses into the box. Stephens and Hoedt fairly solid apart from with high balls. Romeu and Bertrand OK apart from giving away silly free kicks right near the edge of the box. Boufal and Tadic were a handful. I liked the intent of Boufal wanting to take the free kick, but J W-P did a good job with his set-piece goal and is getting better with them. Good to see Boufal be the first to congratulate him. We need to builld on the confidence boost this will give us, but we should have beaten Brighton too and been a further couple of points up the table. But when are any of our strikers going to get a goal?

Shurlock Is Long a striker? You could have fooled me. I thought that to be a striker it was a prerequisite to be able to score goals.

I have just watched the post match interview with Pellegrino. We were too slow, too sluggish, he says. Well, you picked the team and were responsible for telling them how you wanted them to play. Either they don't fear your retribution, or they don't respect you, or you don't inspire them. Either way, you are totally useless, incompetent, out of your depth, a waste of space.

What a crock of sh*te that was. I had my doubts about the starting line up, wondered yet again why we were only playing one striker up top at home to Brighton and that so-called striker being one of the league's least productive goal scorers to boot. The three most expensive players in the squad didn't start again. Once again Pellegrino takes off a strong midfielder, although at least he gambled at last on a replacement with a bit more attacking prowess. Quite what Lemina has to do to get a game I don't know. I suppose that we should be grateful that having scored the equaliser that he didn't set the team up tactically to save the point. The first half was dire, one of the most boring home matches this season. Brighton were the better team in that first half, wanted it more, won the 50/50 balls, whilst we were pedestrian, lacking movement and desire, passes going astray, very poor altogether. We did pick up in the second half, which wasn't difficult to improve on such a low base, but again we lacked the pace to get the ball into their area before they could get back in numbers. It really is telling that our CB has scored twice now in a row, that J-WP has also scored twice recently, the odd goal from our other CB, from Romeu, Davis, Hoedt, but hardly a dicky bird from our strikers. I'm afraid that I've had enough of it. Pellegrino's sacking is now long overdue, it doesn't seem that we are going to address the team's shortcomings in this window, we have had a full month in which to spend the windfall from selling V V-D and frankly it has been an utter shambles. For the first time I say that it is time for major changes at board level for not having the balls to sack this manager and for not filling the gaping holes left in the team from sales of the like of Mane, Pelle and V-VD. We are going down

Les Hoolahan, surely?

But we weren't the 2 or 3 goals ahead. If I were the Watford manager, there is nothing I would like more than the invitation to pile forward and attack our rearguard that we offered them by weakening our midfield and taking off one of our most creative players to do so.

Agreed. Command the midfiled and control the match by keeping possession and having options to dictate play from the middle of the park, instead of in your defensive third. Our potential midfield of Lemina, Hojbjerg and Romeu is certainly better than anything they have. Citing the earlier Watford victory isn't particularly relevant for several reasons. They sat in 4th at the time, confidence high, whereas our poor form had run on from the end of last season under Puel. A couple of good but soft goals from Watford and only one shot on goal very late in the match, from our right back. An inexperienced Stephens as CB, a lightweight midfield comprising Romeu, Davis, Boufal, Ward-rowse, Tadic, Redmond with Gabbiadini up top. Several of those and our bench players for that match had either improved or gone backwards since. For example, Austin only came on late, but showed in future matches why it was silly not to have played him earlier. Boufal has improved since, as has Ward-Prowse and Tadic. Redmond went in the other direction, as has Davis to a certain extent. Watford like us are now much further down the league and they have a new manager and several injuries. So not really much point in comparing this match with that one.

The best form of defence is attack. No doubt you have heard of that, haven't you? Command the midfield and you keep them boxed in their own half. In the event we got the result, but were mighty lucky in my opinion.

Yes, a substitution needed to be made, but that was the wrong one. Lemina in for Tadic, Boufal or Davis would have retained command of the midfield. As it was, he weakened the midfield and our attacking options, forcing us to sit deeper and allowing Watford's big lumps onto our defence. Even with Yoshida added in defence, we still had the threat Watford had at set pieces to contend with, so control of the midfield was needed to keep our high line to prevent them getting corners and also free kicks close to our penalty area.

Does Pellegrino learn nothing at all from playing other teams? Has his memory of the last time we played Watford and how we dropped two points against them already diminished? They are a big physical team and we are weak at set pieces defensively, so what a brilliant idea it was to take off an attacking forward player when we were still dominating the match, and replace him with a defender. If any substitution needed to be made at all, it should have been to bring on Lemina, to maintain dominance of the midfield. As it was, unsurprisingly Watford couldn't believe their luck that in a Cup match, they were invited to press forward in search of an equaliser when only a goal behind. Despite the upward trajectory we have gained finally from a decent draw against Spurs and a cup win, this tactical ineptitude still has me in the Pellegrino out camp.

What is the point in being able to talk well about your hopes and aspirations for your team, if you are incapable of actually translating it into achieving success on the pitch, where it matters? We don't need an intelligent post-match analyst, there are plenty of pundits around, both during and after the match. We need somebody capable of tactically choosing the best team to face our opponents, one who can assess our strengths and weaknesses during the progress of the match and react to them strategically to influence the outcome in our favour. Any assessment of Pellegrino's level of intelligence as a football manager depends far more on his ability to get his team winning matches, than his ability to speak pragmatically about why we lost yet another match.

Are we leaving the UK?

Spurs were well below their usual level against us, as were Arsenal, Man U, and City when we played them. It couldn't possibly be that we disrupted their normal style of play, closed down the space to deny their passing games, and won the midfield battles sufficiently to deny them gaining momentum against us, could it?

The draw was a disappointment from the point of view that the thumping at the hands of Spurs I was anticipating, might have brought about the departure of Pellegrino. However, it was an entertaining match which we deserved at least a point from and could have even won, had we had better striker options up front. From the off, I thought that the team selected was our strongest, especially with Lemina, Romeu and Hojbjerg together in the midfield. So it proved, with them dominating the 50/50 balls and closing down the space to deny Spurs to play their high line. I just hope that injuries allowing, that we continue to play all three for several matches to allow them to form an understanding of each others' strengths and weaknesses. In fact, bar the return of players like Yoshida and Long, I would be happy to play most of this team regularly to provide some urgently needed continuity. Otherwise, I don't think that it is being too fanciful to state the opinion that for most of the match we were actually the better team. The usual conundrum is whether Spurs were just crap, or was it us who made them look crap? Pellegrino's substitutions on the face of it appeared to weaken the midfield, but I understand that there might have been an injury to Lemina and or Hojbjerg, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Although we played deep and invited them onto us as we often do late in matches, on the other hand the Spurs high line did allow us on a couple of occasions to put the ball over the top and break towards their box. With a more instinctive first time shot from Boufal, or a more experienced striker than the young lad, we could have won the match. The lad otherwise did well from the point of view of his pace and willingness to impress by going for everything and he did give Spurs something different to think about. Oh, and the refereeing from Friend (and at times his left lino) was very poor indeed. As the match progressed, he allowed a series of niggly fouls from Spurs to go unpunished, especially by Dembele who ramped up the foul count to an unbelievable level before his first yellow, yet he was only too happy to dish them out to us for first offences of a lesser standard. In short, he lost control of the match.

But they're supposed to put the ball in our net

No, he is the Chinese version; CB Fly.

Get's my vote. 3-5-2, Gabbiadini + AN Other up top. We've suffered a lack of goals all season and the idiot imbecile that manages us doesn't realise that this is the result of playing with one striker.

Yes it is. They stole two points from us by cheating. The rest of what you say I agree with, but it is definitely worth complaining about the decision. Newcastle should have had a penalty awarded agaisnt them for handball in the match shown after ours and again the call went up for video evidence. The trouble is, the authorities don't care a toss about teams like us. It will only come when the glory teams are consistently robbed of points, but it happens less to them.

Phil Thompson gave a good match summary on Sky. Wondered whether there ought to be some post match disciplinary action taken against Decoure by the league for blatant cheating. He thought that even if the Referee didn't see the cheat's handball, the lino almost certainly ought to have done. He commented on Cedric in particular and others being incandescant about it, but I'm surprised that McCarthy didn't make more of it. With no post match action against Decoure, we will at least have the chance to chant cheat at him constantly in a couple of weeks time at SMS. And for good measure perhaps we can somebody to do a Vardy on the c*nt

Still, look on the bright side; we can Nigel back. Preferably Adkins, but Pearson would be better than this clown too.