DuncanRG

Lucky Wenger's fielded an even weaker team than us. We can beat that.

Shame he's rested for all the games which might win us silverware.

Crisp's got first dibs, I'll post again if I don't hear from him today

Sure, PM us your number

Afraid it'll have to be a quick postage job, unless you can meet me in London Bridge on Saturday where I'll be working.

Face value £30 - message me if you're interested

Don't think that's really how it works - it's not like established players are brought in then left to their own devices. Everyone needs coaching and in some cases I'm sure it takes more effort to manage big name players. Was it lazy for Pochettino to buy Wanyama instead of bringing a young player through, or for us to buy Van Dijk, Tadic, Forster, Davis? It might be undesirable for various reasons to marginalise youth but it's not lazy. Think of it like buying your veg from the supermarket instead of growing it yourself.

I share your enthusiasm for blooding youth but it's incredibly harsh to say Mourinho and Koeman use journeymen or gamble on team cohesion. Until his Chelsea meltdown Mourinho was the most consistent winner in world football and one of the main reasons was that his teams were more than the sum of their parts, even when their parts were very good. Not sure what's lazy about it either.

Demanding 10 goals a season from a midfielder is pining for a bygone era in the Premier League, but getting five or six out of someone would be nice. (The only PL midfielders to hit double figures last season were Alli, Wijnaldum and Sigurdsson)

Can't see the sense in that unless Pied's a goner

Someone on that Everton board said it was a "sobering experience" to see the cars our players were driving from the ground compared to their overpaid lot. Do our guys have modest taste?

Koeman claiming "maybe seven or eight players" from the U21s made their first team debuts under him. Is that even nearly true? I can think of Hesketh, Seager and (I think) Gape. I'm so happy that result got under his skin, whether it was because of us or just the way Everton played.

Wow. I could only have one eye on the game today. Is it fair to say Everton gave us a lot more space to attack than most recent opponents? Looked a very open game to me.

Doesn't get worse than Burnley for City's second. One of those times where it's described as comical and actually makes you laugh.

No idea how you can take Long's reaction to mean that he doesn't care. He probably agrees with you that booing should be reserved for lack of effort. I've never booed Saints. I like the defiance of OWTS after bad results/performances but seem to be in a minority.

Yep - very frustrating that it happens every year. We'll ride it out but just have to make sure we get the job done against Hapoel.

I think you've misread my meaning - I'm with you. Ordinary Muslims are no more responsible for extreme political Islam than ordinary white people are for extreme political whiteness, ie neo-Nazism.

Exactly. Why should I, and probably you, apologise as white men? That's precisely the point. People who call on Muslims to condemn violence aren't listening when they do. It's just seen an acceptable way to apportion blame to ordinary Muslims.

God, that was bad. Feel sorry for the fans who've made all three trips without a goal to celebrate. Still fancy us to get through, but barring some domestic disaster Hapoel will be full of confidence after their result.

One senior ticket for £10, though it does only say adult on the ticket itself. Can post or meet at the game

Too right.

Anyone feel like Reed might have been tried out yesterday with a view to playing in this game? Perhaps not starting but coming on for Romeu at half time.

Stuff like this shows that media pundits are worth paying - they know how good Redmond is and a lot of us don't. He was pretty poor going forward last night but so was everyone.

We'll sing 'who the f*ck is Ronald Koeman' at 1-1 and lose 2-1.

Puel clearly wanted us to keep bodies back. You could see Davis and Hojbjerg holding back and Fonte/Van Dijk, when they could, taking responsibility for pushing forward and trying to get a couple of bodies with them. That said, their interview made it clear that we wanted to get on the ball more. Don't know how much of that backs-to-the-wall mentality was planned. I don't know, some of their chances did come from our mistakes. We rode our luck.