rogerbarton

BTW, anyone who's writing off Reading - their next three fixtures: Ipswich A Barnsley H Brentford H By contrast, we've got: Derby H Wolves A Norwich A Followed by Villa and Bristol City at home, then that horror week with Brighton, Huddersfield and Reading ALL AWAY.

Well that was fucking annoying. Does Darlow shout for it? Clark has had a propensity for scoring own goals throughout his career. Going to take the unpopular opinion of sticking up for Perez. For the Ritchie incident, by the time he gets ahead of the defenders he's offside. Wasn't a great finish but could have sneaked in. For the second one, he's got Ritchie's strop in his head which is why he drags it across. BTW, we wouldn't have had the second chance without his industry to win the ball back. We're nowhere near certain to go up, like I said earlier today. We needed to strengthen and Ashley closed the wallet. Got to just push on now. It's going to be tough because teams like fucking Leeds are pulling out late winners against the odds when we are fucking up.

QPR look so much more confident on the ball than us too. A bit of zip about them. You'd back them to win if we don't shape up.

Fair to say if we play like that second half we'll be trounced. Just dreadful. Hope Rafa gives them a rocket.

Don't forget that in addition to Reading being just 3 behind, we also face 3 very tough fixtures in a week soon. Meanwhile Reading's next set of fixtures are very kind indeed til they play Brighton. We should have added to the side, even if it were Barrow just for strength in depth. As others have mentioned, Ashley's default setting is not to spend unless we're in the shit. It's come back to bite him so many times before, but he just never learns.

Could life ever be sane again? Not if Shelvs gets injured anyway...

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm? Pretty sure Rafa had decided we would go with Sels as number one, and had Darlow and then Elliot coming back as cover, so didn't need a returning Krul to make a fourth keeper.

I am honestly a little worried. Barrow, for example, has gone to Leeds. He was obviously achievable. May not be a great player, but when you look at who's getting in our team when we're down the bare bones, he'd surely be better than the likes of El-Mhanni or Barlaser. I feel like Palace have tried to screw us over a bit by demanding essentially more than the fee we paid in the summer. Could they not have said £2m in Jan and £11m if we go up? It worries me, though, given Keith was saying Rafa was desperate to bring him in, that we weren't able to negotiate that down. We *should* still go up, and I'd be shocked if we didn't win tomorrow, but Reading are only 3 points behind now (yes, played two games more). A couple of injuries and I think we'd be in trouble.

QPR are pretty inconsistent. Add to that the thrashing earlier this season and I think we'll do them easily. 3-0.

We said Ben Arfa would flourish as a number 10 and that never really worked. He's a hell of a lot more gifted than Ritchie too. Townsend might be a winger, but he's going to guarantee us at least 10 goals and probably a similar number of assists. Provides a real threat at set pieces too, which is something we've lacked. I think of him as a match-winner - he's one of those players who can make something happen out of nothing (think his winner against Palace, goals against Chelsea and Soton).

My one concern for Krul's move is that they're saying he's coming in as cover for Pantilimon. That bears repeating: cover for Pantilimon. Not to forget that Pantilimon is only playing because Gomes is out. Krul needs games and is surely the best keeper on his day out of the three. I suppose wages are another issue from our perspective though - useful to get him off the books.

Looks like we've put the Mbemba <> Townsend reciprocal loans on the table. Would be happy with that if it went through - we'll be in a better position to decide on permanent transfers in the summer. Are we happy with the centre back cover though?

Hmm... at least the notion we've made a bid for a player calms down my Ashley sense a little. Then again, we've done this before. Berahinho who we knew we weren't going to get. There was that whole Bryan Ruiz fiasco and many similar ones. We're going to have to move fast. And if we do pay £20m for McCarthy I'm not that bothered - it's not coming out of my bank account.

Bit embarrassing. Then again our reserves got done by a team one division below. Brighton got turned over by a non-league side. Let's move on and focus on the league.

It was that Wolves much that did for him I think. Douglas has written a Facebook post about it which is quite interesting: Interested to see talk of an Mbemba/Townsend swap. The fall of Mbemba this season has been strange - he was signed for £8m and came out of relegation in credit. Strong, brave, powerful and good with the ball at his feet, he has all the tools to become one of the Premier League's best defenders. Yet this season he can't unseat Ciaran Clark or Jamaal Lascelles. So what's happened? Well there have long been rumours of him being a bit unsettled in Tyneside. It took him a while to learn English & at the start of the seasom Rafa was asked a few pointed questions about the defender's. He made the right noises in reply but it felt like there might be more to it. Rafa also likes his players to respond to instruction. Against Wolves at SJP, the day that Mbemba lost his place, it was felt Mbemba did his own thing. He had a very bad game. Since then Clark has been outstanding. Mbemba has the potential but Rafa has a plan. He's been desperate to re-sign Townsend all month, seeing it as a signing for the premier league. Now the question is whether he'll sacrifice a player he doesn't seem sold on for one he wants. Personally I'd be sad to see Mbemba leave with potential unfulfilled. But if Rafa's plan is to unfold fully, you might see a few more surprise departures. Team is more important than the individual... Palace's interest is genuine. Newcastle have wanted Townsend all window. We could be on for an interesting last three days of the window....

I notice a few Twitter types talking about Leeds' threat. Mark Douglas seems particularly fond of going on about it. They lost to Barnsley on Friday and they're 7 points behind us having played a game more. Presuming we win our game in hand, that's basically 11 points given goal difference. Which means they need us to lose 4 games more than us. Given they've lost 9 already, mathematically you'd expect them to lose another 6 games. Which means we'd have to lose 10 out of 19. This pays no attention to form, and it's quite possible they're building up a head of steam (though Friday didn't suggest that). But even if they only lose twice more we'd have to lose six more times this season...

I know there's often a rush of people creaming themselves over Squires' cartoons, but some of them are genuinely excellent. This week's included.

Think we will see a similar team as against Brum. Key question is whether we rest Shelvs, as that obviously makes a pretty drastic difference. Still, would be nice to get to the last 16. We'll do em 3-1 I reckon. Will be ropey at times.

Lescott couldn't even be trusted to show up for Football Focus on Saturday. Not to mention his role in Villa's shit show last season. And remember #PorscheGate?

The Croatian story was reported by the Chronicle at the weekend too. Would be good to see us stealing a march with these kinds of signings - it fits in with a more ambitious version of Ashley's transfer blueprint too. I find it quite hilarious that the mackems could have a centre back pairing of Lescott and Jagielka and frontline of Robbie Keane and Defoe at the end of this window. As referenced above, that's 34, 34, 34, 36. Genuinely think it's still not half a bad strikeforce like.

Great turn and finish by Murphy. Was beginning to look like one of those games again. Rotherham have definitely put in their best performance of the season.

Karl Darlow just dropped an absolute clanger and made one of the best saves I've ever seen in the space of 60 seconds.

Defies any reasoning to put Man U v Wigan on the BBC (if pure viewing figures shouldn't be their only motive). Looking at the 4th round draw, there'll be at least 5 non-PL teams marching into the last 16. You'd expect all of what I'd term the 'top 3' in our division to be through too (Brighton away to Lincoln City, Leeds away to Sutton United).

I think we'll do Brighton over down there. Pressure will be on them and Rafa will have the team in the right frame of mind. Love Hughton and think he's a great manager, but I don't think he's ever got a result against us since he left either? 3 defeats and a draw is it?