rogerbarton

Think we'll win this fairly comfortably. Seems like we're primed and ready for the 'better' sides at home and away games. It's just some of the home games against poorer sides where we've appeared complacent. That said, Wigan have only lost two games by more than one goal this season. Actually scoring seems to be their problem - lowest goals for in the division. I can only remember us winning here once through their whole PL stay. Was it Lovenkrands who scored not long after Pardew took over?

Has anyone ever had a record as mixed as his? I know he started well at Derby last time before fading off, but we didn't even get a one game bounce last season... I'd be hard pressed putting anyone below him during the Ashley era overall (caretakers aside).

Ha ha ha. Regardless of the fake news, it does make me wonder when I hear people say NUFC "think they're a bigger club than they are" or "they go around giving it the biggun". What does that mean? And how do they quantify it? Presumably it just comes from us having a big fan base, full stadium every week, and not being happy with the turgid stuff we've put up with for most of Ashley's reign. I don't think many of us would argue we've been pretty shit consistently since he came to town.

I knew Garth Crooks's son for a bit. He's heavy into his electronic music and I've never known anyone have so much luck with the ladies. Part of that was down to him putting a wad of cash down at the bar whenever he got the chance. Nice guy though, went to Cambridge to do PPE or something. When I met Garth he was pretty sound too. Reckon he probably puts on the sanctimonious, slightly controversial angle.

Yep, spending almost an entire season with Steve McClaren can't be easy. This is a guy who was well-respected at Valencia, don't forget. All the best to him, and I think he'll do well there.

I'd love to see us bring in a winger with a bit of flair about them. Pleased with Ritchie, as I was with Townsend, but I'd love to see another Ginola, Ben Arfa or Robert. Not sure those temperamental characters go down well with Rafa, like.

BTW, just been reading .com's view - they're slating Diame and Mitrovic's sub performances. Really not understanding the vitriol for the latter - feels like he's become an easy target now. They're basically saying his main contribution was whipping up the away support. So had he not done that they wouldn't have mentioned him?

30/35

Was proud of the performance last night. 10 vs 11 we were still shafting them. 9 vs 11 they got two flukey goalmouth scramble goals. Three defeats, but the last two saw decent performances. We'll be back. As for the reds, genuinely wouldn't be surprised if neither was overturned. Worst ref I've ever seen. How can he not have wondered if he was being a little uneven handed? We had two perfectly legitimate penalty shouts as well.

Morning after thoughts: agree that we outplayed them for most of the game and 7 times out of 10 we'd have won in 90 minutes. There have been a few games now where we've had a lot of the ball but not put away our chances though. Trying to match ourselves against PL level teams at the moment is fairly pointless IMO. Surely we all know Rafa is going to make 5 or 6 signings if / when we go up anyway.

Thing is that Sels is the fourth best keeper on our books (& I only say that cos I haven't seen Woodman play). He's got no future here.

Would've put money on Gayle to finish one of his three chances in extra time too.

That ticks off just about every box of fucking shite. - Golden opportunity to reach the semis - Dominate the game - Play 10 men who've made all three subs for extra time - Take the fucking lead against 10 men who've made all three subs - Concede a minute later - Miss three out of four fucking penalties - Shite keeper lets one in under his fucking wrist

Beginning to feel the excitement ahead of tonight. Honestly don't see us getting battered in the semis - we haven't been smashed by anyone since Rafa came in. Who are Hull going to play? I feel like they have so few players they might not be able to rotate...

The one thing I don't get is how he manages to lurch from outstanding to atrocious. I can't comment on what's happened at Palace, but you think to the year we finished 5th. The start of that season we were really solid defensively, the end of that season saw some lovely counter-attacking football. But in between there were some absolute stinkers - Fulham away, Wigan away etc. What I would say, though, is that the good defensive work that season had to be down to him and his coaching staff. Thereafter it was more or less all downhill, but he would pull out those flukey runs. How did that happen? The November / December runs in his last two seasons were quite extraordinary. Then you had the first half of 2014 which was just dreadful. I also think he was helped out by us appointing two managers who were both even worse than him. Last question, though: would we have gone down if he'd stayed? Presuming he'd had the same players to work with as McClaren (which is quite likely).

That was pretty quick to Jackett in I'll get my coatt. Seriously, though, he must have known the scale of the challenge when he took it on. Most odd.

Yup. It really somehow is: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/oct/21/alan-pardew-england-crystal-palace

Just a classic example of a pundit watching the highlights of one match and going on a haughty, self-important ramble disguised as a narrative. Phil Neville is actually one of the worst pundits I've seen.

Just got caught down the rabbit hole on RTG. Someone genuinely said, in the Alan Pardew thread: "most mags i know would have him back in a heartbeat". Posted yesterday night.

Man U faltering still hasn't begun to lose its appeal. Did Fergie put some kind of curse on them?

He did take the rap in his post-match comments. I'm pretty happy if he's making one small mistake every 15 games or so.

We are still 1 point ahead of our 09/10 season. No need to panic. But we have a couple of potentially tricky games ahead, so need to refocus. We're clearly getting better results away from home, though. That's 3 home defeats in 9 games now.

Gamez and Mbemba in - hope they're not too rusty. That's six changes isn't it? And our team still looks strong.

Almost surprised at just how bad he's been. Thought he'd put in a few early performances with those barnstorming runs. I'm honestly not sure he'd get in our starting XI.

Big Teeth for Southgate is very apt, to be fair.