Rayvin

Can you imagine the excitement on here if we actually do sign this kid after everyone convincing themselves that we aren't actually going to. We'd never do it for £14mill but I don't see why we wouldn't got in for £8m or so (if they'd take it). He's exactly our kind of player. Maybe over the summer though.

Fair enough.

I missed all the Leazes stuff. Was he better or worse than LBT? We should have a hall of infamy.

How does anyone afford that? If you don't have insurance do you just die?

Gutted for Walcott and I don't even like the guy. How devastating must that be?

Yeah that was entirely about Sunderland but sorry if it came off as a dig at us. I was more remarking in surprise at the ability to use the words 'professional job' with any team that includes Lee Cattermole. EDIT - I see he wasn't playing. Normal service resumed then.

Ah shame, I guess that's Carlisle out. Sunderland sound like they've done a professional job there. Either Kidderminster or Peterbrough in the next round. We could be about to see first hand the effect that good cup runs can have on a team fighting relegation.

Thing is, last year was actually quite a good year for both cups - Swansea beat Bradford City in the final of the League Cup, and of course Wigan beat Man City in the FA Cup.

Only downside to that is that teams like West Ham will assume that they won't get anywhere and will continue to treat is as happened today. But I do think it would raise the level of commitment from the bigger teams, which would be something.

I thought that was why we had the League Cup? I mean fair point and all, but if we consider the FA Cup as an opportunity to blood young players then surely we're saying that we're basically happy for it to remain as irrelevant as it is?

Carlisle equalise against Sunderland! Carlisle are my second team so I'll love it if they come out of that with anything.

Yeah that's a good point - would stop big teams for walking through the early rounds by virtue of having larger squads. They either have to risk it with their youngsters/reserves all the way through, or they go in full force and suffer the same as everyone else in terms of tiring out their first team.

I think a point bonus would make a difference, I just can't quite be sure of any side effects it might have that would be undesirable. Even for teams like us, it would be putting us in contention for a CL spot currently. Don't know if that'd make it worth shooting for from MA's point of view though.

We'd never get past the third round ever again.

Larger financial incentives for winning it. Perhaps something really radical like 10 points added in the league? Bizarre as that would be, it might justify the effort for some clubs - would certainly get the big teams interested again. I acknowledge it'd probably also cause chaos though. The Champs League spot is a thought if we could get UEFA behind it - sacrifice position 4 in the League for it maybe? If one of the big teams won it, it would just revert to form I guess.

Cardiff have Bolton in the next round. That would have been winnable.

Very true. Allardyce takes the biscuit though, the man is a total disgrace. Those West Ham fans basically travelled up to Nottingham to watch their under 21s lose 5-0 to a Championship team, with their manager giving up hope mid way through the second half when they were only a goal down. I think that's the most brazen 'throwing' of a game I've ever seen.

Relegation aside though, Allardyce has totally hung his kids out to dry. I get that he has a diminished squad, but he pulled three senior players off in the second half when they were 1-0 down, leaving them leaderless and without hope. And let a bunch of kids endure what will probably be one of the most miserable afternoons of their careers. I'd be utterly appalled if we did that, regardless of the situation that the club was in... And now it's 4...

Good God... this puts yesterday in perspective at least...

They're in serious shit IMO. Allardyce is currently fielding 9 under21s or something crazy like that. And they have City on Wednesday, that's going to be an absolute massacre.

Cardiff have apparently taken 6000 to Sunderland today..! It'll be like they're playing at home...

West Ham losing to Forest...

There's a Champs League spot available for winning Europa from next year - you don't think that'd persuade him it's worth a go do you?

I guess so. Unless Pardew really believed that a second string team could beat Cardiff. Although to be quite honest, I thought that team was good enough to beat them comfortably. So I'm not really sure why we didn't - even Cisse scored, so it's not like he was a total passenger.