Renton

I hope he reads this and scores the winner in the cup final, and you doubters can line up to suck his plums.

His talent (Arfa) or impact on the team (Robert) wasn't the comparison being made though. It was the notion he is lazy, which as with the others, I personally refute.

Whwy it's actually 11 days inclusive the whinging manc cunts. I guess we are hoping for a close scoreline on the 16th so they've something to play for on the 23rd.

The final thread starter is awarded £100 form the pot (if there's any left in Patreon upkeep funds, sorry charities). Life ban if we lose.

Yeah, but I wonder how much of that is cognitive bias as you've prejudged him? Maybe he was out of breath in that particular instance, maybe you're not crediting him with other instances? Wasn't there a stat of the last game reporting how much grass he had covered and how much he had in fact tracked back? Anyway, we've had this discussion countless times, I think we're all agreed ASM just isn't the right fit for the side we've become. That's not his fault, he's just been outgrown.

I've always found the concept of any player being lazy as just odd. I mean they're being watched live by 52,000 at the gorund and millions on TV, and I'm supposed to believe they just think "Naah, can't be arsed chasing that"? Remember having this argument countless times in the past about Robert. SOme [players have the attribute of being able to run for 90 mins and chase everything down, some are headless chickens, some just can't tackle, some need to reserve their energy for other purposes. I doubt any are lazy be the normal meaning of the word.

And if this doesn't work, I'll lick CT's gusset*. *Disclaimer. Not really.

There certainly wasn't in the night time match in 2019 when they beat us 2-3. I expect it to be closer to that, although with a lot less scallies infiltrating the ground.

I might be wrong but personally I think of lots of good reasons to play them. Mainly because they're absolute dogshit midtable and SJP will be absolutely bouncing, a cauldron of hate full of pissed up pissed off fans. If this doesn't get the players up for it, nothing will.

I like Rashford but a timely injury the weekend after next please. 🙏

Of course this is true and if I think rationally the club have done everything the right way so far. But I don't watch football to be rational. Also got to say I think a lot of the problem psychologically with me and I suspect many others is related to our fairly recent past, ehich has bred defeatism and disappointment. Losing the league in 1996 was crushing but most thought we'd win it in the following years. We didn't. Same with Robson. Another near miss will breed paranoia despite the wealth of our owners. That's why I think the cup is so important. Get this monkey off our back and the psychological boost for the club and fans especially will be massive. Both for this season but going forward. As fans I doubt many of us are confident. But the failures of the past shouldn't affect the players or coaching staff, they've had a clean break from this. So actually my head says we are 50-50 assuming we have a full squad, and remembering they will have just played Barcelona.

Double whammy of tired players and lack of competition. But aye, of course top 6 would be amazing, but what is hard to take is coming so close and the opportunity lost to make serious progression as a league contender, way ahead of schedule. Rarely will we get a better chance. I don't think it's remotely hyperbolic to point this out as some have suggested. I'll be disappointed with less that fourth, as I was under Robson when we came 5th and for that matter Keegan when we came second.

I really fucking hope that isn't the case because it doesn't work like that, you can't just turn our aggression on and off like that. I hate to say it, I just don't think we're good enough without Guimares and the stats fully bear this out. We all know Howe got the absolute maximum out of us and made us more than the sum of our parts, but its not sustainable without the keystone. However, not all is lost. Liverpool is the perfect match for us to become aggressive and raise our game, setting the scene for Bruno's return against the manc scum. Also important to realise we didn't lose, and Spurs did, badly. We still have a game in hand, and our defence is still good. We live to fight again.

You just have to hope his presence in that game will wake us up from this slumber.

We're bang average without Bruno. I've felt very down about the team since the second half of the semifinal. Will we have enough to crawl over the line in fourth? Looking increasingly unlikely when we can't beat teams this bad.

We had 68% possession and the same numbers of shots on and off target. We were poor but they weren't great either.

Btw @The Fish, the latest News Agents podcast was quite topical this week, all about childcare cost crisis and had Bridget on talking about Labour's plans for reform. She is increasingly becoming a major figure in the party like.

Can't even afford a decent cooked breakfast nowadays either.

I know. Only ever lurked. The banter between our lot and the mackems was tremendous, and weirdly respectful.

Skunkers. One of the weirdest places on the Internet. Edit: either gone now are or migrated to the dark web I see.

This long winning, or not losing, streak has broken me. I'm so jealous it hurts.

This is funny because its true. There's even loads of abuse directed to Defoe since his last abortive signing. They'll always have Bally though, good old Bally.

Jesus, I had forgotten about full time childcare, its absolutely crippling. I still have topay for some wrap around care, but almost beyond that stage now thankfully.

You can get a bag of Sainsbury's imperfect peppers for less than a quid which lasts for two weeks in my experience. But aye, I used to never have to really check grocery costs but we must be spending over £600 a month on food now so have to watch it, Sounds ridiculous and I can hardly believe it but there you are. But then my mortgage is now nearly 4 times that, which is even insaner. And I've no idea what I owe on energy and neither do EDF apparently, the useless cunts. They're being reported now to the regulator after not receiving a proper bill for 18 months (although DD has gone up loads). We're also due an energy price rise in April once the cap is lowered. Couple this with people moving out of fixed mortgages, and It's really puzzling to me how anybody can be optimistic about the near future at least.

Hey lads, I was kinda making a general point on the economy here and te cost of living. Since then I've (with much appreciation) received advice on my diet, the acceptability of eating canned products in English tapas, Sainsbury's loyalty points and credit cards, and now internet grocery shopping. Enough!