Billy Whitehurst

I've always liked Wenger and think he has done wonders not just for Arsenal but English football as a whole. However, I think his time is up at Arsenal. This sort of thing happens year after year, they just fucking crumble. He should get out now while his reputation is still more or less in tact.

I like the lad but his finishing is shite and his temperament makes him a liability at times. Can't see him ever making it at the top level, sadly.

Not at all Noelle, I love your chat. We just appear to have different expectations. This probably stems from the fact that you've supported us when we have actually won things whereas I started during the mid 80s when the likes of George Reilly, Tony Cunningham and Billy Whitehurst quickly dampened my expectations.

Disgraceful and appalling, any more? Disgraceful and appalling is how I would describe our capitulations against Sunderland, Southampton away, and pretty much all of those games we used to lose by three clear goals under Pardew. I'd probably use those words to describe the attitude of the likes of Sissoko and Owen when they used to play for us. This performance, and the attitude of the players, was a million miles away from that. It was a poor performance but we dug in. Lascelles, Clark and Yedlin were excellent and, defensively, Dummett had one of his better games (the less said about the other side of his game, the better). We've ground out a 1-0 win away from home against a team who beat us at home earlier in the season and who recently beat Liverpool at Anfield. We're top of The Championship, no La Liga. We're in The Championship because we aren't very good, we're just a bit better than the dross around us.

It was a poor game, and we probably didn't do ourselves justice, but to describe us as being disgraceful is completely ridiculous. Shelvey and Ritchie didn't offer much so we didn't have much going forward as they are our only creative players. However, we defended really well and hardly gave them any clear cut chances. All of our defence put in a right shift. We were very resilient and we haven't been able to say that very often over the last few years.

I think we can all agree that the game of football was the loser here. Excellent defending though, and thank fuck we had Darlow and not flapper Sels. I pity the neutrals who sat through that.

Aye, he passed with flying colours. Didn't we sell Williamson to Wolves? I wonder why he's not playing, he'd fit in perfectly into this match.

It's particularly bad in The Championship.

Aye, that's what I was thinking when I was reading that.

Couldn't agree more.

Same with me. Naturally, I want us to win the league but I'm not sure I want to go back to being shite in The Premier League. This window has taught us that, if we do get promoted, Ashley will spend the bare minimum to get us 17th spot and secure the TV money. We'll struggle around the bottom for a few seasons, Rafa will leave and we'll get relegated again. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a season as much as this one.

Aye, I had to double check that myself! Three games in four seasons, he was eventually below Tony Caig in the pecking order. I suspect they would also have stuck Shola in nets ahead of him.

Yes, but I can't see us doing anymore than that which was more my point. He'll spend the bare minimum to keep us up and we'll end being shite in the Premier League and fielding Lee Charmley and the tea ladies in the cup competitions. We've had loads of seasons like that (they were desperate times) and I don't see it changing. I'm enjoying us winning, even if it is against the likes of Rotherham.

I enjoy The Championship (lack of TV aside) even if the standard is woeful. We win most weeks, there are loads of games and the last 4/5 years in the Premier League were fucking miserable. This squad will get murdered in the Premier League and I can't see Ashley spending the money to make us anything other than relegation candidates. For me, the main downside of not getting promoted would be that Rafa would probably walk and we'd end up with someone of Pardew and Kinnear's quality. That said, we'll go up as we have Rafa, Shelvey, Gayle and Ritchie.

The Sels signing was a strange one. We didn't need a new keeper as we had Darlow and Woodman fit and Elliot and Krul coming back from injury. It reminds me of when we signed Karelse when we had Given and Harper. He turned out to be shite too. He was on the books for 4 years, I just hope we don't end up with Sels for that long.

Rafa needs his arse kicking for this. What a total fucking embarassment.

That's harsh from your workmate. Mitrovic is half decent (notwithstanding his performance today), Whitehurst was a fucking abomination.

Fairly sure this now qualifies as a stinker for Mitro.

They still won't qualify. Scotland didn't even make the playoffs for a 24 team European Championship and they are likely to finish 4th in their current World Cup qualifying group. There are only 13 World Cup places available for European teams at the moment and I can't see them getting more than 4 of the additional 12 places. They'll just need to settle for cheering England's inevitable 2nd round exit to Bhutan.

That would have made for a far more entertaining swearing in ceremony.

I've only ever booked as a package once and the transfers were an absolute nightmare (take and age to get to your resort and the return pick ups are super early and get you to the airport too early). We always book things separately and it works out pretty much the same or better. We mostly go to France and take the direct Eurostar, way better than faffing around airports but it does limit your choice of ski stations. That said, we were in Val Thorens last week from the 24th to 31st and our return got cancelled but they still managed to get us back only 1h30 late.

Hughton is doing a fantastic job at Brighton mind. He's a really decent bloke too which makes it difficult for me to dislike Brighton.

Yep, Colback is as poor in this league as he was in the Premier League. Dummett is shite but he is less shite this season than he was last season, he's probably a League One player. I'm not sure what Colback's level is but he would probably be out of his depth in League One. Maybe League of Wales or something like that.

For fuck sake. Brighton come back from a losing position, so do Reading. We've been awful for the last five games (Wigan, Burton, Sheff Wed, Forest and Blackburn) and our tactics haven't changed. Reading win their game in hand and they are within three points. We should be walking this league with the squad we've got, we shouldn't need the transfer window but its looking like that's what we need to turn things around. Our final ball,in the second half, was woeful. I really like Benitez but he needs a plan B (and to stop picking Colback, Dummett, Anita and Gouffran).

Jack Fucking Colback, absolutely shite.