Craig

Wondering if it's anything to do with ticketing. Not wanting to fuel TBD at all but it's become a fiasco with the ballot and tickets ending up on third party sites for inflated prices. I can't imagine the Dundee School / Barcelona carry on went down well at all with Hopkinson.

If available and fit, the following are shoe-ins for selection for me: Tino Botman Thiaw Hall Tonali Bruno Woltemade The other 4 places are up for grabs - right now I'd give Ramsdale a crack in goal, possibly give Ramsey some time in midfield and start with Barnes & Murphy on the flanks.

If, when fit, Botman & Thiaw aren't first consideration for CB then something is wrong. I love BDB to bits, but we cannot justify playing him ahead of those two.

Yeah I meant years, fuck knows where months came from.

Their only threat this season I think will be Man City. Liverpool & Chelsea don't have enough to trouble them IMO.

He's on gardening leave pursuing an opportunity overseas. Fairly certain this isn't him being fired and instead off to pastures new. In terms of impact he's had, he's been here 3 months give a week or two. What was our commercial footprint then as opposed to now? Fairly certain there's a been numerous partnerships setup. Given what our commercial standing was left by Ashley & co, it was never going to be an overnight fix.

It was a rare example of Howe not being measured in his example. I reckon he'd have been absolutely seething with them after the game.

No wonder you're a paragon of misery.

I'd have hooked Gordon for Barnes & Joelinton for Miley at half time. Was Woltemade's withdrawal purely tactical or did he pick up a knock? It made little sense.

Ha! Nope, just play cards on a Monday night with a wide representation of fans of different clubs. Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, West Ham & Newcastle all covered.

In some respects Woltemade reminds of Mark Hughes - brilliant in terms of playing off a striker and is quite deadly on the ball himself.

The question mark with Arsenal is, as always, will they be able to sustain it for the whole season - unlikely, but if they do then they're walking this title. Was having a chat with a Gooner last night who said he's indifferent about them getting through the QF of the Carabao. Not because of a lack of respect for the competition but from the point of view of fixture congestion. It's a reasonable point - both the CL and EL have expanded in recent seasons to include more teams meaning greater fixtures for the teams involved yet they nominated squad size, and the season length remains unchanged.

Yeah it's definitely an area for improvement. If it's not working, we need to adapt and not just cycle personnel. We never signed Joelinton to play as a midfield general but it's where he has played and been extremely effective for the past 3 seasons.

If it was on par for the season then you have to credit West Ham for their press.

Speaking of full backs, I saw xG stats for the season for Timber & Calafiori at Arsenal. They're insane!

They don't just elevate them, they're instrumental in them being effective. It's not just with us, look how much Salah has dropped off now that Trent has gone.

Agreed. It's the super rich they need to be hammering so I'm happy for our level to take a hit so long as they are too. There's far too much 'dormant wealth' in the over 65s as well. My lass's Dad is sitting on an estate of close to 7 figures - he absolutely doesn't need it but is reluctant to spend it - what if I live to 100?! Meanwhile because some cunt ran off with her life savings, she was off the property ladder and couldn't get back on it. It took her brother to pretty much force him to release enough for a deposit so she could buy a place.

I read the other day that if your salary is over £46k you're fucked. That's the upper threshold for 'working people' allegedly.

Tino is a massive loss for me, like. He's one of those players who quietly goes about his business but is instrumental in our success.

I think that's the point, they don't want it narrowing down.

Wrapping up the keys to your wheelie bin?

Are we talking about your thread-starting longevity again?

That bloke truly is an irrelevance isn't he? Steve Bruce that is, not Wykiki

TBH I got a last minute ticket to a corporate box for the final in March. It was though a partner supplier with work so their box was fixed and there was obviously a 50:50 chance it'd be at our end of the ground. It wasn't. That said I was gobsmacked how quiet it was. The only time I couldn't hear our fans over theirs was for the couple of minutes after Chiesa scored. Apart from that it was a fucking library.