Craig

When you consider Wharton & McDonald played alongside each other for 3 years, that's some return from our defence. As Alex points out McDonald was the penalty taker for a couple of years so that explains some of them. He's another one we missed (alongside Goddard) following the summer of 1988 and we never adequately replaced. IIRC he got the hump because McFaul kept playing him as a right winger when he preferred right back.

Personally I like the kit visually but the results when we've been wearing it haven't been good. Agree with HMHM, we should be wearing B&W stripes unless there is a clash. Ultimately it's down to Man Utd that we're forced to wear 'alternate' kits even when there's not a clash. All a result of a kit they released and never wore.

Yeah Tripps was sick. Not sure what was going on with Woltemade but he looked far from impressed when they showed him sitting on the bench later on. Wondering if we have a virus going round but surely if we did, Eddie would have made reference to it. I think he just concluding that it wasn't effective and he wanted to save him for Wednesday.

Everyone is open to criticism - not least Howe and to be fair, he'll expect it where it's warranted. I have no issue with people being critical where it's deserved. It's the cunts who say things like "perhaps Howe has taken us as far as he can and we need to consider who can take us to the next level" that I have issue with.

West Ham were unbelievably compact yesterday - they didn't allow us any time on the ball and closed us down immediately. That combined with our shit sloppy passing was a massive contributing factor in the result for me.

What I will say from a 'glass half full' perspective is we were awful at Brentford last season losing 4-2 and it created a reaction that brought about a run of 9 straight wins where we scored 26 goals and conceded only 3. Let's hope they use this as a catalyst to sort their shit out.

Agreed. It was fucking pony!

Do you remember what happened after Southport when they didn't? Shocking indictment of society today but here we are. As for what this was if it was an 'official' terrorist act we can speculate and cannot factor out someone having a psychotic episode (I've had one of them myself in recent times) however that doesn't explain WTF he was doing with a knife in the first place. I read last night that he got on the train at Peterborough which is 17 miles from Huntingdon. Reports said it was about 8-10 minutes between someone raising the alarm and the train stopping at Huntingdon. The journey time is 14 minutes. Whoever has done this has done so with purpose and within 6 minutes has stabbed 10 people - this wasn't someone just losing it.

Unless Joelinton starts to buck his ideas up I'd consider playing Woltemade in the 10 role behind Wissa at the head of a midfield 3 with Bruno & Tonali lying deeper. The problem with that is we've got little contingency if one of becomes unavailable.

Thinking this might be a draw.

Not on here, but there are suggestions in the wider fan base, yes. And it's fucking insane!

Anyone even considering Howe needs replacing to take us to the next level must be on smack. It's absolutely crackers theory.

Agreed - our wingers are effective because of the quality of our fullbacks. Some people are quick to criticise Tripps for some reason but he's always been a progressive full back and this season is having his most effective one in terms of stats. I think we massively missed him yesterday. It's no coincidence for me that we haven't really been on it since at least two of Trippier, Hall & Livramento have been unavailable.

Someone needs to point out to Beau Peep that track workers on a railway wear orange hi vis, not yellow. Of course the traditional colours of the Tyne & Wear PTE has fuck all to do with it, has it?

Aye, calling Pope out as ‘average’ isn’t fair IMO. He’s very questionable with his feet but apart from that he’s decent. Some people seem to have it in for him for nothing more than he pushed Dubravka out … who he’s considerably better than.

I found Bruno missing today. Him, Joelinton, Gordon, Burn were fucking awful. We can’t afford that lot to put in a shit display else we’ll get found out, like we did.

There’s no ‘think’ about this.

The players on the pitch looked like they couldn’t be arsed. Had Howe remained steadfast on his approach today, I’d point the finger at him. He didn’t, he reacted at half time and then twice more during the second half - it still had no effect. The players attitude today is what I’m angry about and it’s a rarity these days. They need letting rip at in the dressing room which I have no doubt he has done.

So which is it? His fault, or not?

One thing I will say about Howe is he needs to get his head straight about dropping Joelinton. His form isn’t good enough whether it be just that, or he’s carrying a niggle.

Some people are indirectly suggesting Eddie might be the issue. it’s fucking ludicrous, man. Consider where we were and where we are now.

People need perspective. We drew with Villa and Bournemouth - decent results. Leeds was frustrating. Brighton we never get anything. Today was shite and an outlier from the rest of the season away from home so far.

So what do you propose?

Today was nothing about Isak. Today was about a squad of players who failed to show up. It’s a bad day at the office, a very bad one, but we go again on Wednesday night. Everyone has off days but we can’t be blaming that on a saga that concluded over 2 months ago.

We turned up like the result was guaranteed before kick off and got precisely what we deserved - fuck all. Thiaw had a decent game but that’s about it, the rest were awful (aside from Woltemade who I assume must be injured - he got no service). Sloppy passing, worst thing we did was score early because we spent the rest of the game sitting back. Garbage all round, West Ham were shite but we were worse.