David Kelly

Yesterday was a bit of a wakeup call for all of us. There's still a lot of players there that aren't good enough, most of us knew this, but I'm not convinced all of the new players are as good as what they have appeared to be in that great run either. Burn had a brilliant start but he's no Maldini he's just a decent player. Same with Tragett. Personally I'm far from convinced that we should be signing Targett permanently in the summer. The complete shit show we've had at leftback for years (particularly this season with Ritchie having to play there) has mean that a merely competent player has looked far better than that. Wood has done the job we needed him to do but shouldn't be more than back up if we have the aspirations that we are supposed to have. If I'm being honest the only two players we have who I'm totally convinced have the ability to step up are Trippier and Bruno. If Joelinton continues to learn the midfield position and improves anything like he has done this season then he may too. ASM may well more consistenly be able to show his quality with better players around him but at the moment he's still mixing the magic with dross far too often (the fact that the opposition know he's our only big threat certainly makes him easier to play against mind). I am liking Howe's reaction to the game. He knows where we are as a team and knows that we shouldn't have tried to chase the game and leave ourselves as wide open as we did. I'm not suggesting we should be going in against the top sides and playing as deep as we did with cabbage heed, clearly that got us nowhere anyway, but we have to be more understanding of where we still are as a team. I said all along I'd be happy with a couple of points from these last four games and we got three so I'm not remotely concerned that we will go down. I'm still confident that we'll get the three or four points we need over these next four games. But if we're going to move into the top half let alone any further up the league, there's a lot to be done in the summer.

I think suggesting he's not well gives him far more credit than he deserves.

Nah he's just a cock.

Edwards has lost any inside track on information since his bacon sarnie buddy was shipped out. This story may turn out to be roughly correct as it doesn't take a genius to understand that we do have to take FFP into account but very few people were expecting us to suddenly be in the market for Neymar and Mbappe despite what some of the southern press would like to make people believe. An outlay of around £60m along with additional funds from sales could easily add three £25m-£30m players to the squad which could improve us massively. Then there's free transfers on top of that. Of course the big difference now as oppose to the last 15 years is that if we have a budget of £60m it won't also include the wages and other fees meaning that we can only afford one £20m player.

#Whetherspoons

Has mackem logic been formally introduced into pyschiatric training manuals now?

I totally get what you're saying but I do think that no matter how well the interview went, it would just end up giving more amunition to those wanting to use it to have a go at us through Howe. It then just throws up more questions that he's in no place to answer. But in all of this Stavely and co should be ensuring that Howe isn't struggling with this. As long as he doesn't feel that he's being hung out to dry then I do think this is the quickest way for it to pass.

I think the best way to handle it is exactly what Howe has done. If he just keeps answering as he has it will certainly go away, at least until the next reason for it to flare up. Hopfully SA won't have any more days of 81 beheadings any time soon. The only thing Howe really could say against the Saudi's is that he disagrees with capital punishment in general. But to try and stop the questions being put to him, especially after he's said that he understands it's up to journalists to ask, wouldn't look great imo.

You've forgotten that we were missing our best player too. Oh and Wilson.

As if any mackem holiday's in Rome man. They really are a bizzare bunch.

Massive shock that. Great player obviously and I've always liked him as a commentator too. RIP.

Shane Warne has died apparently.

Aye they definitely said that in the Caulkin interview.

Surprised Talkshite havn't snapped him up. He's perfect for their bollocks.

I can't muster up much hatred for Kinear. He was basically a senile old piss head plucked from a care home to run a premier league team. He probably wasn't being trusted to dress himself before he turned up here. I almost just feel sorry for him. Souness, Allardyce and Bruce are far and away the biggest cunts we've ever had here.

Most pundit's are ex footballers. Most footballers are thick as shit. It doesn't take much to join the dots.

Wiki only shows league goals on that part of a players page I think. He scored against Palermo in what I think may have been Krul's debut. I think he also scored in some of the Intertoto games if we're counting them as competetive.

Didn't Luque score in Europe?

Have we? I'm pretty sure I've been to every home game and while we've had good spells I don't think we've been better than a good number of them. But my point was more that I haven't seen anyone other than Norwich look worse than what we have on a number of occasions.

Believing we can and thinking we will are two different things though. As things stand, I don't think we will or believe we can. Of course that could change with further signings. There's only Norwich who have looked a worse side than us up here this season. That is a very real problem.

What makes you think we'll stay up? I can understand anyone having hope we'll stay up but I don't see how anyone can retain confidence. We have 18 games left and will need to will about 8 of those unless the three teams around us have a level of shitness that's even worse than ours has been so far this season. That must be unlikely so we're going to have to do it ourselves. And given we've played Cambridge, Norwich, Burnley (twice) and Watford at home this season while only picking up a single win, confidence is not something I can muster. Yes we have more money than anyone else but rightly or wrongly they don't seem to want to risk getting their pants pulled down in this window, or the players we have identified as being ones to move us forward aren't interested in us for the time being. Quite simply we are running out of games and finding the kind of form that survival would take is certainly less than probable.

If only the England Test team could be fixed so easily! Utter shite series. Very glad it's over.

Used to be Williocks role last season. This season he seems to have forgotten how to play football unfortunately.

I bet he's regretting coming already having to play with that shower of shite. He looked different class to the rest of them in terms of ability and temprement. Another 5 players of his standard and we may yet be ok.

Jimmy made that last over look easy as fuck. Its a shame our batsmen have made every other over look almost impossible. Might be difficult to find a team for the next match. Butler deffinately out, Stokes, Bairstow and Wood look like big doubts and Robinson and Woakes were already injured. Billings and Overton could well be playing.