Fulham away, I hate this fixture. If Dummett starts I'm deleting the thread when I get up so don't get too attached to anything you post.

[Howmanheyman 26975]

19 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

 

 

 

 

Something, something, hang a wet duffel coat on them...... 

 

[Holden McGroin 4894]

 

Another clean sheet for Hall. I’m sure it’s luck but I’ll take it.

 

It was a lovely back heel by Anderson in the lead up to the goal.

 

Burn is looking a good CB. He arguably should have been preferred over a half-fit Botman before the injuries 

Edited April 6 by Holden McGroin

[Ayatollah Hermione 12767]

19 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

was it? We had no idea why he was asked to review it 

From what I can tell, it got disallowed because Burn was too strong and tall for their centre half?

[Holden McGroin 4894]

I’ve just seen the wolves disallowed goal in 10th min of injury time.  Subjective offside. The Keeper was never getting it. Disgraceful.

Edited April 6 by Holden McGroin

[MrRaspberryJam 206]

7 pts from a possible 9. Very good return considering our circumstances. 
 

hopefully marco silva gets his head caved in tonight anyway. 

[Gemmill 34629]

You'll all be absolutely thrilled to hear that Silva has been complaining at Dubravka going down injured and frequently breaking up play.

 

[spongebob toonpants 3606]

4 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

You'll all be absolutely thrilled to hear that Silva has been complaining at Dubravka going down injured and frequently breaking up play.

 

To be fair the 5 minute injury break in the first half so Howe could give a coaching session was textbook shithousing. Must have been absolutely infuriating 

[ohhh_yeah 2786]

 

   

 

 

[thebrokendoll 7110]

16 minutes ago, ohhh_yeah said:

 

   

 

 

 

canny photo, although why's there a couple of the bad guys from the descent been photoshopped in the middle of it?

[aimaad22 3472]

2 hours ago, Dr Gloom said:

As awful as we were and as risky as it was i think it was part of the strategy.
 

We were barely running at times in tne first half let alone pressing. the plan seemed to be to let them have the ball and fall back into shape.
 

i think Howe told them to conserve energy so we could have a go in the final third of the game instead of running out of steam on 60-70 minutes with nothing on the bench to freshen it up, like usual. Unconvincing but it worked.

 

 

I think that's a bit of a stretch. Howe and Tindall were visibly seething at one point and I"m sure Schar had a go at Hall and one or two others in the first half hour for being casual with the ball. We were just very poor.

 

Letting them have the ball might have been part of the strategy but not being able to keep it for 5 seconds and letting them have acres of space hopefully wasn't.

 

Different second half though, subs made a difference again. Barnes has looked absolute quality again since the latest injury, Anderson and Hall have looked good for the most part too. Not sure what's up with Willock like. 

 

1 hour ago, Holden McGroin said:

I’ve just seen the wolves disallowed goal in 10th min of injury time.  Subjective offside. The Keeper was never getting it. Disgraceful.

 

Aye it was embarrassing. I'm usually of the view that it can take time for technology to become consistemt in sport and for officials to learn to use it. But this lot are utterly hopeless, they can't be trusted with VAR and they're only getting worse with time. Scrap the whole shambles this has become. The first Arsenal goal should have been looked at by VAR too, Lamptey clearly gets the ball but the ref obviously points to the stop and since its Arsenal of course VAR wont intervene. 

[Isegrim 8876]

Massive result.

 

It is a crazy season. Nevermind the games where we were poor and deserved to lose but if we hadn’t dropped a lot of points in games from winning we would be challenging Villa.

[OTF 6190]

12 hours ago, aimaad22 said:

 

I think that's a bit of a stretch. Howe and Tindall were visibly seething at one point and I"m sure Schar had a go at Hall and one or two others in the first half hour for being casual with the ball. We were just very poor.

 

Letting them have the ball might have been part of the strategy but not being able to keep it for 5 seconds and letting them have acres of space hopefully wasn't.

 

Different second half though, subs made a difference again. Barnes has looked absolute quality again since the latest injury, Anderson and Hall have looked good for the most part too. Not sure what's up with Willock like. 

 

 

Aye it was embarrassing. I'm usually of the view that it can take time for technology to become consistemt in sport and for officials to learn to use it. But this lot are utterly hopeless, they can't be trusted with VAR and they're only getting worse with time. Scrap the whole shambles this has become. The first Arsenal goal should have been looked at by VAR too, Lamptey clearly gets the ball but the ref obviously points to the stop and since its Arsenal of course VAR wont intervene. 

 

Sad but true.

 

[PaddockLad 14638]

Think Howe got it spot on yesterday in a weird way. He had maybe 13 players he was going to use to try to win the game. Knowing the fitness levels of Willock, Longstaff, Barnes and Anderson it made sense to start with the first two and then if it was going tits up you’ve at least got comparative quality on the bench to try to change things. Watching Longy is fuckin painful at the moment. We’ve 3 midfielders out and not coming back any time soon. I might be tempted to start Anderson v Spurs… 

[Alex 30460]

Silva by the way. What a whingeing cunt. We scored two ‘legitimate’ goals to their none. They didn’t take their chances and we did. 
Absolutely agree with VAR and the need to bin it. It’s gone from its supposed purpose of eliminating howlers to getting involved in overturning highly subjective marginal calls. Perfectly illustrated by the Burn ‘foul’ being given after VAR talked the ref out of his initial correct decision. 

[NJS 3986]

After seeing the wolves one, you could argue we had two players "offside" when Bruno hit his shot - one of whom was quite close to the keeper. 

 

Also Eddie made the point about PSG - it would be good if just once a ref had the balls to stick to the onfield decision after being sent to the review screen. 

[Dr Gloom 19839]

16 hours ago, aimaad22 said:

 

I think that's a bit of a stretch. Howe and Tindall were visibly seething at one point and I"m sure Schar had a go at Hall and one or two others in the first half hour for being casual with the ball. We were just very poor.

 

Letting them have the ball might have been part of the strategy but not being able to keep it for 5 seconds and letting them have acres of space hopefully wasn't.

 

Different second half though, subs made a difference again. Barnes has looked absolute quality again since the latest injury, Anderson and Hall have looked good for the most part too. Not sure what's up with Willock like. 

 

 

Aye it was embarrassing. I'm usually of the view that it can take time for technology to become consistemt in sport and for officials to learn to use it. But this lot are utterly hopeless, they can't be trusted with VAR and they're only getting worse with time. Scrap the whole shambles this has become. The first Arsenal goal should have been looked at by VAR too, Lamptey clearly gets the ball but the ref obviously points to the stop and since its Arsenal of course VAR wont intervene. 

it felt that way walking out of the ground but less so after watching the highlights and Howe’s interview back. We couldn’t see Howe bollocking the players from the away end but there was one moment during the first half when he was caught on camera talking at the players where he definitely looked angry.

 

however I do think the idea was to stay in the game and keep Anderson and Barnes on the bench to freshen things up. The bench is so important the way the game is played now with five subs and I think going forwards some of our better players will be kept back for the 60 minute mark so we’re not left like we were against Everton with only willock to bring on and the rest all blowing. 

Edited April 7 by Dr Gloom

[Alex 30460]

Especially as games lasting well over 95 minutes is now the norm 

[ewerk 26475]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

Silva by the way. What a whingeing cunt. We scored two ‘legitimate’ goals to their none. They didn’t take their chances and we did. 
Absolutely agree with VAR and the need to bin it. It’s gone from its supposed purpose of eliminating howlers to getting involved in overturning highly subjective marginal calls. Perfectly illustrated by the Burn ‘foul’ being given after VAR talked the ref out of his initial correct decision. 

A decision that seemingly wasn’t controversial enough to merit any discussion on MOTD.

[Holden McGroin 4894]

3 hours ago, PaddockLad said:

Think Howe got it spot on yesterday in a weird way. He had maybe 13 players he was going to use to try to win the game. Knowing the fitness levels of Willock, Longstaff, Barnes and Anderson it made sense to start with the first two and then if it was going tits up you’ve at least got comparative quality on the bench to try to change things. Watching Longy is fuckin painful at the moment. We’ve 3 midfielders out and not coming back any time soon. I might be tempted to start Anderson v Spurs… 

isn’t that just generally Longstaff from most of last season? There must be something that makes him valuable in the team which isn’t visible to the naked eye. I suspect he gets good positions both attacking and defensively.  

[Ayatollah Hermione 12767]

He covers a load of ground but he’s not really doing much to go with that effort. Last year, he was always winning second balls, getting stuck in and was popping up in the opposition box. That’s all sort of disappeared which definitely makes you suspect he’s playing injured 

[PaddockLad 14638]

2 hours ago, Holden McGroin said:

isn’t that just generally Longstaff from most of last season? There must be something that makes him valuable in the team which isn’t visible to the naked eye. I suspect he gets good positions both attacking and defensively.  

You’re watching a different game to me mate if you can’t see the difference between Longstaff of last season and this season. His best aspect is his pace and stamina in the pressing game which he still seems to able to do. His decision making and execution this season look tired and laboured though. Howe has already said he’s carrying an injury and is playing with injections which precisely explains why this is the case but with 3 other midfielders out he has little choice. He started yesterday because as other posters have pointed out it’s better at the moment to have quality like Anderson on the bench to come on and influence the game rather than starting the game and having to then bring on a half fit player to perhaps have to change the game.
 

FFP prevented freshening this position in January. Last season I thought he was in the best form of his career and was unlucky not to get into the England reckoning. I don’t know what else there is to say. Am not claiming he’s the greatest player I’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen few first choice XI’s that also had 20+ first class players to back them up all be fit and available all season and it’s profoundly unrealistic to expect that at NUFC regardless of who our owners are. Here’s the team from the first game of the season…he wasn’t in it… 

 

Sorry if I’ve been a pedantic prick in this post. I’m utterly pig fuckin sick though of people uttering “HOO MAN LONGYS SHITE MAN!!” I was surrounded by them yesterday at the match and goons on twitter making lists of the usual suspects that their tiny Championship Manager brains are telling them we absolutely categorically have to get rid of or the club itself will spontaneously self combust on Wednesday afternoon are just as bad. It’s all just utter, utter horseshit. Does nobody just think “well, this is better than Rafa and Steve Bruce and every other fucker since SBR, it’s not perfect but on balance this is fine..”?? People are really beginning to piss me off. Sorry this isn’t really aimed at you personally but I obviously needed to get this all off my chest  

 

This season really, really hasn’t been that bad. There are very well rehearsed reasons why it’s not perhaps been a bit better. I also think Howe has undoubtedly made a few mistakes and who the fuck knows what the standard of medical advice he's received has been like. It’s like no one wants to acknowledge the good though, fuck knows what fantastically high standards they hold themselves and others to at work or at home because they expect the moon on a fuckin stick from their football club. In place of thought and reason it’s just a constant stream of instant knee jerk wankerisms . I’ve  fuckin had enough… 

Edited April 7 by PaddockLad

[Gemmill 34629]

I agree about Longstaff. He was undroppable at times last season, and in the period he was injured we missed him really badly.

 

He looks like he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders this season (as in I genuinely think he looks unhappy at times) and I'm attributing that to his being injured and KNOWING he's not up to scratch. 

 

He'll come good again, but we'll also be looking to move on from him. Would be pretty sad if this 80% version is the last time he gets a chance to be a regular first teamer. 

[ewerk 26475]

He’s also got to be the worst finisher at the club.

[Gemmill 34629]

I'd agree with that too.

 

Except for the very rare occasions where he looks an absolute natural. Some of the chances he's missed recently, fuck me. Not just missed but completely blundered. 

[Holden McGroin 4894]

I understand what you’re saying @PaddockLad. He is carrying an injury but he is genuinely a lower prem standard at best. I like him and would have him around the squad though. When he first came on the scene under Rafa I thought he’d be England standard. 

He puts the effort in and that’s all you can ask.