Sheaf Saint

When you're trying to get your bike off the train but the impatient knobheads crowding around the doors on the platform waiting to board won't move out of the way.

On what basis do you make that assertion? Because they finished above us in the Championship last season? How did that work out for Reading in 2012/13?

Everton for one. They were abysmal yesterday, and will probably lose more players before the window slams shut in a desperate attempt to comply with PSR. Other than that, it's too early to tell.

Anyway, the overall performance was, IMO, far better than the kind of disjointed shite we served up in our relegation season in 22/23. So I think there is good reason to be optimistic about the season.

OK I take your point. But on the flip side of that, Do we want a keeper that just kicks long without thinking every time the ball comes to him? Especially one with such poor long kicking as McCarthy? Of course not. There is a threshold in any situation where a long kick clear becomes preferable to a pass out, regardless of the manager's tactics, but I don't think this situation was over that threshold. Others may disagree, however.

If he was under intense, immediate pressure from an attacking player who forced the error, then you would have a point. But that really wasn't the case. Nobody was pressing him and he had some perfectly good options to pass the ball out. There was absolutely no need to hoof it in that scenario. It was a simple brain fart.

Where has this been reported? I can't find any links.

He looked OK in those cup games last season, but that obviously wasn't a big test for him.

Not sure how Mosquera managed to avoid a red card for his deliberate hand to the throat on Havertz. Looked pretty blatant to me.

They were truly awful from what I saw. That miss from Dwight McNeill early on was worse than anything our attack served up yesterday.

Sorry but this is just bollocks. There were other occasions when he did hoof the ball when there were no other options. There was no real danger and a pass out was a perfectly viable option in that situation. He had time to control it and pick a better pass, but the simple fact is he switched off and fucked up spectacularly. That was 100% on Macca and nothing whatsoever to do with tactics or instructions.

That's the curse of SJP I'm afraid. Seems to be the case every time we play up there.

Oh fuck off Pope. You were absolutely fine a moment ago.

With the greatest of respect, so did I.

Everton 0-2 down at home to Brighton and down to ten men.

But he had other viable passes available to him. He didn't need to hoof it. So the decision to pass the ball wasn't in itself a bad one in that situation, but of all the passes he could have made, he chose the worst possible one. I'm not having that it's down to tactics and instructions. Any half decent keeper should have been able to complete a simple pass there.

Joelinton really is a cock isn't he. That looked deliberate, after their handbags earlier.

I don't think you can even pin this on RM's tactics. It's not like Newcastle pressed us hard into the mistake - there really was no danger. It was just horrifically casual from Macca when he had time and space to do much better with it. It's as if he just switched off when the ball came to him.

We wouldn't have even got a corner if that was Che. That's a decent effort from Arma.

Why was it bizarre?

So this co-commentator doesn't like play-acting when it works against Newcastle, but he recommends they should time-waste as much as possible now to hold on to this lead. Who is this prick?

Yeah I assume so. No need to play a back 5 against ten men. I'm expecting KWP to go to RB and Stephens to LB.

Was it Joelinton? He was squaring up to Bednarek ahead of that terrible FK.

The giveaway was bad enough to begin with, but what the actual fuck was that pathetic attempt to save the shot? He just flopped to his left. For the love of God, please can we sign a new keeper before the end of the window. And I don't mean a stop-gap loan until Baz is fit again, I mean a new, competent number 1. All of our good work pissed away in an instant by a player who shouldn't even still be at the club, let alone on the fucking pitch today.

Oh Macca. That's horrendous.