tajjuk

I'm not sure Ralph or any of us really know what is our best team. But I'd expect to see a similar starting line up, not sure you can say anyone has played particularly badly last two games. Broja looks a handful for any centre-back to be honest, I'd personally like to see him in combo with Armstrong up front as I think they both have lots of pace and Broja has physical presences as well. Ralph had a lot of success at Leipzig with Werner and Poulsen, and I'd say Armstrong and Broja are of a similar style to those two. Plus I think Stu Armstrong is probably our best 'no.10' but I doubt he will start yet, he needs to get his fitness up.

We definitely look better defensively, 3 clean sheets already, no idea how many we got last year but can't have been that many. And only 10 goals conceded from 8 games, which 8 teams in the league have conceded more and is the same as 4 other teams, plus many of those have played a game less. Just need to sort out the goals, though I think yesterday we looked better in the final third, not enough of the quality kind of passes that Djalo did to put Redmond through, our composure and decisions making in the final third has been the main issue IMO. Should also be helped by Stu Armstrong being fit again.

Wolves wasn't a stinker IMO, we were the better team by far, we huffed and puffed a bit yes, but dominated the game just couldn't score the goal and they basically created one moment of individual brilliance. To be honest aside one half against Everton I don't think we have played poorly at all this season, most performances have been decent to very good. We were the better team against Utd, held our own against Chelsea until the sending off (which could have easily been a yellow without Mike Dean sticking his incompetent nose in), were robbed of a win against City thanks to again some horrifically incompetent VAR reffing, were the better team against a good West Ham team just couldn't find the goal, and easily deserved something against Newcastle, where traditionally we do poorly. If you also consider we've gone away to Everton (poor record there), away to Newcastle (poor record there), and have played Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea (plus a West Ham team who finished top 6) from our first 8 I think results wise it has gone decently and performances have been decent. We have still play the likes of Burnley, Palace, Watford, Norwich, Newcastle at home etc. SO I think we should be ok.

Not the most convincing scoreline, but good performance albeit against a Leeds side lacking players. Needed the result though, get that 'win' monkey off the players back, should build some confidence now with an easier run of games. Think we should be ok to be honest, Leeds struggling, Newcastle will struggle at least till Jan and even then rushed Jan signings are never guaranteed, Watford look poor, Norwich look already down, and Burnley need to turn their season around yet again which remains to be seen. So I think those 5 will be worse than us for a while. Whilst Wolves, Villa and Palace none look that convincing. Would be good to thrash someone though, 3-4 win, get all the strikers some goals.

Aren't Man City, PSG and Newcastle all basically the same thing? They are all basically funded by rich Oil countries who are a bit dodgy with basically like a figurehead prince? How they frame the 'ownership' is just basically for working through the various tax/FFP/owner test loopholes. If we do get sold, from the talk going around and the investments that happened recently, its most likely going to be an American led investment consortium. The Newcastle takeover also I think has made it less likely we will get a takeover because that is basically another club we won't be able to compete with and therefore a more moderate wealth investor will see that and see that their money will go even less far as if they bought us and spent say £50 million, Newcastle will probably spend 5 times that.

IMO Var should be run by a group of ex-pros, have like 3 available from a group of certain amount. Just take it out of the hands of the refs, so they are not bailing their colleagues out of bad decisions. Mike Dean should be sacked, or at least forced to retire, to be honest most of the PL refs should be, they are not good enough and keep making mistakes after mistakes, even with VAR and even when they are on VAR which is just absurd. Seen in the Euros and in the Champs league that the standard of refereeing is currently much higher outside this country, so someone at the FA/PL etc. should be probably finding out why. Do our refs coming up through the game get more abuse and talented refs are forced out? Do they get better training/experience? Are the directly seeking out talent? rather than just people who turn up to do it?

Yes it was, because the ref originally gave a yellow and Dean convinced him to change it to a red. So without Dean, it would have likely stayed a yellow. It was not a clear and obvious error at all, so a more competent Ref on VAR would probably not have advised the on field ref to change. Pretty much every intervention I have seen from Dean when he is on VAR ranges from dubious to downright farcical. Quite obviously as the facts show, when Dean either refs us or is in charge of VAR, things tend to go against us more often than not. What the reason for that is I don't know, but if it just incompetence, which generally he is as a ref, its odd his biggest bouts of incompetence often seem to go against us, that is quite a streak of bad luck. To such a level that the club and Ralph seem to have noticed it, hence Ralph's comments. Overall Dean is a crap ref, crap on the pitch and even worse when he is involved on VAR, he should be nowhere near our games and I think the club has more than enough to show why he shouldn't, he has a catalogue of poor decisions against us alone, let alone his other fuck ups, that should mean he should be nowhere near elite level sport.

Very clear the PL wasn't really bothered at all about all the human rights stuff, they have given the go ahead because of the rights issue. Money, money, money, that is all that matters in football these days. Be interesting to see if the 'big 6' kick up a fuss about this, Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal already detest City as it is and I doubt they want another one muscling in on their piece of the pie. Utd can compete financially with the mega rich backed clubs, not so sure about Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool can, their owners don't tend to input that much cash. 6 into 4 already doesn't work, 7 into 4 certainly won't. Reckon it will only take about 3-4 years for Newcastle to be competing for Champs league spots, especially as they can pretty much bypass FFP at the moment with the Covid rules. Suspect talk of the Super League will come back.

It's consistent though, people mock the 'conspiracy' for big clubs, but its pretty consistent that refs bottle it in favour of big clubs in front of their home crowds. They can't take the berating and pressure they get from (or would get if they gave a decision) from the players and the crowd. Like ours yesterday, he gives yellow, but then bottles it on VAR and changes his mind, had that been the other way round I doubt he would have changed his mind. Had that been a Man City player today on a second yellow, they would have got the 2nd yellow.

Criticise him for what exactly? One half chance in the first half aside he was feeding on scraps and was more having to create for others. I think you could make a highlight reel of him recently being in space or making good runs with his arms up screaming for the ball and the passes never come. Our decision making particularly by our 'no.10s' has been poor, and the midfield two are generalists, so clever through balls are not their main strengths (though very nice ball by Romeu got Adams in behind but he made the chance harder by then cutting onto his right foot instead of taking it early with his left across the keeper). I am also not sure about KWP on the left, it seems to cut off an avenue of attack for us. Final third decision making is the main issue, which I am not sure you can particularly put at the feet of Armstrong, he should be the furthest forward of all our attackers and making his runs off the shoulder, but we just don't seem to play those passes. We need Armstrong back and I think Perraud has to play on the left and I feel like Tella needs a go from the left. I also reckon Broja and Armstrong might work as a better combo.

This, we didn't really click today offensively but were obviously the better team, but Wolves did sweet FA and looked average at best aside from that one moment. Overall most of them looked ok, can't fault the effort but the sharpness and movement wasn't there. We miss Armstrong, he is the biggest goal threat from the no. 10 position and drives at teams making stuff happen. Something is off with Ward-Prowse IMO, he's got a nagging injury but doesn't look himself, the energy and snappiness is not there in his game at the moment.

Current bottom 4 look pretty awful at the moment, this is a good chance to push us away from them. It's been a solid start to the season, but need that win so I think today is really important, home against a Wolves side who haven't started well.

We were crap there is no doubting that but going down to 10 men barely a few minutes into the game and then having the ref pile on the misery with decision after decision going against you so you are effectively 10 vs 12 must be very demoralising.

If he'd (and the idiot on VAR) been anywhere near competent and fair the score would have got nowhere near 9-0, we'd have lost like 4-1 and never talked about it again.

Only one goal yes but his movement and pace has already won one penalty and SHOULD have won him two. He's caused some problems against some decent teams and not had a lot of chances so I am confident once we get some games against Palace, Norwich, Wolves, Leeds, Watford etc. he will start picking up some more goals. We have been pretty cagey against West Ham and Man City understandably, but still caused City some problems and had a few half chances against Man Utd. But I still think he looks good, movement, pace, work rate, doesn't seem that bothered about taking on shots with either foot, and I think he's played a pretty disciplined role for the team, especially in the last few games.

Vestergaard was bang average if not bad for most of his time with us and made countless mistakes as bad as Lyanco did, he had one good 6 month spell, when the whole team was playing well and I still think his very good passing ability somewhat papered over the cracks of his defending. Both Stephens and Salisu have stepped up, which means Lyanco is under no pressure to adapt and start performing right away. Adjusting to the PL from Serie A is probably one of the tougher changes in league styles and bustling underdog Championship side who were clearly up for it in a cup was probably a tougher test in terms of style than he was expecting. Think he'll be fine given some time, I have more trust in the scouting department than 3-4 years ago.

It's not a conspiracy its just an obvious example of a ref giving in to barrage from the city players and the home crowd. Which in the past has particularly happened for bigger clubs. And another example that if you have refs operating the VAR then they are going to let the technology down, because there was nothing in the replays that should have prompted them to make him even go look again (and then the stupidness that they don't replay the whole thing but just show one screenshot). It's supposed to be clear and obvious errors, most people thought that was a pen, the ref thought it was a pen initially, so how the people doing VAR got to that point is beyond me.

When Everton get a few injuries and you look at the team they can put it out, it looks very ordinary considering the millions they have spent.

Need to win at home to Wolves, they don't look great though would be sod's law Jimenez gets his mojo back against us or Troare finally finds some end product. Once the win monkey is off our backs and we score a few goals I think we will be looking confident. Would probably agree that the current bottom 3 are looking poor at the moment, but have to remember was it a few years ago Palace lost like 7 in a row without scoring a goal and then ended up mid table pretty comfortably.

You could have just looked at his wiki page, they usually show the goals pretty accurately. 99 in 223 for Pool in all comps. 25 in 75 for us.

You have to ask yourself why he is going through mental gymnastics to come up with an absurd reason to just to excuse some obvious homophobia.

Cos Ole is a crap manager.

Yeh was going to say the same thing, Townsend has probably done this like 10 times in his career, had a little purple patch and then disappears into mediocrity. Everton seem to do similar in recent years, start well, people talk about champs league and then eventually they hit their level which is a lot more average. They might pull a surprise like West Ham did last year but I suspect their mainly average players will pull them down to average again, also quite possible this is new manager bounce as well.

No anyone who has a problem about something so irrelevant is clearly a dickhead.

Post something completely off topic and irrelevant, just to appear anti-woke again, about something completely harmless and unimportant, someone calls him up on it, then goes out of his way to show how not bothered about it he is (despite him bringing it up in the first place) and clearly gets annoyed he is being called out for it, and then flips that back on the other person and goes all victim mode. Like seriously how does this tired old troll act not get him banned?