Bailey

I'm guessing that we wI'll be defending very deep because the pace of their front 3 will absolutely tear us apart of we don't.

5 at the back too... yippee. Although I would guess we will be set up like City last season. Without the pace of Rom or directness of Mirallas.

Not a season, just your marbles

Arsenal look like they have done a lot of work on the training ground and are doing a good job of restricting Chelsea.

In fact when was our last good performance?

Spot on again Shukes. Are you feeling ok?

I doubt we will score!

The sending off changed the Liverpool game. Liverpool were far more dangerous (even though they were losing) but they cant defend that we'll when they have 11 men, let alone 10 (and their best player sent off).

I agree I wouldn't use Burnley as an example although they are a selection all club, with very modest players and they haven't really got the option of doing much else to get the results they have whereas we do and they have still caused as much as or more of a threat than us. We have the squad and players to take it to the big teams but instead we are set up like minnows trying to hold on to a point.

I still can't get over the semi final loss to Utd. We battered them that second half, Rom missed the pen and then they win it at the death. I was in a pub full of Utd fans giving it the biggun which made it worse.

Exactly Shukes. Oh and don't forget they only had 10 men!

We can't sack him yet but if things are no better in the next 6-8 games then it should be a very realistic option. If no top line manager is available then I would go for an Unsy caretaker job and see how he does. I like what I have seen from his u23 side and the game against Norwich but it's too much of a risk to just give it to him without having a trial period.

Southampton weren't much better either., in fact you could argue that Palace had 2 of the best 3 chances. Neither of these teams should cause too much of a problem for a team with ambitions of the top 6.

Plus, when you are set up to dominate but dont, it usually means you are chasing shadows and wasting more energy. Teams like Leicester that accept they wont be on the ball, sit deep and conserve their energy until it matters but we are all over the place and not doing anything effectively. When you have players low on confidence who are also low on energy its not going to go well.

When you have around 40 people you are trying to feed? The food will be cold! Not sure I really believe the rumour or whether it has even had an effect but I am concerned about all that luke warm food

Anyone else watch the Palace v Soton game? Palace looked worse than last week and Soton didnt really impress me either. Hoedt and Lemina look very tidy players though, yet again impressive signings from them.

After watching Bournemouth last night I think we need to go back to basics. I accept that they played against a crap team, but the side they used contained 7 of the players that got them promoted as well. Bournemouth played 442, they pressed high, they created width using wingers (novel I know), full backs were constantly overlapping, the two in midfield worked tirelessly to win the ball back and the centre backs played the standard cover/aggressor partnership. They had a little difficulty up front as both King and Defoe wanted to make the same runs and attack the same space but when they switched Fraser for Ibe, he occupied slightly more central spaces, he was prepared to beat his man (another novel idea) and he linked the midfield to the attack. It just shows that football is such a simple game. All Bournemouth lacked for the first half of the game was that link to the strikers as other than defending corners, they were almost flawless in every other department. Ake on the cover role was exceptional. He read the game well, he used his pace to get across and put in challenges and he recycled the ball really well. I think its time that we went back to the same basics. Pickford is an obvious pick, Baines and Holgate too. At centre back, Keane can play either cover or aggressor but if he plays with Jags he should be the aggressor whereas with Williams he should be the cover. In midfield you just need tireless workers who can again play as cover and aggressor which is Schneiderlin and Gana in a nutshell. Although I would argue that Davies or Klaasen in place of Gana would give us more options in attack, but given the game in question I would stick with Gana. Working out who should play wide is more difficult. At least one side needs to be able to beat a man, which is basically Mirallas / Lookman / Sandro and maybe Vlasic, and the other side needs to provide a seamless link with the full back, so that's most likely to be Sigurdsson. In attack, you can have Rooney as the player who will drop deeper to link the play better and then DCL as the player to stretch the game behind. Sandro could do that too but I think DCL is more equipped to play the role at the moment. If you assume that the players in bold would start, on the bench I would have Stek, Kenny, Williams, Davies, Klaasen, Vlasic, Sandro. Thats a quality bench and provides plenty of cover and options.

I think he needs to decider whether he wants to dominate possession or whether he wants to play on the counter. We seem to set up as a team that want to dominate possession (slow technical players, width from full backs etc) but then we sit deeper and deeper as if we are playing on the counter. Because of the gap to the striker, we turn over the ball. Our 10's aren't mobile enough, our striker feeds of scraps and our full backs can't provide any width as they are too deep. You cant expect a 33 year old to be sprinting box to box all game. All that happens is that as we start to transition into attack, we lose the ball, and then we are out of position. Quick and incisive teams will exploit that as they have done. Utd aren't a team that particularly care about possession so we have a chance to get on the front foot and dominate. That means our defence has to push up, we have to close down aggressively and we have to make sure our full backs get into the game to create the width as we haven't got any attackers that can.either bully defenders and hold the ball up, or have he pace to get in behind.

Sorry yeh it was an equaliser, really acute angle if I remember rightly. Haha whatever floats your boat pal! If that's what you do when we score then given our recent form you must be hornier than a blind lesbian in a fish market!

I did the same in the Soton end when Marcus Bent scored a last minute winner! It was cold so I lifted my scarf over my mouth as it was the only way I could hide my smug grin!

How many of us will have Man Utd in our slips this weekend? Utd average 7 shots on target so far this year and we average 1.75. They average more than double the amount of shots too.

I think he would cost the best part of £20mil. Ibe has come on and changed this game.

Didn't post it on here but me and my mates were a Cardiff goal away from a 5k accumulator last weekend. Would have been around £750 each but we ruled bit to cash out so we left with nothing. Won a 4 teamer myself but only brought in £30 which is better than nothing but not quite £750! We are all going on a stag together in a month so that would have been REALLY messy!

Duffy having a bit of a stinker tonight but both Dunk and Ake are doing well. Anyone else think much of King? This is a difficult game for him tonight but he has looked tidy and whilst he has had a couple of shots blocked so far, if they keep giving him half a yard he will put one on target.

If we play like we have been we will get beaten by most sides not just top 6. Your might not get results against the big boys but the performance should be there. This cohesion stuff is bollocks. We had a preseason and countless training sessions. A good manager with a good system gets his players to gel quickly. Players can come in and out but they know their jobs. Vlasic has an excuse but the rest dont.