HJ

And why can't you buy that 5m player in addition to signing the free transfer? The free transfer does not in any way prevent you from signing someone else unless its such a high profile player that you need to pen in a first team spot for him. Which none of our cheapies have been. Comparing such signings is possible, but it is devoid of any logic whatsoever. That is why Heskey is the worst signing, he was signed for the first team instead of being some cheap punt you stick in the reserves to see if he comes good some day.

How much did Salifou cost? and how much did Heskey cost? Also see Agathe, Sutton, Routledge to an extent too. These were just cheap stop gaps. It's not about money, Heskey is the only one who was bought here to go in the first team straight away and do a job. It's utterly failed and it keeps costing us because he's still here. I couldn't give a toss if Salifou stays for 10 years to play in our reserves because he's costs next to nothing and doesn't affect the club in any noticeable way but please MON give up on the Heskey cause already and ship him out in January.

The **** was that decision, offside and Beye got the ball and then he gives us 3 yellows for it too, what a word removed

After voting I realized the OP is talking of the world cup.

It's a disaster waiting to happen that the owners friend is 'helping' the manager. If they have a disagreement who do you think gets their way? McLeish's head is on the chopping block if things don't go well and this Yu guy probably doesn't have any responsibility. Can see McLeish being thrilled about this.

Decent point that. Warnock MOTM today, he was unlucky to get Petrov's yellow and it must have affected him but he was still fantastic. Young was much improved, didn't lose the ball easily and all his crosses were into dangerous areas. Put Warnock in good positions with good passes many times. Heskey was bit better today, he actually kept getting the ball to his teammates. Milner was horrible, I don't think he did anything good with the ball once in the game, just kept overhitting it and losing it.

We had 2 shots on target, Gabby 1 on 1 (or something) vs Gordon that was saved and Milner got one at some point too.

WM thought Collins was great? The Sunderland guys were going on about Dunne stopping nearly every attack.

Guzan 5 pens, saved 4 that's amazing and he made a couple of great ones in open play too according to commentators, played himself a start in the final if we ever get there. Great to hear that Ash put a few great crosses in too and scored the deciding pen, hope he's back just in time to torment Everton again.

Guzan keeps us in it, good warm up for the penalties.

Come on ginger ninja

I didn't hear Carew's name once..

ET

Carew's on, smells like victory now

Dunne seems to be snuffing out all their attacks.

It looks like they'll sign a LB even more clueless than Gareth Bale too..

I think you would find out that introducing more flexibility just breaks things somewhere else.. I'm with you to a degree, I'd like to see MON use subs more and tailor the team a bit more to suit the opposition instead. At the same time I understand what he's trying to achieve by sticking to what he views as his strongest 11 - it lets the players get used to each other and the tactics (esp. important for defensive unit), motivates them to do well so they won't get dropped (half the point of don't change the winning team), it helps the players relax and try to play their football knowing they won't probably be dropped on a whim because of one mistake or who we are playing on the night, manager showing his trust for the players helps their confidence, etc. There are merits to his approach too even if I'd do it differently myself - and I don't think we'd be anywhere near the top of the table with a different approach, we just don't have the world class quality to put away opponents consistently like Chelsea and others do. Maybe we'd be a couple of points better off, or maybe a couple of points worse if it all didn't work out as well as it does in theory. It certainly isn't something that's a reason to sack him.

Yes I got all that already, but you seemed to imply that we were shit against Chelsea because we only scored from set pieces as if those didn't matter. Comparing to today we had some good open play attacks vs them too especially considering how difficult Chelsea is to play against IMO.

I know what your main point is and I still fully agree we need to show more in open in play. But why don't you think set pieces are part of a football game? Playing well in set pieces is part of playing well overall. Or would you say we were brilliant if we kept the ball and scored a couple and then conceded 5 from corners?

AND BUY THE TICKETS

Jesus the first half looked like everyone except our defenders had forgot how to play football, terrible execution of pretty much everything we tried. Second half at least looked like we could attack every now and then. Collins was great, Gabby did his job, Heskey did something finally. Carew still isn't doing anything, drop him for next game please.

It seriously sounds like a triad money laundering scheme.

Did they find the ref from the Chelsea dressing room? bith harsh on us

get in Dunne, **** deserved