markavfc40

The game against Man Utd next week is going to have plenty riding on it. A win/defeat could well be the difference between being 11 points above them or 5.

Anyone else having trouble purchasing tickets online for this? we have four season tickets and when I went onto the home tickets page earlier this game came up as option to purchase tickets for but I held off as needed confirmation from one person that they could come. I have logged back in and now the game doesn't even show on the home tickets page. Edit - I could access it this morning and have managed to get my tickets.

Brentford could have been 3 up in this half.

I think a bit of perspective is needed. Anyone who thought we wouldn't go through a slump in form/run of poor results and/or performances was living in cloud cuckoo land. It happens to all but the best couple of sides in the division and to teams that are much better than us. The last few weeks have been disappointing performance wise but in terms of results the only real disappointments have been the draw against Sheff Utd and the loss last night. We are nowhere near the stage of considering losing to Man Utd at Old Trafford as a real disappointment. Therefore results wise let's say we'd have lost to Man City and drew with Arsenal but beaten Sheff Utd and Newcastle. We'd still have the same 7 points from those games, still sit 4th but I guess today we'd feel better about where we currently are. I do have some concerns about our form performance wise over the last few weeks but with a relatively small squad, having Torres, Kamara, Digne, Ramsey, Tielemans all missing a number of games over what was a really congested period, I can't say that the slump has come as a total surprise. Going forward though I am confident our performances will again pick up and one good performance will be the spark for us to start another good run. It is fine margins and I think if Watkins is onside last night when he scores his second and the game is 2-3 with 15 minutes to go we go on to get the equaliser and that is the spark and we are bouncing today. Clearly we are not going to finish top 3. That was never a realistic aim. 4th/5th is very much in play though and despite a slump in form we have put ourselves in a great position to fight for that. Let's keep the faith.

I've said before in this thread I knew next to nothing about him before our interest became known and I'd imagine that goes for the vast majority of us. The longer this pursuit goes on though and the fact that we aren't being deterred and keep going back rather than going elsewhere makes me more convinced that it will be worthwhile. 15 mill is not a great deal of money but if reports/rumours are true then it may be a fair chunk of what we have available this window. For people of the calibre of Emery and Monchi to therefore choose to spend that money on Rogers and, despite the continual knock backs not look elsewhere, more than suggests they see plenty in him.

Results wise we've overall been on an excellent run since last February. Performance wise I'd say we had played consistently well, with the odd blip, between February 2023 and the start of December. Therefore I think the last 6 or 7 weeks is the outlier and simply just a slump in form due to the amount of games over November/December and the fact that (on top of the long term injuries to Mings and Buendia) Torres, Digne, Kamara, Ramsey have all missed a number of games meaning an already relatively small squad was stretched. I expect us to make one or two additions in the next couple of days, Torres, Digne and Ramsey to return over the next week or so and that coupled with having just had a decent break and the fixture list not being so congested over the coming weeks, should hopefully see a return to the performances we saw previously. In fairness results don't really need to improve as despite the drop in performance we have still taken 21 points from our last 10 games.

The tickets should be on sale today really. You'd think that the club, along with Chelsea, would before the game on Friday have contemplated the fact it could go to a replay and pretty much have allocations and pricing in place already.

A fully fit and firing Ramsey (something that due to injuries and his stop/start season) that we haven't seen this season would be one of the first names on the team sheet for me. He is by far our best ball carrier, a very good passer of the ball, two footed with an eye for goal, excellent work rate, good vision and good link up player. He is arguably the most complete player we have and still only 22 with room to improve. He'd be one of the last players I'd be selling and it should take a ridiculous offer for us to even contemplate it

I think we'll win this comfortably. Newcastle are in poor form both in terms of results and performances, where as whilst we aren't firing on all cylinders performance wise we have still only lost one of our last ten in the league and have taken 21 points over that period. Add in to the above that they are playing away at Fulham tonight so have a days lest rest, that they are dire way from home whilst we are flying at home and that VP will be rocking under the lights. We'll win this by at least 2 goals.

I suppose it is a sign of how far we've come but to read this thread you'd think we were struggling. The reality is though we have lost once in our last 15 games in all competitions, winning 9. Even if we just look at the league in our last 10 we have won 6, drew 3 and lost just once. That is 21 points in our last 10 games. In pretty much every other season in my 40+ years following us we'd consider ourselves to be on a great run. I do realise our performances have been hit and miss since the start of December but I don't know if that should have been unexpected given the amount of games we had over November and December and that we have had a number of injuries/suspensions (to what is already a relatively small squad without Mings and Buendia) with Torres, Digne, Kamara, Ramsey, Tielemans all missing for a number of games. You hear all the time that good teams are capable of picking up results when not performing to anywhere near their best. That is exactly what we have been doing and the reason for that is simple. We are now a very good team. Let's just contemplate that this last 6 or 7 weeks has been our slump and that performances will soon pick up, and fwiw I am 100% confident that they will. If that is the case it would be reasonable to expect our already very good results would then pick up. I'd have bit your hand off to be where we are now at the start of the season. More so if you consider we have had a slump in performances over the last 6 or 7 weeks yet we have still taken over 2 points per game over that time and lost only once. Wow when you really think about it what a position to be in. The next 3-4 months is going to be some ride.

When you think of the players we have out that is still some starting 11 we can put out. Bench is not that strong but still potential game changers in Zaniolo and Bailey and a couple of youngsters on the verge of hopefully being ready to make an impact.

Absolutely crazy.

Energy price drops on the horizon.

American Nightmare on Netfilx is well worth a watch.

Just reading that a 17 year old was stabbed to death in Victoria Square (Birmingham City Centre) yesterday afternoon around 3.30pm. Absolutely terrible and my heart goes out to his family.

8 points behind and a far worse goal difference.

I got to be honest I don't know a lot about Morgan Rogers and I'd imagine that goes for 99% of us. I didn't know a lot about a 22 year old David Platt when we signed him from 4th division Crewe. I also didn't know a lot about a 21 year old Ashley Young who had made 80% of his 98 senior league appearances in the Championship. I guess sometimes you just have to trust in those who make the decisions to bring players in and as things stand today the odds are heavily stacked that those people making those decisions will make the right decision and not the wrong one.

Not sure where to put this but as the Tories seem hell bent on making illegal migration their number one issue here seems as good a place as any. The below is frightening as to how people can be so ill informed and have fallen for the right wing media/politicians bullshitting them. Illegal migration in 2023 was around 52k. Legal migration was around 1.2 million. So less than 5% arrived illegally and a lot of them came via air travel and just overstayed their legally obtained tourist visas.

The extended clip doesn't show him in any better light does it. He still laughs at the woman, talks over her and spouts bullshit in linking/blaming waiting times on striking NHS staff. Those waiting for hospital treatment doubled between 2010 and 2020 (pre pandemic) and pre strikes last year stood at almost 8 million people waiting for treatment which is over 3 times what it was when these bastards came into power in 2010.

A real man of the people.

They'll never learn will they.

Up there with the worst refereeing I have seen this season and given the abundance of shite in that field that is saying something. A competent performance from the officials and we are walking away with 3 points and Everton are walking off with 10 men and f all to show for their dire Dyche Ball. I thought our performance was decent, we've controlled what was overall a scrappy game due to Evertons tactics/the officiating meaning a stop/start game that never allowed us to get into a flow. On the downside Diaby was again poor which is becoming a bit of a worry as with so few attacking options we could really do with him on it.

Only named 8 subs today and he hasn't made the bench. Unless he is injured/ill he may well be on verge of moving on.

Unless they get in touch before I think I will give it a go. Obviously it will let me in and if there is a problem when I leave I have the email and text confirmations and it is also showing on my app account with them. For the sake of the 99p sms cost (you have to pay something otherwise it won't go through) I'd make your booking and then providing I get nothing before hand I'll let you know how I get on in March.