markavfc40

About 3k left now.

Commentator on sky is wanking himself off frantically over Arsenal. They are 3 points above us ffs. I've had to turn it off.

West Ham have been the better side here.

Sorry I didn't realise you were just picking the last 5 games (our worst five game run of the season) and then using that as the yardstick. I was using each teams worse run of the season and Spurs and Newcastle have had far worse runs than we have had so for me I'd be using us as the example of a side who dig in and weather a storm despite multiple injuries.

I think you are either being really harsh on us here or very, very, very kind to Spurs and Newcastle. Spurs went on a run in November/December of 5 premier league games without a win, losing 4 of them including 3 losses on the bounce. Newcastle went on a run in December/January of 6 defeats in 7 premier league games including 4 losses on the bounce. Our worst run this season has been in December/January where in 5 premier league games we lost 2 but never lost two games on the bounce (a stat that in fact applies to our whole season). In terms of injuries during that spell over December and January we have been without Torres, Digne, Kamara, Ramsey, Tielemans for multiple games and you could make a decent argument all five of those players are part of our best 11. We also of course have long term injuries to Mings and Buendia I'd say based on the above it is us that should be put forward as the shining example of a side who have dug in and quickly dampened any storms as both Spurs and Newcastle, who you put forward as those shining examples, have had much worse runs than us.

About 4.2k tickets left. Assuming Chelsea sell their allocation I'd imagine we're looking at 40k+.

The huge things he has in his favour is that he is still showing for the ball, not hiding and putting a shift in. He is just lacking a little confidence and a couple of goals/assists and he'll be flying. Forms temporary, class is permanent. I have no worries that he'll come again.

It was just an impact injury so I'd imagine at worse a bruise. He was only take off as precaution and I'd be confident he'll be fine for Wednesday.

We've still got it

I can't stand the above poster most of time but fair play to him he was spot on

Everton have been by far the better side.

Vicario needs to grow a pair. He is weak as piss.

I loved the Rocky films growing up and if any of the first four Rocky films were on now I'd still watch them, especially the first two. Nice tribute from Stallone for Carl Weathers here.

A Place In The Sun presenter Jonnie Irwin dead from cancer at 50. Had been ill for some time but that is no age.

I genuinely can't believe some of the doom and gloom with regard our prospects tomorrow. If I could hand pick a team to play against it would be the team bottom of the league averaging 0.4 points per game. If you fear for a prospects tomorrow then you must be fearing us not winning a game for the rest of the season. We battered Sheff Utd at home. 80% possession, a good goal disallowed, 2 stone wall penalties denied. The officials do what they're paid for and we win that game by 3 or 4 goals. A win tomorrow potentially puts us 4th (Spurs have a much tougher game than us away at Everton) and 10 points clear of 6th, 11th points clear of 7th with those two sides playing each other on Sunday. I have a very good feeling this thread will be a lot more positive come 7.30pm tomorrow.

I don't see how a point for them is great. They are 9 points from safety so 99.9% certain to go down and are in last chance saloon in terms of the 0.1% chance of staying up. I think also being at home they'll be more inclined to have a go than they were at VP. That isn't to say they'll be gung ho though. The home game against them 6 weeks ago is a bit of a freak. We had 80% possession, had a perfectly good goal ruled out after a hour which would have seen Sheff Utd have to come at us and I'd imagine we'd have scored another couple off the back of that. We were also denied two stonewall penalties. We play like we did in the home game tomorrow then we'll win it as those decisions are highly unlikely to go against us again. I'm predicting a win by two or three goals based on the simple fact we are way better than them if we play anywhere close to what we are capable of doing, and I expect we will get a reaction to a very rare defeat for us on Tuesday.

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.