Sunbury Fox

This guy was basically signed on Tuesday. How in God's name has so-called paperwork not been completed in time for him to play today? Total and utter incompetence by the club.

It has that feeling to me, too.

Mads.

Ruud has ruined this lad's confidence. He looks a completely different player to the one we saw under Cooper at the start of the season.

That was a gutless and clueless performance on every level. Not sure where we go from here, apart from down of course. There's no point in trying to spend money to stay up as we're down anyway and we won't be able to attract any players who are better than those we already have. Need to start planning for next season in the Champo.

Oh really? Sure the club messaged me previously to say that they would only be sold if the game was a sell out. Thanks for letting me know, though, as I will no doubt be missing further games in the rest of this horrific season.

Couldn't agree more. It might work if you have Cafu at RB but we certainly don't have anyone of that calibre in the squad.

We've got season tickets but couldn't be bothered to make the 230 mile round trip today. Didn't put them on resale as knew it wouldn't be a sell out, hence our seats will empty.

Assuming we get his paperwork sorted by the end of the month. What a joke that is, too. How long do we take over basic admin. Utter incompetence.

Utter garbage, I'm afraid.

Bournemouth are such an impressive team. Shows what can be achieved with a modest budget if you get your managerial appointment and recruitment right.

First team out of the 4th round then!

Surprised to see some of the negativity about Soumaré. Thought he was one of our better players again the other night, especially in the first half. He is very good on the ball, is able to drive forward with it (he should do this more as he's hard to stop once he builds a head of steam) and he tracked back well to bail out the defence on a few occasions. I think the Ndidi/ Soumaré combo in CM was looking really good as it gave us more physicality and legs in there, and the two of them have complimentary strengths - Ndidi with his tackling, interceptions and pressing, and Soumaré with his ability on the ball. I like Winks a lot on the ball, too, but he lacks the physicality which is seemingly a pre-requirement for CM in the PL these days.

This infuriates me. When we are on a transition, he just stands there waiting for the ball to feet, rather than making a run in behind. That said, in the first half last night his running off the ball was better, so perhaps Ruud has been working on this with him.

Poor old VK must have made hundreds of overlapping runs this season, and been ignored pretty much every time by Mavididi, in favour of a safe pass back into CM on most occasions. I realise VK is hardly Marcelo but he has fizzed in some decent balls from the byline when given the chance.

There is definitely a lot of revisionism going on about 14/15. I remember people completely writing us off after a dismal 0-0 draw at home to Hull, which I think was just a couple of games before the West Ham home game that triggered the great escape. Either way, looking at our remaining fixtures this season it is hard to see where the points are coming from to save us, unless the points total required is unprecedentedly low. We have 8 home games left, 4 of which are against Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle and an improving Man U. Hard to see any points from those 4. The remaining 4 games are Fulham, Brentford, Ipswich and Southampton, all of which we have to win, given our tragic away form. Even in the unlikely event we manage that, then that would leave us on 26 points, meaning we are probably going to need a couple of away wins. Our remaining away games are against Tottenham, Everton, West Ham, Chelsea, Man City, Brighton, Wolves, Forest and Bournemouth. Of those, the only realistic opportunities for wins are Everton and Wolves. Then we could look to get something from West Ham and maybe Brighton, who may be marooned in mid table by the time we play them. So, all in all, we probably have 6-8 good opportunities for points until the end of the season. Based on historical points totals needed for survival, even 8 wins from those games might only just be enough. That said, Forest would have stayed up with only 28 points last season, so if a similarly low total is needed to survive this season, we might only need 4 wins and 2 draws.

The bit in bold is surely the result of better management and coaching, though ie something which is in the control of the manager and hence something Ruud should be credited for? Getting general play and structure right was the necessary first step - and as a result we are conceding far fewer shots on our goal, and we are making more high quality chances in games. The key thing now is, can we get better players in key positions to help improve our performance in both boxes? This is unlikely, sadly, given the financial constraints. But let's hope that Ruud can find some cheap gems. Agree with you that the squad has never been good enough to finish above 17th, especially given the continued absences of Mads, Ricardo, Ndidi and Fatawu.

Cooper definitely had to go, even if Ruud goes on to lose the next 17 matches. The players and fans were simply not having Cooper and the team had no structure or clear patterns of play. As for Ruud, I think we should persevere even if the results continue to be less than we would hope for. Looking at the run of 6 defeats, 3 were against clubs currently participating in the UCL, whilst the 4th was against a club likely to finish in the top 4 this season. The Wolves defeat was largely due to reasons we don't need to go back over, and as for last night we more than matched Palace on the whole. I was pretty hacked off straight after the game yesterday, but having slept on it I seriously don't think we are miles off it in terms of general play between the boxes and team structure. We lost last night because our finishing was a lot worse than theirs and there were individual errors by defenders. This stems not from the manager but from the fact that the defenders we currently have are not PL standard and our only PL standard striker is 38. Unless Ruud is given funds to bring in better players, not sure what else he can do. You can see that Ruud has the backing of the players and the fans, and the football is good to watch on the whole, putting the results aside. I hope he stays even if we go down (which seems likely) - let's try to build some stability, continue to embed a clear style of playing, and allow Ruud to reshape the squad in line with his vision. Continually swapping managers leads to squads that are unbalanced and made up of a hotch potch of players.

I do think injuries have had a massive impact on our performances since Cooper left. Given the lack of quality in the squad overall, having Mads, Ricardo, Abdul and Wilf unavailable has been a fatal blow in my view.

Yeah, it is our wage bill that has crippled us. Our net spend is still pretty low compared to many clubs. Even Bournemouth and Brentford have a higher record signing than us.

Playing a bottom 6 team at home and we still lose pretty easily. There's no chance we'll get enough points from the remaining games to stay up. The quality of the team is just not up to standard. I do think the players are trying their best but they're simply not good enough, sadly. The fact we have fewer points than Luton at the same stage last season says everything you need to know about where we are at.

We might get 1 as these are more open and attacking than Palace but we will concede at least 3, probably more. Just want this season finished as I'm just sick of losing week after week.

Just worried that we'll play well but they'll poach a goal from nowhere and win 1-0.

With Faes and Vesty at CB, Bouba and Winks in CM, and the 3 behind the striker, we have lots of good technical players in the team, which hopefully means we can control possession more effectively. Here's hoping anyway!

Think that's a decent line up, but that will probably mean it all goes horribly wrong! The subs bench is horrific, though!