Sunbury Fox

McAteer instead of Mav encapsulates in a single decision why Cooper has to go as soon as possible.

Decided not to make the 230 mile round trip to this one. We'll probably win now!

Gutted about Abdul. So many of our best players have been afflicted by ACL injuries over recent years and how many of those have come back and been as good? One of Abdul's key strengths was his acceleration from a standing start and explosiveness to get away from or burst past a defender. My concern is all that will be compromised after he comes back from this injury, but hopefully I'm wrong.

This will be the most routine away win possible for Chelsea. Suspect they’ll be 2 up in 30 minutes and will then go into game management mode, with lots of passing around the back and bringing on subs in place of their best players. They’ll probably get a third near the end. With the likely absences, we’ll be lucky to better the 0.02 xG we managed against Arsenal at home at the end of Rodgers’ reign. Seriously considering my sanity in making a 230 mile round trip for this.

Option 1 100%. It's the only option that might give us a chance of creating an atmospheric kop. The same kind of thing at Southampton looked great.

First 15 good, last 30 we’ve been outplayed. Been overran in CM. We are leaving huge spaces in the centre of the pitch and allowing them free rein to shoot from just outside the box.

If we’re reverting to Enzoball, then Faes has to play on the right as there is no way that Vesty has the pace to cover the inverted full back on that side.

Really hope he doesn’t play Coady, he wasn’t even good in the Champo.

Who's out for them?

Giving this guy a 3-year contract is arguably the very worst decision the club has made over recent seasons - and that says a lot given how many bad decisions we’ve made in that time.

He's fast and strong but is he agile enough? Either way, it might be worth trying given the alternatives.

I'd worry about a big CB like Okoli being dribbled at by a small, tricky winger like Hutchinson but, given JJ's form, it's probably worth a try.

Understand this sentiment but who would we play instead? The only available alternative is poor old Luke Thomas, given that VK is injured.

To be honest, on the ball we did better than I thought we would given the respective selections of the 2 managers. Soumaré was surprisingly decent, Skipp won a lot of tackles, Ayew held the ball up well and BEK had his best game for us so far. Unfortunately we have again gifted our opponent goals and in general we look horrific defensively; Justin and Okoli were no better than Thomas and Coady. Oh and the commentators were so annoying and ill-informed about us, it was painful.

Exactly. Cooper has to prioritise the Ipswich game as it is massive. I don't think anyone would have envisaged Man U deploying their first team in a game like this.

Genuinely astonished how strong they've gone.

This could get really messy, given that apart from the keeper they're fielding a first XI.

What are you thinking? A Soumaré hat-trick and a late wonder goal from Edouard?

Villa - after we sh@t the bed against them in the semi despite the fact we had a massively superior team at the time.

You’re wilfully missing the point that there is more to being a manager than picking the team. Tactics and in-game management are crucial at the top level where margins are so tight - and the fact is that Cooper failed to respond when Nuno tweaked their formation at half time to counteract the unexpected way we started the game. As a result, we were totally hopeless in the second half. It’s way too simplistic to deduce from that those calling for that starting XI are wrong as a result of what played out in the second half.

Given the team we'll field, this could get messy.

Not sure why people are now convinced Wolves are certs to stay up on the back of one miraculous comeback to get a draw. They've got 1 win and 7 points in their last 19 PL games.

He looked decent for Hull, I thought. Assumed he wasn’t fully fit today, as opposed to dropped, but either way he has 5 goals already.

Liam Delap is some player; he'll cause us big trouble, I fear. Missed out on a good one there. Should have invested the El Khannouss money on him.

Ipswich getting a taste of their own medicine.