Ric Flair

Vestergaard and Cooper must have had a run in, I hope Owynn/Tanner/Blackwell ask him tonight

What a film that is by the way

The thing is, what I've said about Alves is not unreasonable compared to my stance on Cooper right from the off. He should have been given a proper chance in pre-season, like Enzo did with McAteer last summer where in both instances we had little senior players in that position. That would have provided two things 1) a chance for Alves to prove his worth and 2) got the club the interest they thought they'd get from Championship teams should they loan him out. I don't expect Alves to be in the 1st team squad in the PL currently with Bounanotte and El Khannouss, but I think it was frustrating he wasn't in their in the first couple of squads when we didn't have El Khannouss in yet. I do think he should be involved tonight, a start would be great but at the very least off the bench. The mandate should be that the club develops academy players as a priority depsute the pressures the manager is under to succeed / survive. It's a non negotiable if we want to be sustainable.

Good grief Once again Jamie Vardy bailing out those horrid figures with the best conversion ratio in the league.

You bloody well put your hand up and ask politely if you want to use my name in vain directly or indirectly. @CosbehFox has done the hard work for me, I was going to say something similar. The hyperbole isn't just from gobshites like myself, The Mercury regularly focus articles on him, our local press regularly ask our current and previous managers questions on him in their weekly press conferences and interviews. Not to mention the club dishing out a long term contract that they seldom do with academy players. He's seen as one of the most talented U20 players in England, we need to be harnessing that potential in the best way possible and that's not by him barely playing any football after missing 18 mo the of what was a one way ticket to making it.

I think it'll be that but McAteer on for Ayew who will be rested ahead of him being made captain away at Arsenal and a full 90 minute display despite defying science.

Reid, Hamza and Soumare will all be classed as long overdue minutes so that'll have to be factored in to our fanciful line ups.

It's completely at odds with everything we are supposed to stand for. The academy, courtesy of the state of the art training ground should be our crown jewel and in some ways is because of the dedicated work over the last decade or more. But it's not aligned with the lack of coverage because from the outside looking in, it's anything but being promoted and signifying the pride the club have. I'm fascinated to know why, there will be a reason but once again we'll be starved of said reason, because this club is so closed off and insular. This breeds the resentment from fans who can't just blindly clap the ownership and culture anymore. Really winds me up, my priority as a fan of this club is our academy being the best there is.

Apologies all, recording tonight. I'm going to give live tactical analysis of Danny Ward and Bouba Soumare an'all

Well the club clearly don't view it that way, hence why they didn't let him go. I presume they wanted a Championship loan move, which makes sense. But the bottom line is he needs to play. A move to an ambitious League One club for example would still represent a good challenge for him for at least 6 months. As I've said, I do wonder if we've lost a bit of momentum with loan deals and reputations etc. Some good loans from the crop that have gone this summer will hopefully bring back in to focus our academy players for clubs in the leagues below us. Put it this way, certain PL clubs who had x 3 England U20 players in their academy would get all 3 loan moves to very good clubs, where as we've got Nelson at Oxford, Braybrooke at Dundee and Alves has stayed put. There's an art to it as well as clubs knowing certain academies are a gold mine for picking up loans.

I checked and it doesn't look like he made an appearance for Palace in the last round?

Anyone know if Lorenz Hutchinson is back from injury yet? Not featured since he went off injured for the 18s a few weeks ago.

Nice one

He plays for the Czech youth team, previously represented Scotland too.

Jordan Blackwell has responded to me and said from what he's been told, the club were extremely surprised with the lack of interest in him on loan from the level they were expecting. So I can well see why they've not bothered, further annoyance that we didn't get him exposed in pre-season instead of playing Choudhury in the hole.

Saw the squad was announced but didn't know it was for this week.

Good to see Evans retain his place. Monga evidently being used sparingly.

Possibly, just the way Cooper worded it suggested it was the clubs view. Maybe so, this is where the loans manager or whoever responsibility it is to negotiate these deals earns their money. For example the DOF at Barnsley is our ex head of analytics Mladen Sormaz and Alves was loosely linked with them. It sounded an ideal destination but for whatever reason didn't happen.

Would love to know why the club deemed the potential loan moves that came in for him not suitable.

I'd not be against Schmidt either but his tactics are quite extreme that they can take time to implement / get worked out by the opposition. He was also criticised in the past for how he handled young players coming through, Madueke for example so I'm on the fence with him.

Aren't we 19th for xG this season? Grim.

I most certainly expected more than 4 points from the opening 5, especially once we'd got a few more players through the door and especially after the transfer window shut. Those defending Cooper are jumping on the negativity that's shrouded the place all summer than many predicted we'd be comfortably relegated this season. Even if that remained unaffected after some of the business we got done, the causation of that is very much being orchestrated by Cooper so it's not reason enough to keep as because we're likely to go down anyway. I'm glad he recognised at home vs the likes of Everton we needed a creative central midfielder in but bar that tweak, his decision making on Saturday was extremely bothersome.

This is actually staggering. I could understand Cooper's decision not to give him a single minute in the PL if he didn't rate him. But to claim he does, whilst Justin has seen 75% of our goals conceded come down his side of the pitch is damning. I've never known a manager make so many baffling decisions from the off as Cooper. I hope it all sorts itself out but it's not looking promising.

Niko Kovac would possibly be an unrealistic target but he'd be my standout choice from available managers. Strong track record at bringing through academy players and developing young players.

He will get those games bare minimum. And you're right, if we don't get 2 wins from our next 5 then I can't see how they can persist with him, not without some serious signs of promise. His tenure feels very similar to Shakespeare's in 2017/18 and they acted quickly there, probably the only time they ever have.