Hammo

Cooper and Van Nistelrooy have both been bad appointments. The only difference is that we knew Cooper would be a disaster from the outset, whereas RvN was a gamble that has failed.

He’s been rubbish for ages. Remember our FA Cup game v Chelsea last season. He was even worse in that one.

Nailed on

Maguire heads in blatantly offside stoppage time winner. In this Season from Hell… as scripted.

Two fearful teams. One quality player on pitch (Bilal) and he has so far made the difference. If we can avoid a defensive brain fart or two (a big if) or the opportunity for the ref to award them a pen, we have a chance. A big chance.

Justin the Undroppable. Beyond a joke now.

Beginning - completing The Great Escape at Sunderland. Middle - the final whistle of Chelsea vs Spurs (still gives me a spasm of joy thinking about it) End - the board not sacking Rodgers in 2022 (eg after Brighton and Spurs away) when it was obvious to all but those with blind faith in his past deeds that he had lost the plot and his sole motivation had become the preservation of Brand Brendan (hence all the excuses that blamed everyone and everything else for the decline bar himself, and the downright sabotage of his team selections - eg Ward, Amartey etc). When Top and co finally saw the error of their ways it was way too late. The damage was done. The rot had set in. And it ain’t going away any time soon.

Bilal v Man City. The heartwarming howls of derision from the fans when our one creative player was bafflingly taken off early today. At 0-1 down. Again.

We played OK in the first half and I thought we looked well balanced. BUT once again we were too timid, slow and casual, wasting time knocking it around at the back when we should have shown urgency from the off and gone for the jugular. Palace looked poor but at halftime they sensed how tentative we were and decided we were beatable so went for it themselves… and scored. After that- not for the first time - we never looked like getting back into the game. As for the subs… taking our only two creative players off at 0-1 was plain stupid. This club has performed miracles before… but it ain’t happening with this miserable team, is it? They are just not good enough. And neither is the manager.

If their manager was a bellend (like Klopp, Arteta etc) I would certainly wish them ill. But Nuno sounds like a decent level-headed bloke and it’s nice to see the Big Six split asunder. They won’t win the title though. Liverpool are too strong. I kind of hope they stay in the race - but, unlike us, fail to go the distance. That would be very painful for them.

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. What does surprise - and anger - me is that he is allowed the opportunity to keep adding to that tally of shame week after week.

Every week that I see his name on the team sheet I foresee disaster. He is the worst regular starter in the Premier League. That’s been obvious for quite some time. He should have been discarded long ago. In football, as in life, though, you reap what you sow.

Awful first half of the season - but not unexpected given the pre-season angst about the expected points deduction. Appointing Cooper was a disaster. No doubt about it. The man did not have a clue how to make the most of the (admittedly meagre) resources at his disposal, seemed to have only one approach every game regardless of the opposition - ie ‘defend and hope’ - and inspired nobody, players or fans. We haven’t improved under Van Nistelrooy in terms of results but even with key players missing (Fatawu, Ricardo, Hermansen) there is at least method and structure to our play now and he appears to be gradually identifying the team’s weaknesses (off you come, JJ, hopefully for good) and, crucially, unlike Cooper (and Rodgers before him), learning from his mistakes (playing Ward v Wolves obviously the most glaring). Yes, it will take an almighty comeback to stay up but we did it a decade ago from a seemingly impossible position, worse than this, and although we lost to Man City we showed enough promise in that game - take a bow, Bilal - to suggest that with a few improvements in key areas during January (full backs and wingers mostly, plus a decent striker to ease JV’s workload), survival is still possible. I am uneasy about the second half of the season, sure, but I haven’t given up hope yet.

He looked desolate at the end. A wonderful wonderful individual performance against the Champions - the best I’ve seen by a Leicester player in a long long time - and… all for nothing. I got the same feeling about Bilal walking away from this defeat though as I did about Fatawu after the home defeat v Hull at the start of last season. That we have a very talented player we can really get excited about.

I imagine the Ever-Obliging Leicester City thread will be hot both during and after this one.

Just flits around and fills a space. That’s all he does. Offers nothing in defence or attack. The archetypal Rudkin signing.

You’d like to think he would have told both fullbacks not to let Liverpool’s wingers cut inside and shoot on their favoured foot 🤷🏻

The main reason we are in the relegation zone. Probably the worst player regularly selected in this season’s Premier League. Utterly abject.

“… Everybody’s having fun” blared the Stadium speakers seconds after the team got booed off. Ah the irony. Ah the idiots.

Normally when you get promoted you strengthen the squad to be able to compete at the higher level. Our hideous summer recruitment (granted, with the points deduction hanging over us) has left us in this perilous position. Anyone who watches other Premier League teams can see that we are woefully substandard in practically every department (apart from in goal when Hermansen plays). Unless we sign a handful of jewels in January (highly unlikely) I see no hope of us staying up. The wretched quality of our current squad is best summed up by the fact that Justin has been consistently our worst player this season - possibly the worst player in the entire division when you look at all the goals conceded from his position - yet he continually gets picked every week. Yes, Ricardo is injured, but even so… And to pick Ward above anyone is, as we know, a dereliction of duty or (in Rodgers’ case) deliberate sabotage.

Indeed he has. Because it destroyed the myth that Celtic are such a ‘massive club’ that no manager could ever want to leave them for little Leicester City (despite our humongous recent achievements).

For some reason - I presume it has to do with selling advertising through clickbait reactions etc - illiterate mouthy clown football pundits like Sutton, Savage, Merson, Micah Richards, Joe Cole etc are very much in vogue in this country. It's actually quite sad when you compare their lack of intelligence/knowledge to those who comment on other sports like cricket and golf - eg Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton, Nick Dougherty, Laura Davies etc. I am a big fan of NFL, and the American co-commentators/ex-players like Tony Romo, Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman are absolutely brilliant. Not only can they string coherent sentences together but they are perceptive, humorous and very very informative. Anyway, not that his opinion matters one jot, but I sincerely hope we make a complete arse of that bitter and twisted Celtic-loving twat on Saturday (like we have done most weeks).

Our threat from the flanks was practically zero with Ayew and McAteer on the field. Ayew is not a winger and McAteer is not good enough for the Premier League. Vardy of course was the undisputed man of the match.

Right. I’ve finally cracked. There are a couple of blokes on my row - we’ve christened them Pinky and Perky - who routinely arrive just after kickoff, spend the last few minutes of the first half and first few of the second down on the concourse, then (naturally) leave well before the end whatever the score and whatever the time of the game. Sitting near the aisle we have to get up during the game four times to let them through. Every game. It’s annoying to say the least. Each to their own and all that, but I really don’t know why they bother.

Was it just me, or was the crowd reaction when that goal went in a couple of octaves higher than normal because of the shock/surprise factor? There was a lot of laughter mixed with “glory be”s etc around where I was sitting. Anyway good on him. A fantastic finish. Let’s hope he goes on a decent scoring run. If Chris Wood can do it…