OntarioFox

INJECT IT INTO MY BASTARD VEINS

speak for yourself my honest reaction to anything better (1).mp4

I'll stick my neck above the parapet and say it made sense at the time to extend, given how integral he was to Enzo's system. He's the only ball-playing centre half we have. The length of the extension was insane in the circumstances though. And we proceeded to royally shit the bed when Enzo left, leaving us with a lump of a centre half incapable of playing in any system that didn't slow the game down to a crawl to accomodate him. I don't necessarily blame the board for extending the contract as presumably Enzo wanted him. A three year extension was absolutely laughable though, and has proven to be the latest case of shit-for-brains thinking as far as sustainability goes. He'd never been in favour until Enzo's arrival, and it was extremely likely he may have ended up back in the shadows after he left. Which is what happened. Rudkin's face when:

Nah, don't really fancy Facundo for this one. He's been one of the prime suspects for losing the ball in the final third, which against these with their high press would be suicide. We need to set up a low block and play ugly, or they'll spring us on the counter over and over again. Just like the last two, horrible horrible times at their place. It's one of those rare ones where I'd rather play Ayew if we're going to persist with the usual suspects. He might be an ungraceful bastard but he's better at holding onto the ball and drawing fouls.

it would be typical of our current trajectory for him to come here and then for us to finish below Sheffield Wednesday

He was with us for more than a decade, I remember the joke at the time he left being that he'd be the first player to sit on the bench for his own testimonial.

Nacho was a proper enigma in that respect, some times his first touch and close control were world-class. Other times he'd shin a six-yarder into the next postcode. There was no in between for Senior Man.

Guessing Conrad Logan's involved for one team or the other? He was on Anstey's staff when they had their FA Cup run wasn't he?

There's a joke in there about him having to play with the barriers up and still missing Realtalk though, he's always come across as a genuinely likeable fella. It's just unfortunate to see how much he's regressed. I think at this point it's not worth our effort hoping he'll come good - a fresh start elsewhere might do him good.

I like what I've heard about Cleverley so far, would get him in on that basis, not least because we lack realistic options. Rosenior sounds like he's going to be courted by a club in a better position, for example. That said, the main reason I think he's going to be a likely target is that he played for us once upon a time. Not because I think that matters or that he has any affinity to us after a one-season loan spell that didn't even last the full campaign, but more because "urg burg ex-lestah" is the depth of research morons like Rudkin go to in order to choose our managers these days. He sounds promising, and I get the feeling it will be a "happy accident" that results in us having a good season if he is brought in. He certainly has a promising raft of young players to work with.

Won more games than Cooper now

Hat trick per game, Jobs a goodun

Thomas is the epitome of how man management at this club has failed players ever since we struck gold with Pearson and Ranieri (in his first season at least). An awful lot of quality players have ultimately underperformed, or been unable to arrest declines after previously playing to a high level. Thomas joins the likes of Maddison, Barnes and Tielemans from the Rodgers era in that regard, but it's been a club culture problem for a decade now since the standards Pearson set deserted us after the title win. His ceiling is undoubtedly lower than those players, but he had a decent start before falling off a cliff with obvious confidence issues. He seemed to stop taking on his man overnight during that horrid 22-23 season, like it had been coached out of him. Ndidi and Justin are two good more recent examples, though admittedly I think the latter is as much down to the injury as it is his confidence being in tatters. Whoever we get in next needs to come with a reputation for motivation and getting the most out of individuals, because there's zero squad cohesion in this rabble to start the job for them.

Be interested to know what @Super_horns makes of it. Can't really comment on what performances are like as I haven't sat and watched them, but last I heard Cleverley was getting decent reviews given the resources available to him?

Thomas has some making up to do. He was like a deer in the headlights last time out at their place, needs to put a performance in against them.

In fairness, they rode their luck massively like in so many other games this season. Was a combo of the woodwork, Sels guessing right in a couple of 1-on-1s and Nketiah being a touch offside that saved 'em. I guess the issue is, they've been entering the Konami Code before matches all season for extra lives, so we can expect similar cheat code luck from them. Best we can hope for is that we do set up with the low block like Palace did, because they are utterly brainless when they can't play their usual way and resort to hacking lumps out of the opposition. Knowing us we'd still lose against 9 men.

Ruud will instantly get a penny of credit in the bank* if somehow, ANYHOW, he manages to fire our bunch of shysters up for this. Cooper utterly failed in that respect and it was a major contribution to him losing his job. Same with Rodgers, and that twat had two cracks at it. I've not seen our team look like they give a shit in this fixture since Knockeart Day. I need to see Luke Thomas barrelling into Yates two-footed in minute one or I'm switching off.

That'll do, 2 dropped. Lucky bastards though, should have been a flat zero.

yates is such a useless thug

spawny deflecty bastards

Adam Wharton for Palace looks a tidy player, not familiar with him but he's really making them tick in midfield.

close one that both ends

This shouldn't even be on the cards after offloading Cannon. Any club with a brain would have Evans' pro contract on the table and ready to go yesterday, but you just know we've probably not even bothered while we sat on our hands waiting for Vardy to make his mind up. We're going to go into next season with Daka and Ayew as our striking options, aren't we? Our club is run by absolute morons.