Kev

Most of the other clubs manage to get by without breaking the rules year on year. It’s not like we’re even actively trying to compete in the league under Top, so arguments of level playing fields are a bit moot. If we had been charged trying to break into the top 6, fair enough. But we’ve been charged (if indeed true) by overspending and overpaying wages for rubbish players. It’s hard to make a case for any sympathy when you’re paying £20m+ for Oliver Skipp. You can buy 4 better players with more potential and sale value from the continent for that money.* *I understand the Skipp transfer is not in these accounts we’ll be charged for, but you can replace his name for majority of our signings.

If Everton hire anyone remotely competent, that will be both them and West Ham out of reach for us. We were reliant on them both being shit because their managers were shit, their teams are certainly good enough. Dreadful timing with both Palace and Wolves finding form. Even if our form improves, I’m struggling to make a case for anyone being shit enough for us to catch.

Should that not be his second yellow?

Trent Justin-Arnold.

What a clearance from Amad. Saved a goal there.

Alongside his top tip of West Ham to get into Europe It’s remarkable these people are employed to give their expert views.

Man Utd are such a mess, it’s so beautiful.

Perfect time to remind everyone that Neville was expecting Man Utd to finish 3rd with Ten Hag to be the manager to watch.

I would usually agree but I’m quite looking forward to every second of Man Utd getting completely spanked here. It should be put on all channels like the King’s Coronation.

To be fair, in order to see a game out you actually need to take the lead.

Still think Ipswich will have a lot of huff and puff but ultimately fall short and finish 18th. If I’m not mistaken 5 out of their starting 11 were playing in League One for Ipswich two seasons ago. Pretty remarkable but also further embarrassment for us that they are above us.

Leif Davis is an absolute appalling footballer at this level. Like playing Thomas every week. Every Ipswich game I’ve watched he’s been at fault for at least 1 goal.

Same as Ryan Yates. A nothing footballer that just kicks people and runs around the middle of the pitch remonstrating with anyone willing to listen.

Newcastle lost at home to League 2 Cambridge when they looked certain for relegation, but managed to survive. What good will a 1-0 win at home to QPR do when we get drawn away at Liverpool in the next round, have to play an extra game during a busy schedule and get beat by 4 or 5? Maybe the players and management need some embarrassment and a ‘pile-on’ to buck up their ideas and start performing? Maybe the Board will take notice and realise we need some investment. I’m not saying I’d want to lose, I’d never want to lose any game, but it would be far from the end of the world if we did.

Cooper gets all of the negativity for the bad signings but none of the positivity for the good ones. In the same way RVN gets all of the excuses for defeats whereas Cooper got none.

Gordon’s should have been a penalty, but it’s Gordon, so we can all get over that. Delap clearly does get touched though. It was as much of a penalty as Fulham’s was.

It’s only a grey area because poor quality punditry and analysis makes it one. The rule is actually really clear but when you have idiots like Merson giving his opinion on something, it’s no surprise it causes some confusion. Plus, to be fair, inconsistent/incorrect refereeing decisions aiding the confusion.

A free hit really. Win might inspire some confidence, a defeat means we won’t clog up additional fixtures just to lose to the first decent team we play in the next couple of rounds.

Out of interest, what decision was ‘corrupt’? The Newcastle goal was the correct decision, in line with the laws of the game. If anything, the only bad decision was Newcastle should have had a penalty for the foul on Gordon but even that was highly debatable.

A huge improvement, based on what? We’re still losing games, we’re still conceding a ridiculous number of attempts per game, we’re still conceding lots of goals as a result and we’re not scoring many either. The list of fixtures being deemed as impossible for RVN, but that ignores the facts: Crystal Palace managed a draw against both Man City and Aston Villa. Ipswich beat Chelsea and drew with Tottenham. Wolves beat Man Utd and drew with Tottenham. Everton drew with Man City. West Ham beat Newcastle (who were on a poor run of form before they met us) Which games do we not write off? You can’t say games are not winnable in this league otherwise you’ll go down. We write these games off to make excuses for RVN, whilst our relegation rivals take points from them. People making excuses that RVN wasn’t to know the damage of picking Ward against Wolves like it’s acceptable the manager hasn’t done enough research to know what a terrible choice that would have been? Why would we excuse that? That is also ignoring the fact we failed to score in that game so taking Ward out wouldn’t have won it for us, we were terrible all over the pitch and still would have lost. Are injuries an acceptable excuse? Everyone seems to be unanimous that Stolarczyk is playing well, so how would Mads improve our results over these games? Would Fatawu even play when he’s currently leaving our best player on the bench every week? You can say the same for Ricardo. People are also misremembering just how bad Ricardo has been at this level for some time. He’s not the saviour. If we wanted to be realistic, we were extremely fortunate to beat West Ham and whilst the Brighton come back was decent, they should have been out of sight. The 4 points we have earned are as fortunate as the 4 Cooper got against Bournemouth and Ipswich. Cooper was clearly atrocious but his last 7 games that led to his dismissal saw 2 wins and a draw, better than RVN’s return of 1 win and 1 draw during the same amount of games. That also discounts any ‘new manager bounce’ we were due. For some reason though, people were not willing to queue up behind Cooper with a long list of excuses as they are RVN. Shall we look at signings too? Cooper lambasted for wasting money without considering i. was Cooper the only decision maker on signings? No. ii. Ayew, BEK and Facundo have been our three best players for the whole season contributing over 50% of our entire goal return. What is there to suggest RVN is going to pull any rabbits out of the hat? He’ll be shopping in the same bargain basement dustbins that Cooper had to as we’re unable to spend money and are not an attractive proposition to players. The next 7 games: Palace (h) Fulham (h) Tottenham (a) Everton (a) Arsenal (h) Brentford (h) West Ham (a) Even with the rosiest of rose tinted glasses on, we’re looking at a maximum of 9 points from that (wins v Palace & Brentford, draws v Fulham, Everton and West Ham). That would see us on a paltry 23 points with 10 games to go. We then head into a run of 6 games that people have already written down as not winnable. If I was to be realistic, we’ll probably get 4-6 points from that run of games and that is barely enough to get our head above the relegation line without our competitors even playing another game. The only chances we have of survival are Man City being relegated due to their breaches and somehow finishing 18th rather than 19th to take advantage of that, or another team having a Southampton run of form. Neither of those are likely.