Leaderboard

We may have our issues away from home, and players may have dips in form, but we should remember how far we've come in such a short period of time. Stay supportive, stay positive, stay resilient. OTBC

The Women's Marathon at the World Athletics Championships, despite a midnight start, had 28 out of 68 pull out, including all three Ethiopians, because of the conditions in Doha, Qatar, soon to host the World Cup. I hope those with the money in their bank accounts are happy to hold world sport to ransom to accommodate their greed.

I know a bloke at the club. Apparently Farke's a busted flush and Webber's a one trick pony. Oh. That was last season...

From our 7 games so far we have played all the current top 3, 6th, 9th and 10th + 19th. Sheff U, who by all accounts are doing very well, only have 2 points more than us and Burnley (10th) are only 3 points ahead of us. A good win next week would move us up a few places and gives us a confidence boost for the games against Bournemouth (a), Man U (h) and Brighton (a) which, if we play as we know we can, are all winable.

Zimmerman would make a huge difference. Klose would make a difference with no Zimmerman. Hernandez would make a big difference. Vrancic would make a difference even if just from the bench. Being able to put Amadou in midfield would make a difference. Krul or a fully fit Fahrmann would make a difference. Etc etc. Very difficult to judge us so far with so many injuries.

One place above the relegation spots, that's exactly where we'd expect to be after this initial run of games. West Ham no mugs, Burnley no mugs, Crystal Palace no mugs, all away and all playing the physical athlete game; plus Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City and ..... Newcastle. Back the team, this is a really bad spell for us, especially injury-wise. The players need us to help them retain their confidence as they work through this. p.s. If Hanley was fit I would have played him last week, but not today, he has no pace and Palace would have murdered him. OTBC!

We ARE good enough. Beating Man City wasn’t a fluke. We need to start quicker and everyone be on it for the whole game. If you think we’re not good enough, there’s plenty of other things to do on a Saturday afternoon.

A poor premier league side, perhaps. I made this point a few weeks ago when someone called West Ham an “average side”. (Although West Ham I would say are probably better than Palace.) Mid table “poor” premier league sides have still got players who they’ve paid tens of millions for - strong, powerful, quick, physical players. We’ve got some very good players but we’re starting to see the gulf in class between the prem and championship - every game we play this season will be very hard.

Mate, I could be a brexiteer and I'd still think that you are a plank.

Fixed that for you.

Tbh most of the key injuries are match/contact related - Trybull, Klose, Zim and Aarons for sure - and nothing to do with training. Onel was weird bad luck, A’s was Krul (back spasms can happen anytime). The others are a mixture but you’ll always get a few odd strains and suchlike in training

Yes I realise injuries have hurt us but I can't help but feel we're being hamstring by our lack of quality additions over the summer. Right now only Amadou looks like someone who could push for a starting berth with everyone fit and we've got too many positions with nobody pushing the current incumbent for the place. Steipermann is a great example- been hit and miss this season and seemed a prime candidate for extra competition or even and upgrade on. Yet our shoestring budget means Farke is left either to play an ineffective Drmic out of position or attempt to reinvent Srebeny from a League One center forward into a Premier League number 10. Add to that Roberts has yet to be trusted with more than the odd 20 minutes despite our only other real winger getting injured and we don't look like we've got an option to partner Pukki if we want to make a switch tactically.

Irrelevant.

Well done for having a massive over reaction and writing him off after 30 minutes

Indeed. And there are other reasons why we could only strengthen to a very limited extent. That Claude-Maurice would not join us, because we could hardly promise him we would still be a top-tier side next season, is another highly relevant one. Posters who after promotion accepted we could not possibly endanger ourselves financially by trying too hard to stay up now seem to have forgotten that overwhelming argument.

Thought our summer business was pretty good, and importantly we've clearly managed to keep our playing and off-pitch cohesion together. But an injury crisis such as ours would take its toll on relatively established prem clubs let alone a newly promoted one.

Jean Claude Maurice.

it was a better performance than last week imo, not good enough I know blah blah blah ....but there were periods when we dominated the game and it felt like we were going to get a point...we will learn and move on.

This is the worst injury crisis I can remember in recent history. I imagine it’s taking its toll.

Lets not start moaning about the players or coach. Its time to face the facts. We have lost five out of seven. Maybe we can change that with a couple of home games and hopefully some of the crocks might be back.

Hard luck Wacky and a few top Pups faltering today also, but chin up Lakey is on 3 out of 6 so far. OTBC

Of course, I've also heard of the phrase "distastefully smug person on a message board" before.

I'm happy to give him more than 16 before I make up my mind.

Basically not a lot

I agree there Hoggo but he was so close I don't think you'll ever see them given ,less than a metre away.

I don't look at the Brexit thread. Am talking about his football views.

If we play the second half like the last 15 minutes we'll win this.

But he has such a history of balanced opinions...

Not soft. I called it straight away. Oh well that clears it up then

Am I the only one on the fence for the penalty? Can I see why it was given? Yes. Do I think it was soft and could easily have been over turned? Yes. I'd complain if I didn't get it as an attacker but complain if it was given against me, so I can't get too excited by it.

Only in Middlesbrough.

But was there localised chafing?

That's the spirit. 30 games to go, all sorts of shocks up and down the table so far this season. Get a grip.

It reminded me of this...

He’s been Palaces best playmaker so far!

Cantwell has had a mare so far

http://sportsstreams.xyz/crystal-palace-vs-norwich-city/

Yes we do look lightweight in central mid...but we are down to the bones to be honest. Not many opinions. COME ON YOU YELLLLLLLLLLLLLLOWS! OTBC

or http://www.blacktiestreams.xyz/soccer5/

http://hdstreams.club/hd/ch19.php

Hmm, I'm not sure I'm comfortable being associated with that tw*t in any way! 😣

About as good a lineup as we could have hoped for today. Come on City.

Captain Benny

Nice one!

So they stopped us playing our game and played their game to perfection, winning 2-0, stopping us from having any real clear cut chances and making us look like we were never in with a shout of getting anything from the game. So in what way didn’t they outplay us?

I agree. Much as I really don't rate Hanley at this level, he's basically all we've got if we want to push Amadou further forward as the DM. I'd reluctantly play it that way today and see what happened.

Yes, sorry FF I wish it had been longer!

Archie Mair , who you would 'assume' would have been with the 1st team squad if Fahrmann is out tomorrow, is playing for the u23's away at Man Utd this evening...which I'll take as a good sign

Email a ticket? What is this modern day witchcraft and skulduggery that you talk about?