Robert N. LiM

I see Man City went out of the Champions League last night.

@GodlyOtsemobor out!

You can't criticise his engine, though. Absolutely relentless. The Gary Holt of this messageboard.

@Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Manand @cornish sam both sound more knowledgeable than me. Thanks both

Not sure it qualifies as 'news'. Semi-confident speculation at best 😉

You guys can sort it out between you 😉

V happy to be corrected but I think I remember reading that when you loan a player you transfer their registration, so Abu Kamara will still officially be a Portsmouth player until (again, happy to be corrected) June 1. As with Idah and Celtic, think this is a non starter

Assuming they don't blow a 3-0 lead tonight, they're three points behind Leeds with a game in hand. And they play both Leeds and Leicester. It's a tough ask, for sure, but given the stuttering recent form of the top three, they're definitely still in it.

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Haha. The Dennis Srbeny of Britpop

Blur or Oasis? Pulp Gerrard or Lampard? Scholes Hwang or van Hooijdonk? Idah

Yeah, that's a fair point.

Well, that's what I meant, really. Obviously people like Foden and Saka are going to benefit from playing with the best players in the world (and under world-class coaches) - but all English keepers get from the best international keepers coming to the PL are splinters.

Agree with this in general but wonder if the exception is the goalkeeper position, because each club can obviously only have one, so there are hardly any English keepers playing in the top flight to choose from. It's not a great situation where England's no1 keeper is playing for a team in the relegation battle.

My memory is that after a similar amount of minutes, the consensus on here was that Hwang was useless. Maybe SvH will leather one in from 40 yards on Saturday

Little slugs with no personality

100% this

MK Dons

I hate Chelsea (and Man City, and Saudi-Newcastle) more than I hate Ipswich. They encapsulate everything wrong with modern football. And Chelsea don't even have the redeeming feature of affable, long-suffering fans. There, I said it.

Indeed, I sort of had that in mind. And of course, the reverse can be true, that herd thinking can creep in if everyone is on the same page. Obviously I have no inside knowledge of the Webber-Wagner/Knapper-Wagner relationships to know what applies in this case. But it must be an interesting part of the SD/Head Coach dynamic.

Those boys scrub up good

Yeah, of course. Surely he can hardly complain if he's eased back over the next few games, though.

The Private Eye tribute poem writes itself, given his nickname. Before my time as a cricket fan, but clearly one of England's greats. RIP. Or, more appropriately, given his profession, Rip.

Including four appearances (I'm guessing most as sub, but still) in European football for us. That's a pretty decent pinnacle in your chosen field. I know this wasn't the main point of your post, but how we measure success is f*cked up in any case. If you've spent your working life as a nurse, you're a massive success in my book. Awed and grateful to you, and all who work in our NHS, never minding the danger.

And it's especially the case in our team since the strategy is for the the 'wingers' to come inside to stiffen up the midfield, while our FBs provide the width. We're sort of 3-6-1 when attacking. So much so that we really need to stop calling the players in those positions wingers. And that's actually why I feel Sainz is a better fit for how we play than Rowe. The more I think about it, the stronger the case for him being an impact sub becomes, especially as he comes back from injury. As @Mr Angry says, Rowe provides a different threat, very useful if plan A with the inverted wingers isn't working.