Tomo

The biggest statement he can make right now is to send the U23's (and Bettenelli) out against Chesterfield, maybe even have Andy Myers managing the game. I'd feel bad for them as they'd have got a big tie only for it to turn into a glorified EFL trophy match but I don't see how we've got any other choice.

This is probably the first time since our Christmas 2006 rut under Jose I haven't thought the manager has been largely responsible for such a poor run. Ofcourse there's a few things he's done wrong (should never have broken Callum's momentum from the autumn) but if anything I think he's stopped this rut being even worse.

The days of defenders being able to be clowns on the ball if they put a good tackle in or strikers being able to do sod all if one goes in of their backside is long gone.

I've just got the Kova showdown card on Ultimate Team so I've got even more at stake tomorow now.

@OhForAGreavsiedid. He was already turning to shit at Liverpool, most of us just assumed he was sulking because he wanted out and/or was being mismanaged by Roy. It's was one thing us fans getting giddy but the club should have done their due diligence. Theres rumours he actually failed the medical which if true then no words.

Yep and I always will when there's attempts to glorify that clown in any context.

By that logic they lost to the team with no centre half's so how will they score past Rudiger and (hopefully) Silva? Not to mention they've not yet netted past Edou from open play. Actually blows my mind how many people actually think two games are the same.

The fact that you're comparing him to Lukaku and not Drogba/Costa or even Eto'o/Ba/Sturridge says everything I need to know.

Potentially Falcao and Cavani too (the latter of which would still be useful for us to this day).

Okay well on that basis, even if you're just going to purely look at the game as a spreadsheet it's Ramires who made the game changing contribution. If only he cost £50m.....

I really wanted us to get that one before Liverpool. We could have literally reversed the history chants and it would have infuriated them.

Bosingwa was a bigger part of the UCL run yet it's widely accepted he was a flop overall. I almost forgotten how infuriating the double standards towards Torres were. And his attitude wasn't that much better than Rom's if atall, as early as the plane back from Munich he was making ultimatums about playing time, after the 18 months he had he should have been on his knees begging not to go the same way as Malouda.

It's not splitting hairs, Bosingwa was the one that made the contribution that actually prevented us going out.

Absolutely not, Bosingwa was the hero of that moment as he made an interception (off the back of a Torres cock up) that prevented a 2 on 1 vs Cech. The guy was such a clown we had to draft in a semi retired Eto'o (who was infinity times better btw).

There's a reason he's only won one trophy in major European league's and Belgium can't get over the line, he simply can't be relied on when it matters most and is a raging liability in clutch moment. Signing him to be the lead guy for a new era of success was an outrageous gamble. If he's going to even remotely justify his price tag then he has to deliever in these hard January games with zero excuses.

Signing Lukaku was a much bigger gamble all things considered, and so it's proved. Furthermore, if we wanted a striker who would score occasionally but do fuck all else we already had one. Also how long are we going to react to early teething problems by just signing another player? Is next summer going to be "we need to sign a striker because we can't rely on Lukaku finding his former goalscoring self"? At some point we will have to try and make investments work.

You wait until the right signing comes along. Klopp could have panicked at his defense leaking like a sieve and signed anyone, he didn't and ended up with VVD and Alison.

All of a sudden I'm more confident. I can't actually recall a pre match thread where the theme is 'let's toss off our opponents' and we haven't got atleast a draw.

Slightly moving on I think one thing we can all agree on is Lukaku absolutely must deliver with these fixtures coming up next month. Backs to the wall with the odds against us, games Drogba and Costa would get us over the line in. No excuses, he will win some goodwill with me if he does come up with the goods here, on the other hand if he ghosts all these games I'm truly done with him.

It's after he realised he wasn't getting an unconditional starting place, it just took longer at United than it has done here. We're talking about a guy who thought competing with prime Diego Costa as a 20 year old was beneath him. If he goes back to Inter he'll quickly get dropped for Dzeko and probably spout some nonsense about how he's always dreamed about returning to Everton.

Actions speak louder than words. He can put his money where his mouth is by winning us these big games we have coming up, starting Sunday.

He pulls this shit everywhere he goes including with us the last time. I'd like to think Inter would resign him but they've upgraded in Dzeko so why would they.

I'd like to get annoyed but I'm not remotely surprised. He's a brat and pulls this shit off everytime things get tough.

Brighton do tend to outplay all the top six bar City in general play. Their metrics are European level but are one of the least clinical sides this league has ever seen, if not the least.

Three guarantees in life. Death, taxes and Arsenal getting wanked off when we drop points.