nullabletype

You're correct, José probably wouldn't have complained if we were winning. I believe that's the entire point... He said, which is what the piece by Martin Samuel acknowledges, that he wants the medical staff to have awareness of the game. Having awareness would be not coming on to the pitch after an innocuous incident when he needs all hands on deck. The piece points out, I think correctly, that José doesn't require a medical degree to tell a horrendous challenge from a light one. That's a fairly straight forward footballing decision. There's no point acting like every challenge should be treated equally by medical staff when we know they don't come on for every issue. I mean 9 times out 10 we can usually differentiate for ourselves sitting at home watching it. So no, he wouldn't complain if we were winning, because he'd want the medical staff to come on and run the clock down, and he expects them to understand this.

Well in actuality the sexism aspect is more a passing remark in the piece. The main bulk is addressing him being supposedly being a dickhead, did you read it?. In truth, he probably didn't write the headline -- something he often points out in his articles. I just bolded it because it was the headline, but I might take it out.

Martin Samuel's piece from the Mail today...

This isn't going to look really bad on the club. It's a complete non-issue. This story hasn't gotten attention because of modern day feminism or any other such nonsense. It's gotten attention because the back pages these days are effectively gossip columns for men. It's like HELLO! Sports edition. Case in point, your post at the top of this page talking about fans defending players when they allegedly dip the wick. Who cares? Why are grown men worried about who John Terry or Wayne Rooney leaves it in? It's ridiculous. This forum, Twitter, you name it. Grown men lose themselves when the moderately attractive Eva Carneiro makes an appearance. It's like they've never seen a women before. Anyway, at least if she gets binned we'll never see those pictures that clearly aren't her ever again. It's the little things I suppose...

Eva demoted? Whoopdedo. She's replaceable, José isn't. Next!

I hope that the doom and gloomers on here take a look at the weekends performances and results of the teams that would be considered contenders and re-evaluate. United who strengthened looked sterile and only stole a win through luck. It happens, but they didn't look at all convincing against "big" opposition. Arsenal got humped 2-0 at home despite also strengthening and having a wonderful, trophy laden (lol), preseason. You can basically consider Spurs and Liverpool irrelevancies at any rate so the latter's, nicked at the very end, 1-0 victory hardly speaks volumes. Then there's us, the team who looked largely comfortable until the loss of a goalkeeper. We by far had it harder than any of the others and still managed to hold it together. I think we'll be fine when it's all said and done. Best manager in the league and the team who won it last year aren't just going to disappear.

Think Michael Oliver was probably correct with the red card and penalty decision, but I'm fed up watching referees watch Costa get pushed all over the pitch and just wave it off. Costa going full clip toward the end of the second half and he gets pushed with zero interest from Oliver as he stands watching it. Yet he draws the whistle like the Man with No Name the moment we look near a player. First half I was happy enough other than the conceded goal. It's very us to give away a lead. Thought we dominated and looked up for it. Second half was woeful. I don't like how we often struggle against 10 men yet fall to bits when it happens to us.

I will never wrap my head around the obsession over youth players. Honestly couldn't give a monkeys. Can somebody please compile a comprehensive list of youth players that we didn't believe in who then went on to be such outstanding players that we'd be lucky to have them back?

Once again pleasantly surprised by Victor Moses. Not sure if it's because I expect so little of him that anything decent is amplified, but got to give him his due. I see Mikel is getting his usual criticism despite making 4 or 5 calm clearances relieving the pressure.

Fair enough. Just thought it a bit strange to see Moses critiqued when he's had a fairly solid two appearances and managed the only goal against PSG -- a well finished goal, too -- whilst having Falcao, a guy who most of last season couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo, referred to as our best hope based only on his effort when Moses was full of effort himself. Note, I'm not sold on Moses and I'm excited at the prospect of Falcao if he can get back to his best.

I'll just float that one out there.

That was my point too. You quoted me after all.

You're right, let's sell him... A mistake in a nothing pre-season game having played a handful of minutes. Imagine. What about all those years of service where he's done the dirty work, well, and hardly had a good word said about him? The guy gets nowt but grief yet every manager who has come, and subsequently gone, through the door has seen fit to keep him.

To be the perfectly capable DM that he is, as a second choice to Matic. Why get rid? He's solid. He gets far more stick than he deserves because he's not a glamour player.

If you want the home kit why not save yourself some money and just buy the 06/07 one?

You what? Torres had multiple good seasons to his name showing world class form and quality. At his peak there were few better. He didn't work out, but oh well. Sterling has had one good season. He's a good player but I can't imagine wanting to spend £50 million on potential. Plus, he only has resale value of he improves, drastically, otherwise the only way for his fee is down.

Our last Barca cast off worked out well, why should this one -- if it's legit -- be any different? Also, according to the Chelsea insiders worth their salt we were either never in for, or strongly chasing, those players who "rejected" us -- if they were even on the market to begin with.

The main reason I'd see for it not being the new one is not the template but the fact that I doubt they would opt for the same colour. Just strange that they couldn't of got their hands on the normal kit for that game, if that is the case.

It's the goalkeeper kit. A kit hotly anticipated by basically nobody and one not really worth keeping under wraps. Wouldn't be surprised if he wore it simply because it was ready. In reality, it's not going to ruin the outfield kit reveal which is the one that generates all the revenue and which the fans care about.

Just noticed this picture on the Mail. How did that sneak by?

Pure shite as usual. José can say and do what he wants at half time, won't change a thing. We're bottlers, end of story.

It's more about competent football than being slick though. I'd wager most fans are fine with ugly so long as it means winning. We've played 16 games in 2015... 6 of those games have ended in draws and on every single occasion we have scored first. 2 have been defeats, heavy ones too, against weaker opposition. 5-3 away to Spurs and 4-2 at home against Bradford. Shock horror, in both games we struck first. The 50% wins haven't always been convincing. 5-0 against Swansea was our best, but in truth, the Swans were completely off the boil that day. The next biggest win was at home Watford which frankly, you absolutely expect to be winning every time. We also have a 2-0 home win against a Newcastle team who are having a poor season. 4 other games have been 1 goal margins, with the only game with more than one goal once again seen us score first and drop the lead. That leaves the League Cup final where we scored 2 fairly lucky goals. I knew our form was terrible but seeing it written out is actually scary. 6 points clear is all well and good and many of us will be happy with it but lets not fool ourselves. Our lead has as much to do with the overall poor quality of our direct rivals as it does us. Taken with a bit of context the 6 points suddenly don't look that large a buffer, and with 11 games to go potentially on our current form it's not hard to imagine 6 becoming 5 becoming 4 etc. It simply isn't good enough for supposed elite team of Europe. I'll be over the moon if we win the league, but that doesn't change the fact that this side needs a serious looking at.

Usual bollocks performance today again. Unbelievable. Edit: Actually, very believable.

Been pish from start to finish. Hard to feel bad about being knocked out when the team showed no intent.

How Barnes left the pitch with not even a yellow to his name baffled me. Unbelievable.