HorsehaySmoggie

Based on who we had available to play in the second leg against Chelsea, not sure who else he could have asked to pick up World Cup winner Enzo other than Howson. Presumably Pochettino had tactics that included Enzo cutting through the right of Boro's defence, which would have meant Howson trying to deal with that rather than leaving Rav to pick him up

Long drive home to Shropshire after the match but on the way just wondered how many of today’s starters we would have expected to start after the end of the August transfer window. Not the keeper, or any of the back four, and depending on where you see them playing, only McGree , Forss and possibly O’Brien. One way or another we have lost from those available to play today (from the start) : Crooks, Rogers (get them out of the way first), Howson, Hackney, Smith, Fry, Bangura, Jones, Lath, Coburn, Lenihan. And with Dieng being on the bench that lot would probably make up our first cho

Listening to Radio Tees (or whatever its name is) yesterday while walking to the ground Craig Hignett was saying something very similar to Romanon regard to Roger’s. He said Villa had bid 4, we said we wanted 15 , but we only actually want 10. He reckons second bid was six and third would be eight and that we would settle somewhere between 8 and 10. His view was that we have more than enough to cope with Rogers moving on

This rule change was supposed to stop what Chelsea had been doing

Interesting article in The Guardian Online tonight regarding Forest and their supposed loan of Jonjo Shelvey to a club in Turkey. It claims that although they announced it as a loan they couldn’t do a loan because they would have to break the limit set by FIFA on the number of player they can loan out. So they cancelled Shelvey’s contract. FIFA limit number of players out on loan to 7, presumably Lewis O’Brien counts as one of those seven. Forest announced via their official channels that Shelvey had departed to Turkey on loan eight months after signing a two-and-a-half-year contract at

I suspect that it is psychology, if they were trying to pass the ball, one touch, in a particular direction they would do it nearly every time. Stick a goal between them and ‘the person and they are passing to’ and we have no idea where it will end up and neither do they. It comes back to practice and coaching , in my simplistic view

Willie Maddren was a real old fashioned footballer. We played him at centre forward for a small number of games and he was good at second division level. He wasn’t happy at being given the number 9 shirt in those games because, from memory, he didn’t want to be thought of as a forward. I always thought that Mark Proctor was a good footballer but he needed to play more forward and less sideways

It is clear that our previous management teams were more focussed on getting players to play their way than getting the best out of the players we have. How can Hayden Hackney ‘go missing’ through the management regimes of warnock and wilder? How can neither of them see Akpom’s ability to put the ball in the net. How can Wilder fail to get as much out of McGree that Carrick is managing to do? I suspect it is more to do with the manager trying to build their reputation again, and failing.

There is an article on The 72 that says that Nixon is saying that Luke Daniels could be a target for Huddersfield because Lee Nichols is set to undergo shoulder surgery

I agree with JTG. In my view when McNair plays in midfield his ball control and positioning is like a central defender playing out of position. He is poor running with the ball unless he is close to the touch line. When he plays in defence he plays like a midfielder out of position, he seems to lose players coming from his left and looks bewildered .

steffen not in US squad according to USMNT twitter feed. Squad announced at 10 UK atome tonight

I was listening to the commentary of the Chelsea Man Utd game on the long drive home after Saturday’s game and Woodgate was the co-commentator. He was really good picking out the tactical aspects of how individual players were playing, praising Martinez’s defending one on one and his overall body shape; criticising Rashford for not holding the ball up with his back to goal etc. When I got home I said to the wife that I thought he came across really well from a coach’s perspective, normally the Co-commentators just spout nonsense or repeat what others say. Hopefully this coaching role will bet

Why would someone with close ties to the family refer to her as Victoria when her real name is Katie Gibson? Victoria is her stage name.

Mel Nurse

My wife is a 25 years plus season ticket holder at Old Trafford. She now always parks at the Lowry Outlet which has a multi-story car park. She said that it costs about £6. She says that is it 10 minutes walk from stadium, there are food outlets in the Outlet itself, getting back to the M62 is straight forward and if you prepay once you park up you will not have to queue after the match.