Jay007

The only two people I can think of at the club who would worry about their status are Pogba and Lingard, since they're social media obsessed and have "brands". But Lingard doesn't have the same ego as Pogba. I don't think anyone could convince me that it's not Pogba.

A scuffle nearing breaking out between the Pompey fans and a Sunderland player just now (didn't see who.) The Sunderland player fell into the crowd after a bit of a contest on the wing between him and a Pompey player, before a group of Pompey fans descended over him. He managed to get back over the advertising boards onto the pitch before said fans lost their heads. The big guy with a beard in particular "trying to step over" the advertising boards in what looked to me like a "hold me back! hold me back!" moment

Why doesn't this surprise me?

Certainly appointing any DOF of football out of the names mentioned would be a step up from where we are now. For all that Woodward is obviously great as his job as a money man, he knows absolutely nothing about running the football side of the club and his record has proved that (if it needed to be.) Having anyone with the slightest knowledge or experience of football would be an improvement. Whether any of them will actually be up to the job or the best person for the job is another question. They might prove to be good at it but none of them have any experience of the role, which doesn't fill you with confidence. It would certainly be a risk.

The only thing I saw from the game was the second goal, and that was enough. The one big positive today is that the season is finally over.

The highlights of his performance against City is literally the only thing I've seen of him, so have no idea whether this would be a good signing or not. If we get him for the relatively small fee that's been mooted then it's probably not too big a risk. This is the type of signing I'm hoping we're going to be making. Ignore any perceived commercial value and/or the "star" names.

WOW...

Now then... Game on!

BT will be talking to the Liverpool tea lady next.

I think Barca have approached this game thinking they already had the tie sewn up and didn't have to bother. A half-hearted performance at best. Still had enough chances to get an away goal, but they should have done far better with them.

Even as short a period of time as 2-3 weeks ago, I was of the view that we couldn't get rid of too many players because we'd need cover and couldn't leave ourselves short. With what's happened since, as well as only being in the Europe League next season, I would happily get rid of a lot of them and go with the "LVG approach" of having a smaller squad of more experienced players, backed up by youngsters. Definitely keep; Romero Lindelof Smalling Dalot Shaw Tuanzebe Pereira Fred McTominay Rashford Shaw is only in the definitely keep list by default because there are bigger problems in the squad than him. Smalling is only in as well as he'd be good back up, but is a player we should be looking to replace in the next year or two. There are others that I'm content to see going either way due to their different circumstances. De Gea (if his focus is elsewhere then let him go, even if we could do without needing to replace him) Darmian (always thought he's not as bad as most people think and would be a decent player to keep around for squad purposes. But he's hardly played, so he'll want to go and we could easily let him go) Mata (similar to Darmian really, plus his experience and attitude would be useful) Herrera (a player I would normally think we'd be stupid to let go, but it depends on what the issue is with his negotiations) Lukaku (has had his moments and decent performances, but have some concerns over his demeanour at times. Would give him the benefit of the doubt but would sell if we got a decent offer) I've only really listed the players who have been or are mostly mentioned as being first teamers. Players like Chong, Greenwood, Garner, even Fosu-Mensah, etc I would consider to be in the "youngsters to back them up" category. If not, a few of them could perhaps go out on loan.

Well, I certainly didn't expect to see that from Kompany...

At the very least, I do think we announced the appointment of Ole too soon I said when he was still temporary and when the announcement of his appointment was made that, even if we had decided to appoint him, we should have waited until the end of the season to announce it My fear was that if we announced it too soon, it would mean the players would suddenly relax and not be kept on their toes. I don't know how big a factor that is in our form, but there's no doubt in my mind it's a big factor. I don't think it's a coincidence that the form and performances have plummeted straight after that. It seems to be that the players have increasingly downed tools after the announcement because they felt that it was safe to do so and they lost motivation, since they knew who the manager was going to be this season. Our performances weren't particularly great in every game before that, but we were at least doing enough to pick up results. We've done appalling afterwards. If we were a well run club, there would be positives in this, as it would highlight to everyone how few of the players deserve to be here and how many need to be culled. But we're not, so who knows what'll happen in the summer. I think it was easy to get carried away by our great run, and the form before Ole and after the run shows where we actually are. In truth, whether through the good form or bad, the time to judge him will be from the summer onwards when he should have the opportunity to mould the team the way he wants to. I think Ole has the most difficult job of any post-Fergie manager, and that would be the same for the whoever we appointed. And because of how poorly run the club is, and the uncertainty over the management structure, the manager is going to have to take on an awful lot himself.

Good game this. Quality finish by Rondon. This could go either way, Newcastle have been dangerous themselves.

I can only really judge them from their Champions League performances, but Barca look like a shadow of their previous great teams. Yet they still pop up with a result like this. Experience with a winning mentality. Outstanding.