Rayvin

It's pretty abject but if they sack him it has to be now, not later on in the season. Either they use this window to give McClaren a chance to save himself, or they get shot now and give someone else the opportunity to have their desired players ignored in favour of cheap French imports. It's only fair. For my two cents I don't think sacking him will change anything really. He's clearly capable of putting a decent team together, and he's inherited an absolute shitshow here, but at the same time he's clearly not about to bring about any positive change on his own. But then, who could? Probably no one, because the growing reality is that it's the players who are not bothering themselves, as we see every time they go up against a team worth playing up to. I also don't think relegation will change anything. I've pretty much given up, in truth.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sorry. I was pretty tired when I posted that and literally woke up this morning and the first thought I had was that I needed to edit it. Thought I'd got away with it.

Did you not think the bad guy was a bit pathetic? It was a good film but he was a shocking villain. In my opinion at least

Great bday thread this. Happy birthday mate

Not good news at all... I always really liked Pav. 47 is really fucking young for cardiac arrest as well, especially given the shape he's likely in... All the best to him and his family.

That ranking system was utter balls and entirely counter intuitive. I thought the exact same thing as Ant, and it took me a long time to work out why anyone would come up with a system that superfluously created an entire second set of assumptions (i.e. they had an obvious order, which you initially used in order to assign priority, and then abandoned to convey your preference, choosing instead an entirely different ordering system for no reason whatsoever). Even describing it makes no sense

Let's not get carried away like We're easily capable of losing every single one of those...

There's no reason we shouldn't win this but let's be honest lads, we win or lose depending on how arsed our players are. Will they be arsed about Villa? Unlikely... I reckon there'll be some kind of reverting to type from the defence and probably a red card. That said - if we don't play like utter bell ends, and we win, then I think we can reasonably start looking upwards. There's a 4 point gap to make up between us a mid-table but even so, we're pulling the right way.

Holy fuck what is going on in the league this year... Are Chelsea in a relegation fight? Can they survive a relegation fight??

Depends more on his motivation than the financials I reckon. Even if you can get the discount, if you can't be arsed, you're not going to get around to any of it...

Happy Birthday mate!! You deserve a good one, hope you enjoy it

Holy fuck...seriously. Well fucking done to the lads for once. I didn't watch this one but coming back from a goal down is not something we're normally able to do.

I meant the views on offer, rather than a critique of the worthiness of the topic

I think that every time I check the Syria thread to be honest.

Yeah the loud thing might be a struggle depending on how noise sensitive you are. Earplugs are an option then, they'd muffle everything in the same way as a pillow I guess. Another option on the feet thing is to dangle your feet off the end of the bed by sleeping a little further down it. Makes sense why you're trying it - in terms of getting used to it, another choice might be to bunch the pillow up a bit; then you could 'lean' your head on it as if you were lying on your side. Apparently I've subconsciously put a lot of thought into this over the years

Had mine last night - I don't really like them but as I'm responsible for everyone's 'fun' I pretty much have to go. The company pays for it which isn't too bad - went to an Italian place that I frequent regularly (and have a loyalty card with). A loyalty card which benefited from a £700 spend last night Went to karaoke afterwards as someone thought that would be a good idea. In truth it was kind of fun, everyone belting out really shit songs and so on - am now quite hungover though...

I have never thought about this, but I used to sleep on my side up until my rhinitis made it generally impossible to do so. I think I 'mastered' sleeping on my back by getting to a point where I was literally so tired that my body had no other choice. That said, I think it only took the one night... As for feet, they lean off to each side. As interesting as that has been to consider, why on earth are you asking this

Wtf is that about Sissoko being like Viera wasn't Viera more of a Roy Keane enforcer type player? With character and such. Unlike Sissoko... Did Sissoko come up with that comparison? Sounds like something he'd say.

I'm pretty left wing, even though I'd argue it's not in my interests to be. I put it down to being raised Catholic, which means I'm naturally predisposed to feeling guilty and like I'm not contributing enough. I voted Corbyn. I agree with a lot of what he says. I would previously have identified as centre ground, but over the years I've become much more cynical of Labour. I don't think they'll end up back in power in this form, I actually suspect they'll split, but they can't keep going on fighting the Tories for the centre. Osborne and Cameron are the true heirs to Blair.

The reality is, we'll lose all three. To be honest, I wouldn't begrudge the club ignoring this. It's one thing when we're midtable and achieving nothing, it's another thing to risk relegation over the FA Cup.

In the cold light of the following day, I must concede that it is a fairly dismal post. I dunno though, I don't think this result tells us anything new about the team. They're highly selective in games they'll bother playing in, and I don't think McClaren has any ability to influence that. As such, for most of the season, we're going to be utter shit.

They're just totally obsessed with what everyone else thinks of them. The number of threads they have dedicated to various people in the wider footballing community who have said something mildly critical of Sunderland at some point is truly bizarre. If we did that we'd have twice the number of topics in the NUFC forum... I guess the truth is that when someone, anyone, pays attention to them, it's meaningful. Which is really sad.

That said, I'm glad it wasn't another hammering. The difference presumably being that the team actually tried today.

As pleasing as it was to check the result and find that we had actually not lost this game, it doesn't change anything for me, materially. We're still shit, and but for a lucky deflection and a bizarre decision from the officials, we'd have likely drawn or lost this. I would actually suggest that the fact we went a full half of football without conceding was the most encouraging thing - but I wonder if that wasn't just down to Liverpool not being arsed? Anyway, what surprised me about this was that I hate Liverpool, and I just barely cared that we won. There was a flicker of excitement at the scoreline but it was caught up very quickly by the act of remembering how generally shit we are and all that's wrong with the club. I recall thinking I was over the emotion before the Norwich game, but that brought me all the way back again because it felt like we might be turning a corner. The bitter reality of what followed that, though, makes me hugely opposed to getting anything approaching my hopes up. This result does nothing for me in the overall scheme of things this season; if we get a result against Spurs, beat Villa, and start picking up some decent players in January, I'll probably come back around. Until that, 2-0 vs Liverpool is more likely another false dawn than anything of any real significance.