Billy Whitehurst

We desperately need a number 10. Perez and Diame are both shite in there.

Made by Sondico, I think that might be one of Ashley's bampy brands.

2 points from Reading, Fulham, and Birmingham is pretty fucking poor. Mind you, that's the worst starting 11 we've had for a long time (excluding the cups, obviously). This 2 week break has come at the right time. Hopefully Rafa can sort it out in the next week or so. Colback has been on 9 yellows for a while. Let's hope he picks up a 10th against Burton so he is suspended for Sheff Wed and Leeds.

We need to start playing 2 up top in home games. There is no way we are going to play through teams with shite like Colback and Diame in the middle. At least having a good target man like Murphy or Mitrovic alongside Gayle gives us an option.

It sounds like we've been awful. If we're going to lump it long then we may as well play two up front. There's about as much point to Diame as there is to Colback.

He certainly looks a better option.

Fucking hell. Finally, his shit touch comes through for us.

He hasn't put a foot right.

Hughton has done a brilliant job at Brighton. He did a great job with us, Birmingham, and Norwich too. He has also gone about it with great humility. He's one of the good guys and also a very good manager. I wasn't suggesting that we have a divine right to beat Brighton, which we clearly don't as Hughton has built a cracking team and made some shrewd signings. The point I was making was that I'd get far more pleasure from us winning The Championship than I would from us getting back to The Premier League. That's why I don't want to finish second.

I'd be really disappointed if we went up in 2nd place. This squad will be awful in the Premier League and I don't believe Ashley will spend anywhere near the amount required to make us decent. If we go up, I can see us being dire but at least we might have won the league the previous season.

Aye, he looks fucking shite at the moment and, add to that, is a red card waiting to happen. I'd start Murphy although he's not up to much either.

I hope they go down. There is one available spot alongside Sunderland and Palace.

I think they need someone who builds from the back as they've been shite, defensively, for years. They're a well run club, have loads of money and are the sort of club to give a manager time. Maybe Simeone or someone like that. The fans would have to get used to a different type of football but they put up with it in the George Graham era. I think Pochettino would be ideal but there are precisely two chances of that happening.

I've always liked Wenger and think he has done wonders not just for Arsenal but English football as a whole. However, I think his time is up at Arsenal. This sort of thing happens year after year, they just fucking crumble. He should get out now while his reputation is still more or less in tact.

I like the lad but his finishing is shite and his temperament makes him a liability at times. Can't see him ever making it at the top level, sadly.

Not at all Noelle, I love your chat. We just appear to have different expectations. This probably stems from the fact that you've supported us when we have actually won things whereas I started during the mid 80s when the likes of George Reilly, Tony Cunningham and Billy Whitehurst quickly dampened my expectations.

Disgraceful and appalling, any more? Disgraceful and appalling is how I would describe our capitulations against Sunderland, Southampton away, and pretty much all of those games we used to lose by three clear goals under Pardew. I'd probably use those words to describe the attitude of the likes of Sissoko and Owen when they used to play for us. This performance, and the attitude of the players, was a million miles away from that. It was a poor performance but we dug in. Lascelles, Clark and Yedlin were excellent and, defensively, Dummett had one of his better games (the less said about the other side of his game, the better). We've ground out a 1-0 win away from home against a team who beat us at home earlier in the season and who recently beat Liverpool at Anfield. We're top of The Championship, no La Liga. We're in The Championship because we aren't very good, we're just a bit better than the dross around us.

It was a poor game, and we probably didn't do ourselves justice, but to describe us as being disgraceful is completely ridiculous. Shelvey and Ritchie didn't offer much so we didn't have much going forward as they are our only creative players. However, we defended really well and hardly gave them any clear cut chances. All of our defence put in a right shift. We were very resilient and we haven't been able to say that very often over the last few years.

I think we can all agree that the game of football was the loser here. Excellent defending though, and thank fuck we had Darlow and not flapper Sels. I pity the neutrals who sat through that.

Aye, he passed with flying colours. Didn't we sell Williamson to Wolves? I wonder why he's not playing, he'd fit in perfectly into this match.

It's particularly bad in The Championship.

Aye, that's what I was thinking when I was reading that.

Couldn't agree more.

Same with me. Naturally, I want us to win the league but I'm not sure I want to go back to being shite in The Premier League. This window has taught us that, if we do get promoted, Ashley will spend the bare minimum to get us 17th spot and secure the TV money. We'll struggle around the bottom for a few seasons, Rafa will leave and we'll get relegated again. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a season as much as this one.

Aye, I had to double check that myself! Three games in four seasons, he was eventually below Tony Caig in the pecking order. I suspect they would also have stuck Shola in nets ahead of him.