It depends if Leao is back for the second leg. He blows hot and cold, but when he's on form he is unstoppable. I see him as Milans only chance of a comeback.

I'd like Luton to go up. They are consistent and purely looking at next season, they are the one team I'm certain would be occupying the playoff places again. Sunderland I'm sure would go full Mowbray, Boro are made up of great loan players, Coventry will struggle to replace Gyokeres.

It will be good to see. He's got bite, he's brave on the ball and a very intelligent player. He's been brilliant at right back and overall I think we've coped defensively when he's gone roaming, but it would be naive to say that him doing so doesn't make us defensively weaker. I think back to two of the goals we conceded vs Stoke. Both were finished after a cross into our left back position. Neither were the fault of JRC but his positioning does pull the whole defensive unit across to the right. It's also good to see after just one half there JRC also has an awareness around his weaknesses in centre mid and his lack of ego means he's happy to be open about the need to improve there. He's one of my favorite players and I think it could be a positive move.

Pretty poor showing from us. Thought Gillsenan looked decent on the ball but not involved nearly enough. Batty tried hard. Apart from that we just passed it back and forth without ever threatening. A side note. Time wasting and a complete lack of sporting behaviour looked even worse at youth level than senior football. Not that we looked like creating much anyway but the amount of time Brentford wasted was unbelievable. Thought the referee was terrible in controlling it. Then there was an occasion where Eastham had the ball in his hands and was literally being kicked and shoved by two Brentford players. None of it looked like men against boys stuff, just pure petulance with a weak referee. Considering the level it just demonstrated to me even more how much of a slight on the game all these 'spoiling tactics' are. Something the authorities simply have to get a grip of. It ruins football as a spectacle. As I said though, I don't think it affected the result. We looked toothless.

The big thing which is mentioned in this article is that he apparently has the option of an additional year as part of his current contract. A new long term deal should still be an immediate priority but its extremely comforting to know he effectively has 2 years remaining on his deal rather than 1.

Reading between the lines I think we knew this anyway. Jdt has talked openly about the mess in January. Personally I do not think he'll walk, but would absolutely be keen to listen to any offers. It does put us in a precarious position. I think the chances are that a big club coming in for him are less than 50%, however what would be even worse is we start next season well and he's in the shop window for the early season merry-go-round. My betting is we'd be totally unprepared for that eventuality.

Anybody notice that Luton rested half their first team in their final match vs Hull. But not against us 😐

Think I pretty much called that result. Just that the swashbuckling part didn't happen until Sunderland were making the playoffs impossible

I've not a clue what to expect. I could just as easily see us put in a swashbuckling first half performance and be 3-0 up at the break. We'd all be sitting there scratching our heads and wondering what could have been. One thing I'm sure of though, is come the final whistle, we won't be in the playoffs.

I'm not sure Big Sam would describe his brain as small. He's got the biggest, all knowing brain the footballing world has ever seen.

I like Big Sam. He's great entertainment. You know he was saying it for a reaction and a bit tongue in cheek, however you'd be naive to say there isn't a small part of him that believes that statement. To be fair to him, his record has stood the test of time but he has become synonymous with a certain brand of football and being the relegation escape artist of football. I'd have loved to have seen him given a good crack at managing an elite club to try and back up some of his bluster. I think he'd have failed miserably, but it would have been great to watch.

I can only speak for myself but I've always enjoyed your contribution to the board. Felt its always reasoned, non antagonistic and I enjoy the outside perspective. This messageboard has always been richer with the views from opposition fans, so personally I'd hope you continue to post. Speaking of which, Ffan from Fulham was a poster I used to particularly enjoy hearing from a few years back. Life always needs a variety of perspectives.

I agree with those saying we need a couple of nasty players who through force of will can drag us back into games. The other thing I think we're missing, of equal importance is a bit of individuality. We play in set patterns because we have a lack of flair. A player who can take their man on and pull others out of position. Without that, it becomes very easy to defend against us and is no surprise that the only players in with a shout for player of the season were defenders. We desperately need that player with a nasty streak and knowhow in the middle, 2 wingers who can take their man on and a striker to put the ball in the net. Not an easy task, but doable with a couple of smart loans.

An utterly mind blowing study here as well. Using a gpt trained model to analyse human thoughts. The study had subjects listening to narrative stories and silent movies and the model had to transcribe their thoughts into text. The results: Perceived speech: (listening to a recording) 72% - 82% accurate Imagined speech: (subjects mentally narrated a 1 minute story) 41% - 74% accurate Silent movie: 21% - 45% accurate https://www.artisana.ai/articles/gpt-ai-enables-scientists-to-passively-decode-thoughts-in-groundbreaking

In the main I've been using it to make me a lot quicker in my job. But I've also had some fun with it. Here's Eminem complaining about his gas and electricity bill Yo, I got this fuckin' bill, man, it's driving me crazy, It's like they're tryna swindle goddamn Slim Shady. I checked the digits, once, twice, maybe thrice, And I'm telling you now, this shit ain't playing nice. I got the gas and electric, the power I use, But the numbers you're claiming got me singin' the blues. I ain't no fool, won't be played by your fuckin' game, You think I don't notice, man, that's just fuckin' lame. My meter was read, I did it myself, Put the numbers together, no tricks on the shelf. But your estimate's off, it's way out of line, You better recalculate or I'mma lose my fuckin' mind. I'm callin' you out, it's time to make right, Fix the mistake, man, I won't sleep tonight. This ain't the way you should treat a loyal fuckin' customer, Gimme some respect, or I'll find another fuckin' hustler. I expect a response, a correction with speed, Or I'll take my business where they'll pay some fuckin' heed. Don't mess with Eminem, no, don't play that game, You'll feel the fury, as I bring the fuckin' flame.

Add in that at some point in the afternoon we'll be sitting in the promotion spots and suddenly believing. Only for it all to flip on its head by the end. We'll concede a late goal or Sunderland will mount a magical comeback.

Exactly this. We often see people stating the bids we received last summer were unsatisfactory, however there are conversations happening daily during transfer windows. Us stating we wanted north of £20million ("a fee which would eclipse what AA went for") would have stopped many clubs bids before they were even scribbled on a scrap of paper. If our price had been set at around £15million, its a figure clubs may have come to the table and negotiated. Its only an opinion and there's no way of knowing, but I'm sure a club would have stretched to at least £12million if they thought there was a possibility of a deal being done. People point to him still being our top scorer this season. Even if only a small portion of that were reinvested I'm sure his goals would have been replaced, and replaced long term, not just for this season.

In the league he's averaged a goal once every 574 minutes since the world cup. If I want to skew the stats a little he's averaged a goal from open play once every 861 minutes since the world cup. That's a goal every 9.5 games! Extrapolate that form over the season and he'd score a total of 4 goals. People moan about Gallagher, myself included, however he's been twice the player Brereton has for the majority of this season.

I've not turned the telly off thinking wow, that Luton lot are a good team. I'm not saying we played them off the park, but I don't think anybody watching that game could really say Luton impressed them.

Luton were very poor but just did what they needed to do. We looked clueless once we went behind. Didn't think we had a hope in hell until Carter popped up and then so unlucky in injury time again with Szmodics rattling the bar. It's painful how much we're lacking a striker. Brereton was shocking once again. Even if he didn't have a contract elsewhere, I'd be dubious about offering him a new one.

Any combination of Diaz off and Dolan over to the left will do for me. Be that Leonard, Szmodics or Dack up top.

Had hoped Luton would rest a few players today. No real surprises with our line up.

Joao Pedro has just been sold to Brighton for £30million. He's talented but is he really that good? We can all see what Whartons trajectory will be. £30 - £40million is the lowest amount that we should even begin talking to other clubs. You see Real Madrid doing it all the time with Brazilian clubs. They'll buy their young stars for anywhere between £30 to £70 million. We're not little old Blackburn Rovers who should be grateful for any offers. We've got a potential superstar in our ranks. Other clubs can absolutely do one if they think they can come in and low ball us. Even if Wharton doesn't fulfill his potential he's clearly a Premier League standard player. The going rate for any player at that level isn't far off £20million anyway so that amount of money is fairly risk free for a Premier League club. Just because it's a lot of money to us, doesn't mean we should all of a sudden start accepting well below market value. I don't care if we could rebuild our squad for £20million. We could rebuild far better for £40million. If nobody wants to pay that, then that's fine. When he shoots us to the Premier League they'll have to cough up £80million once he shows the world what we all know he is capable of.

By Tom Lockyer. Good defender, total thug. If Luton go up he's the type of player who will really struggle. No way he'll be able to get away with his thuggery in the Prem.

Mowbray is a dinosaur. He's got a very good squad at Sunderland. If things are going well, Mowbray is quite good at riding the wave because he gives the players so much responsibility. He let's them go out there and do their thing and allows them to run the dressing room. When things are not going well Tony is a bloody nightmare. At the time where the players really need a manager he goes missing, insular, stubborn, blaming everyone but himself. These are observations but the results back this up. He's horrendous at turning things around when things go south. Given the quality of Sunderlands squad its no surprise to see them in the mix. But Tony was an average manager when he was here and that's not changed overnight.