I actually rate him as one of our better players. He'll be on a relative pittance currently and as with all our better players in recent times we won't be offering him enough to entice him to re-sign. If he does leave as seems likely you can bet your bottom dollar the replacement won't be as good. But at least "Hedgy" will no doubt re-sign and do the square root of naff all for a further two years so happy days.

Wasn't wrongly chalked off. The ball deflected off the defender therefore it doesn't count. Stupid rule. I agree on Dolan though he was sensational first half.

That's very weird. You could understand it maybe if he was a former superstar as a player and carried some gravitas within the game due to that, but he's never really done anything of note. He's a bit of a laughing stock here as well due to the circumstances under which he was sacked from our Club before his career had ever really got off the ground.

3 last season. If someone is constantly injured then they're no use. You might as well sign me at age 61. Whether he might actually have scored many more if available more often is also a fairly moot point - he didn't score in his last 14 games or so for the Club I don't think. Whist Gueye is far from the greatest player I'd summarise it by saying he doesn't score enough but is a handful for the opposition. Gallagher didn't score enough and wasn't a nuisance for the opposition. As a side issue, Gallagher also cost £5m and was on £15/£16k p.w. Gueye cost around £1m and will be on a much lower wage. Small steps but ones in the right direction.

I'd swap Hedges for ACD and attempt to get at least two goals clear by the hour mark at which point changes could be made if any of them are suffering from fatigue due to the schedule.

That's exactly how I'd like him to be. He has the talent to be far more influential imo. He ought to be dictating games. The table posted above is fairly telling - pro rata he's behind the likes of JRC and Weimann (who have played far fewer minutes) and the much maligned Dolan.

Hedges, 2 goal involvements in 1363 minutes of play and some people think he should still get a new deal.

I wouldn't really say he's made "a good start" he doesnt score enough, but he's got a bit of potential, at his best he's a real nuisance for the opposition defence. I'd contrast that with Gallagher who similarly didn't score enough and wasn't a nuisance either.

Cantwell didn't just fade during the last ten minutes (which would be understandable) though did he? Might as well leave it there as we obviously won't agree on this.

Not sure why you are being sarcastic or condoning his fairly obvious lack of fitness.

You sign Gallagher and Ennis, you deserve all you get. What salaried professional could possibly think that was a good idea? A prime example of the Sporting Director/DOF model not working in quite spectacular fashion.

Needs to get properly fit then doesn't he?

That's the most sensible analysis on the point I've seen. Wasn't it Sir Alf who said that if you had a system you had to pick the players to suit the system and not the other way round. On the contrary as far as we go, we don't have the luxury of picking from the best players in the Country to fit into a certain system so you'd have thought we'd have to adapt our tactics to whoever is on the pitch. On balance you'd have thought that Gueye would benefit from us getting down the outside of the opposition and putting crosses in. Maybe Leonard too if he's sniffing around looking for knockdowns. Ohashi wouldn't.

I too thought that, although he worked hard, apart from being in the right place at the right time for the goal, Ohashi was completely ineffective. Now I've always said that if a striker scores, he's done his job and it doesn't really matter what the rest of his game is like and I'll stick by that but it's the games where he doesn't score that are the problem - and he hasn't scores for months prior to yesterday. It's a real conundrum how to get a worthwhile tune out of Gueye/Ohashi. It would be nice to think Leonard might provide part of the solution.

It was difficult to tell if it was going in from the sideways angle on Sky but he didn't half leather it goal wards and it was unfortunately blocked by the defender. First time I've seen him connect with a shot properly. Lol.

Whose fault is that? You say that like it's acceptable for him only to be fit enough to play one half.

I think Gueye and Leonard could be useful together. I've said this before about Cantwell but for me he needs to start doing a lot more in terms of goals and assists. He just flits round the periphery of the game not really affecting it imo.

He wouldn't. You know what I mean - an intentional attempt to play the ball as opposed to an inadvertent deflection.

I wouldn't like to see Leonard go out on loan. If he can stay fit who would you fancy to score more goals between now and the end of the season? Leonard or Gueye/Ohashi? That's irrespective of anyone else coming in.

The offside was discussed briefly on here yesterday at the time. I thought the laws had been changed some time ago so that it had to be an intentional pass or attempt at a pass by the defender to count. Can one of our resident rules experts confirm or dismiss that?

They should fine him a week's wages for that. Playing "dinosaur tactics". Whatever next. Ditto Brittain for going down the outside of Sunderland's defence on his natural side to put in the cross which was knocked back for Leonard's goal.

What do you do if anyone gets injured? We have a couple of glaring deficiencies in the starting X1 to fill first.

Was only asking because I didn't know the actual ST number. I wasn't trying to catch you out. Personally I don't think 18k home fans is that much to crow about - but then again under this regime and given we have so few ST holders - may be it is.

Is that the ST number? 8,900?

Yes but Beck is way way better than Pickering anyway. We need a Hedges replacement and a decent striker before back up players.