Merrick's Marvels

True and that's the spirit in which we all should approach Tuesday. Except... we're nowhere near as good as we were in Jan 2018 so you're not comparing like with like. Fingers crossed, though!

My missus said this, watching the Lionesses game in the week. She know understands why I come home with vertigo after home games.

Brilliant. Does Nige buy any car? Either way, love him. Tune as well (for those old enough)!

We've triggered our year option already. Surely. Unlucky Inter!

Please let there be video ?

Nige wants a team with forwards who can lead the press from high up the pitch. Chris Martin no longer had the legs. We replaced him with a forward, Cornick, who does. We now have legs and energy - as well as goals - whoever is available up front.

Don't worry, he's on borrowed time. This time next year he's history.

A new season is a fresh start, the slate wiped clean. So hypothtically of course, but... Start of next season, our centre backs are Kalas, Vyner, Atkinson, Naismith, new signing. You pick on ability and go from there over the season. So Kalas and Atkinson start, for me. All hypothetical as of today.

Up the City!

Believe me, I don't take anything you say seriously - which is your USP. Just don't tell others not to bother turning up though, just because you don't agree with their point of view - unless you make it obvious you're "only joking".

If Kalas stays (a big IF), Vyner will be in the extraordinary position of winning Player of the Year and then not being a first choice the following season. Which is as it should be. Afterthought - Atkinson won't be fit by August, so Vyner and Kalas it is (hopefully).

Disappointed. If you're allowed to pepper thread after thread with flippant comments in an attempt at look-at-me "humour", why can't others say what they feel, too??

We cannot afford him. But boy would it be great to keep him. Is crowdfunding allowed??

Indeed we are. Because we struggle to keep possession against Luton, Swansea, Millwall etc. Which begs the question, are we capable of retaining the ball at all against one of the best teams in the world? As far as I can tell, we won't have anything to counter attack with unless several of our lot have the game of their lives, far beyond anything we've seen them produce so far. Who knows, they may surprise us yet but I can see it being a bit like the one way traffic in the Lionesses game the other night.

"O'Neills have said I can keep my crayons".

Nostalgia's all we've got left, my friend ?

Correct. Perhaps we could borrow Semenyo for the evening - would be a different game if we still had him.

Pray, pray and pray again? I think that would just highlight how few of our current team would get into the one riding high in the Championship in Jan 2018. That team was playing football from another planet compared to this one. When all is done and dusted, I suspect our results in 2023 against Man City, compared to those in 2018, will only tell us what we already know - it's been 5 years of decline. Nor can we let the effort we put into this cup tie affect our league form in the way it did in 2018. Ordinarily, a glamour home tie, live on the telly, in the 5th round of the FA Cup, is something to be savoured but this season it feels to me like an unnecessary distraction from the vital business at hand. And imagine this - Kalvin Phillips strolls through the game with Alex Scott in his back pocket - suggesting our wonderkid ain't all that, sending his value plummeting and thus reducing our summer transfer plans to tatters! I now await comrade @REDOXO's reply - "That's the spirit!" So perhaps it will be Alex Scott keeping Kalvin Phillips in his back pocket as he leads the home team to a famous victory. That's the spirit!

Hope this means we get rid of the god awful grey kit.

Ryley Towler.

Not sure I agree they were the same odds 5 years ago - our team was way better back then, while Man City have hardly deteriorated. But yes, I'll see you there and we shall cheer our team on together ?

Indeed. Let's hope they go easy on us and pick some of their bench fillers - you know, like England's Kalvin Phillips and Phil Foden, plus the kid who started at centre forward for Argentina in the World Cup Final.

Plenty of Reds still here, mate. You just won't see us round and about embarrassing ourselves wearing crapkit and desperate for someone to validate our shit lives by telling us we're their favouritist team ever. Although I must say the price of a chai latte and vegan croissant on East Street is an absolute outrage these days, darling. East Street! The game's gone, I tell ya.

Not payments to referees. Payments to a company owned by a former vice president of Spain's referees committee. So say, payments for video analysis of referees' performances - in much the same way our video nerds analyse opposition left backs, goalies, strikers etc. So say. Yes, sounds fishy. But no evidence of payments to referees. Yet.

I admire your optimism. Or put it another way, what difference does it make who we pick, when the game will be decided by who they pick? If they rest a load, we have a squeak. If they rest a load but pick Haaland, we're in trouble. If they pick a half decent team, it'll be like shooting fish in a barrel and won't matter a jot what formation we line up in. Anyway, COYR!