Dr Balls

Well clearly they have not seen him recently!

Do you think there is anybody in our squad who would get more than a 5 for corners? Why are we quite so bad at dead ball situations?

Thanks @DavefevsCan always count on you to correct me. My point still stands that while not being at Flint levels of goal scoring just yet, he is one of those central defenders who will score a few goals each season.

At the same age as Riley now (20), I don’t think Zak was pulling up trees. He had a lot of loans, some more successful than others. He has done well this year, in part because he has had to step up. Before this season , I don’t think anyone would have predicted Vyner in a centre back pairing being our preferred option. What Towler might also have over Vyner is goal-scoring ability. 3 already in League 1 this season for Ryley. Atkinson clearly has it, whereas Vyner doesn’t. Doesn’t make him better yet per se, but it’s an additional attribute.

I will give you that one for the goal but then I didn’t think it was offside at the time just that Pring was overloaded trying to cover both De Bruyne and Mahrez. However some of their other breaks in the 1st half were clearly offside but the linesman on the Lansdown side was 5-10 yards behind the play so didn’t give them. He also missed an obvious foul in the second half that was right in front of him. My observation is that the standard of assistant referees is even worse than the referees themselves. We have had very few good ones recently, with many unable to make a correct decision or even any decision about whose throw-in it should be.

I do wonder if he might turn out to be one “who got away” in terms of our Academy players who have broken thorough to the first team but then had restricted opportunities. Will he be a better player than Vyner in a couple of years’ time? Very likely I would suggest. And given our dearth of central defenders last night, the thought of Andy King coming on to replace an injured Kalas or Vyner, doesn’t bear thinking about.

Gave as good as he got and got under Foden’s skin to the extent of that lunge which got Foden yellow carded and left Sykes on the floor. My reasoning in Tanner getting pulled at half time and Sykes going to right back was because he had the pace to keep up with Foden, as per Pring with Mahrez on the left.

Other than knowing it’s a person who is likely to make a lot of money pretty soon, no.

He showed his international class tonight. For a significant proportion of the first half he was man-marking De Bruyne and keeping him out of the game. You have to be top class to do that. As for some of his reading of the game, his interceptions and his speed, he wouldn’t have looked out of place playing for them rather than us. The fact that he can so comfortably play as a left centre back when he is clearly right footed is also testament to his talent. Any chance we can keep him on next season we should try to pursue but I fear that is unlikely as other clubs may well be willing to pay a lot more for his services than we can now afford.

He had both Mahrez and De Bruyne to cover by himself. No left back at any level is going to manage that. I would guess that Cam was one of the players who surprised Guardiola tonight because when he only had Mahrez to mark, he actually kept him pretty quiet. That in itself is no mean feat.

What it showed tonight is that Kalas is an international centre back who happens to play in the Championship, as our most expensive ever transfer deal, while Zak is a Championship defender, who came through our academy and whose weaknesses, particularly in terms of distribution and ball control were exposed by one of the best teams on the planet. Fortunately he doesn’t often come up against such good opposition so it doesn’t matter so much.

I would venture that there were a lot less kids tonight and a lot more adults. That certainly makes a difference in terms of both atmosphere and the feeling of how many are in the ground.

Times are tough so maybe he needs the second job…

The clapping was spontaneous and about 30 seconds ahead of Downsy. No one wanted silence once we saw the picture of Motty, the clapping started, which Andre Marriner obviously realised so the only reason to blow his whistle was for it to stop and the game get started.

Lewis plays a really unusual role. A right back who going forward moves central rather than down the wing. For an 18 year old he is truly exceptional. As for KDB, form is temporary and age may have some effect, but class is permanent.

Written by Scott Murray who at least pays attention to and knows about the game outside of the Premier League.

I think Millwall will make the playoffs. Defensively strong, concede very few and no one likes going to their place to play. Personally I don’t want Watford to make the playoffs. Their ridiculous merry-go-round of managers is due a comeuppance even if that means Bilic is the latest victim of the system. Plus it reduces their parachute payments if they don’t go straight back up. Remember a few seasons back they sacked Nige with 2 games of the PL season to go after the disaster of Ranieri, got them a chance of staying up, and then they lost thev2 games after he was sacked and got relegated. Madness!

I don’t think Mehmeti is alone in this as a young player. Scott made a great run in the second half on the break that was just crying out for him to the play it out side to Mehmeti but instead he ran into traffic, tried to take on 2-3 defenders at the same time and lost the ball. It’s that fine line between confidence but retaining the vision and taking sensible options - although the latter doesn’t mean constantly passing it backwards to find a man in space !

Not bad as refs at this level go. He gave us a penalty for FFS!! He allowed a lot of physicality which in itself is fine, as long as there is consistency. The flip side to that was he didn’t give some pretty clear fouls by Hull, including quite a few challenges through the backs of players. As far as I recall only one yellow card given and that was for the assault on Pring by their sub defender, so at least that’s another week without a Scott yellow card. I can’t imagine that our game next weekend against Cardiff will only have one yellow!

Ours was more of a penalty than the one awarded to Preston today - that was a shocking decision and felt sorry for the Wigan goalie who was run into by the attacker but deemed to have fouled him just by being there.

And if you are really lucky you might even have access to ITV4+1 if you want to catch up with the first 25 minutes of Championship games you have missed rather than watching League One…

In the first half, he showed how good he is at reading the game. He just came across the 6 yard box at exactly the right time and put in an incredible block. It’s not just physical speed, it’s also mental speed and experience. Plus after Max played him into trouble in the first half, they had a little “chat”, probably along the lines of “don’t give me a hospital pass with 2 of their attackers on me, just play it long”, which is what many of us have wanted to say to Max before now with one or 2 of his unnecessarily risky passes at the back. Again the “voice of experience”.

To stand any chance of making the playoffs, we would have to win pretty much every match between now and playing Middlesbrough, because there don’t appear to be many wins likely in April. So the playoffs are not impossible but highly unlikely. And certainly more than 20/1. However, if we were to fail to reach the playoffs by 3 points or less, that first game refereeing debacle at Hull becomes even more important.

West Brom win would seem to be the best result for us. We have played them twice in the league already and a win now might revive their own promotion hopes, whereas a loss for Watford puts them at risk from everyone behind, even including us.

I meant Atkinson’s heading prowess up front. To be fair to Kalas, when he was taking all those attacking long throw ins, it was hardly his fault he couldn’t get his head on it as well!