MK Dons can't.... it's more Man United have, MK Dons are a horrible club, I'm sorry but no history and bought a position in the league, should have started from the bottom. If ever I wanted both teams to lose it's tonight
Hard to argue with that... Celtic are having a good go at getting knocked out of the Champions League again as well... Can't imagine extra time is something anyone's particularly keen on this evening, come on Igor, get us a late winner.
83: we are getting battered now. Pope booked for time-wasting or handling outside the area? 87: 1 - 0 Calero. It was coming.
Think Pope booked for a foul outside the box... Annoying. But I'd rather get the 3 points and lose in the cup than vice-versa. Especially this cup.
And the almighty unbeaten record has gone. Not a cup run that will live particularly long in the memory... except maybe Lawrie Wilson's memory. What this does emphasise is that we have to rest players for these sorts of games, and we don't have a lot of depth, albeit it was most of the first team on the pitch when we conceded. Transfer window's gone very quiet in the past 2 weeks, that's got to be the focus before the end of the week.
Sounds like a typically uninspiring away cup performance from us then, though of course up against a decent side. At least we didn't suffer any injuries. Diego Poyet did indeed play the full 120 minutes at Upton Park tonight, and I thought he did OK but was nothing special. He sat very deep, trying to start moves from the back, and only once do I remember him making a forward run in open play. The whole West Ham team was somewhat lethargic and Poyet did little to help that, although it's not really his fault if the attackers aren't making runs into space. He therefore saw a lot of the ball without doing anything really decisive with it.
The "shallowness" is all in one area. Elsewhere we have cover, even though one can always wish for higher quality, but the striker situation is the big weakness. Most teams have four strikers competing for two, sometimes one, position. We only have one in serious contention. We need one decent one (like Delort might have been) and also a workhorse like Best. Plenty of those have changed hands for a million or less. No more than adequate, but would still improve our squad. What an incompetent piece of business to sell Kermorgant for a few hundred thousand.
Not too bothered about going out of the Fizzy Pop Cup, to be honest. The team proved last Saturday at Huddersfield that despite the good start it is still thin on the ground, we need reinforcements before concentrating on the league.
I don't see going out away to a good Derby side in a cup we never, ever EVER do well in as an especially bad result. That said, we were beaten, and after saturday, it emphasizes to me that we need more signings. There were points last night when it seemed as if all our players were called Bikey, so hat's off for what sounds like a very good signing. There are those who always say it's good to go out of this one early, and I have often been one of them, but this year, I'd have liked to see us go further, and maybe get a big name like MK Dons down to the Valley, but sadly not to be. On a happier note, after noting Derby's latest ground name-change, it's very nice to be able to refer to our ground as the Valley. That may well change one day, no one can see the future, but it's a small point where we have'nt yet sold out our heritage to big money.
