Cronky

Whoa now. Check out a clip on YouTube where he’s the first guy in the Man City team who notices that a little girl in a presentation group is blind. The best I’ve seen Grealish perform is when he was given a free role in the England team. Maybe he’s underused out wide. Eddie has a knack of turning round careers and if he wants him, that’s good enough for me.

I agree, good player though Elanga is. Mbeumo would offer us something different. He's left-footed and has a great touch on the ball. Maybe needs to shed a kilo or two but I daresay Eddie would sort that.

Whilst I don't like siding with the enemy, and I think it's great that Big Dan is having such a fantastic climax to his career, I didn't see him as team of the year material at all. There's a reason why centre back is one of our top priorities in the next transfer window. He lacks pace, he's cumbersome on the ball and although his height means he wins a lot of headers, he's not actually as good in the air as you might expect. Getting that bulky 6foot 6inch frame off the ground is not easy. Stick a 5foot 9inch South American midfielder in front of him and he'll clean up, of course. He does well because of his strength and his experience, but also because of Eddie's amazing way of organising our defending in general. The abiding wonder for me over the last 3 years has been how few goals we concede, despite the limitations of many individual players. As for Fernandes, he never even popped into my head as a candidate, which is unfair because he is a very good player. There's something annoying about both him and his club though.

Alisson Aina Murillo Van Dijk Gvardiol Caicedo Oedegaard Rogers Saka Isak Eze I found it interesting that there were other Arsenal players that I could easily have included - Gabriel, Saliba, Lewis-Skelly. That team has massively under-achieved.

One more win and we're there.

I'll be relieved if and when we get a second. Chelsea have still got a goal in them. Overall though, a tactical masterclass from Eddie. Too many players get away with these accidentally-on-purpose elbows to the face. It's difficult for refs to spot, because players can make it look like they're assisting their jump. In this case, Jackson was nowhere near subtle enough.

McCoist is talking shite. That's 100% a red.

Burn wouldn't be mobile enough.

He's fielding three wide attacking players and I think the main puzzle is how they're all going to fit in. I can't envisage Gordon in midfield because he can't tackle. I'm assuming Murphy, as the best tackler of the three, will go into midfield. Barnes is a good athlete and I could imagine him as a wing back, but whether he's played there before I don't know. Maybe Schar will be pushed forward to do a job on Palmer, like he did against Arsenal with Rice.

It's hard to predict the formation. I think he'll go for a 3-5-2 with Tino and Barnes as wing backs, Murphy, Tonali and Bruno in midfield, Isak and Gordon up front. I could be completely wrong of course, but it's encouraging to see the old Eddie Howe grey matter in action. It's the latest in any number of games since Eddie arrived where I've looked at the opposition and thought that we're done for. Somehow, it doesn't turn out like that, and I think we'll win. I've learned my lesson.

I've had a check, and there are some stats to back that up. From 1888 to 1998, only one 18 year old played for England - Duncan Edwards, in 1955, and he was built like a public convenience. Since Michael Owen broke Edwards' modern record in 1998, we've had four 17 year olds in Walcott, Rooney, Bellingham and Sterling, as well as many other teenagers. As the game has become less physical over the years, so younger players have been able to break through earlier. But in this season in particular, I've become very conscious of how well some of these very young players are faring. The expression on their faces (eg Nwaneri) indicate that they're not overawed. On the dangers, yes I think we've seen Wilshere and (to some extent) Rooney having their careers spoiled by over-use. In those examples I think they were rushed back early after injury. If managers can resist that temptation, then players ought to be able to have long careers.

I've not come across an article on this, but it seems to me that we now have more and more teenagers breaking into the first teams of major clubs. Last night, there was a 16 year old starting for Chelsea. 17 year old Yamal already looks like one of the best players in the world. Nwaneri at Arsenal looks completely at home in that level of football. There are so many other examples of this. I can only think that the training of young players, (which now seems to start at a much earlier age than before), is now able to develop raw talent more quickly and thoroughly. It may be just my impression, but a lot of these players seem to be of African heritage.

I don't think we deserve to be behind. Brighton haven't looked that dangerous. I thought it was a really poor bit of defending from Tonali for their goal. He seemed to half turn his back. It looked very tentative. We're by no means out of it though.

I've had a look at the last four fixtures for the teams 3rd to 7th, and I would predict - 3rd Man City 71 points, 4th NUFC 69 points, 5th Forest 68 points, 6th Villa 67 points, and Chelsea 7th on 65. Forest and Villa look to have the easiest run-ins. Must say, it's nice to look at the closing fixtures with a view to the Champions League rather than avoiding relegation.

Got to get it off my chest regardless - is there a more boring pundit than Alan Shearer? Always stating the obvious at the top of his voice in the most long-winded way.

I would say that we were a team on the decline, and a momentum like that is difficult to turn round. Sir Bob did that, and more. It's extraordinary that so many supporters turned against him and he was sacked after three successive top five finishes. We paid a heavy price for that. The detailed story of those events would make an interesting read.

Villa are a very good side with strength in depth, and all logic suggests that a draw would be a good result. However, at the moment we're approaching every game like we're invincible. They conquer who believe they can.

I beg to differ. Without getting into all the debates about a combined XI, they have several players that would easily compete for places in our team - Dalot, Maguire (yes), Shaw, Diallo, Ugarte, Mainoo, Garnacho, Zirkzee, Hojland, Fernandez, Diallo, De Ligt, Martinez. Our squad is just playing above their normal individual abilities. Their squad is playing below. It's easy to forget that they won the FA Cup last season, and finished 3rd in the league the season before. Things seem to have gone particularly downhill since they instituted this crazy ownership / management model and Ratcliffe came in. He made a balls-up of the most important decision that a club has to make (ie the Team Manager). The rot sets in from the top, and the whole club looks like an unhappy and divided unit. (Unlike ours, tee hee)

Trevor Francis (great player, mediocre manager, for those too young) once said that you can't achieve anything without a happy dressing room. There's nothing wrong with their squad. It's the spirit that's the problem. It can't be a help to have a manager (and I think a captain) who keeps giving them the message that they're not good enough.

He's starting to play with a conviction that was lacking before. He's not the most refined of players but he's now using his power effectively.

He's a bit of a bore though. What he has to say could be said in a quarter of the time that he takes up. Underneath all the tearing of the hair was the main point though. Amorim lacks the experience and the confidence for the job at this time. I don't doubt his talent but there are horses for courses and this just isn't his course.

A nice but strange feeling that a 4-1 win against Man U feels routine. I don't think Amorim played it right at all. Unless Onana has had a total nervous breakdown, he should have been shoved back on his bicycle. The league is no longer important for them, and the manager has just given his player a vote of no confidence. Garnacho seemed to brush past Amorim's offer of a handshake when he was subbed. He's a dangerous player and I was glad to see him go off. I suspect that Amorim has pissed him off and he'll be playing elsewhere next season.

Yeah, whatever it is, he should give himself the time for a full recovery. I'm assuming it's a virus, and the after-effects can linger. He gives so much of himself to his work, and perhaps he needs a proper break.

I wonder whether he had the flu and, being Eddie, didn't take time off work when he should have done.

If ever there was job that has buried reputations it's the England one. There's lots to unpick with the Clough - Ferguson comparison, and obviously in terms of trophies won, there's no comparison at all. But Eddie is operating in a different environment, and one where it's never been more difficult for a club to make a breakthrough into the elite. Taking a club that is rooted on 92nd place in the League pyramid into the top division in such a short space of time is a unique achievement. We ourselves had been a wreck of a club for so much of the last 70 years, with the fans, the manager and the owners regularly at odds, and when Eddie took over we looked trapped in the same cycle. We looked like we were going to go down with about 20 points, and the speed and the extent of the turnaround has been quite incredible. But for me, the manager who springs most easily to mind in comparison to Eddie, is Clough. Now I know they were very different personalities, with different methods, but they both had a similar transformative effect. We've all seen the phenomenon in football whereby an individual player, or a team as a whole, can suddenly hit a sweet spot of form. It may only last for 20 minutes in a game, or for one game in three, but sometimes things just 'click'. That can be elusive and short-term, and the knack of football management is to achieve that for 90% of a game, and in 90% of games overall. Clough and Howe both show the ability to do that. They are both able to get far more out of a player and a team, on a regular basis, than you would expect. The recent final was only the latest example. We were affected by injuries and suspensions, and I was looking at the teams on paper, and thinking we were Donald Ducked. Only one or maybe two of our players (Isak, Bruno) would have got into their team. Many of them wouldn't have made their subs bench. I thought our only hope was to defend like crazy and nick a late goal. The game kicked off and the logical script went straight into the bin. I should have known better, because Eddie has defied the odds so many times. Murphy is a good case in point. We were thinking a while back that he was a Championship standard player. Well actually, he still is. He's just not playing like one. He's going out there, convinced that he belongs in that company, and that's half the battle. At the end, my reaction was similar to when Clough won those European Cups. To quote our Eurovision Song entry - What the hell just happened?