Elma

That was always my favourite option for the shirt back. I had that with a homemade Lee - 7 patch. Much smarter than red numbers and/or huge white patches in my opinion.

Quite a few draws too.

Our record there is very good. I've stopped travelling away as much as I used to in my younger days, but I've never seen us lose there. Prior to about 2014 (I think) we hardly ever dropped a point there. The last ten years or so has been a bit more mixed, but it's certainly not a bogey ground.

I'm not going to call Leicester out. The only fans who really know what's going on are fans of the club who watch every game. We had fans of other teams calling us out on Bruce, saying "he kept you up, what do you expect?", without appreciating the other issues at play, such as style of play, in game subs, general tactics etc. As @Yorkie said, I like Leicester. I hope they appoint well and stay up.

Also worthy of note - Barrow bottom of the League Two form table over the last ten games (1-3-6, six points) as well as going out of the cup under Stephen Clemence. Conceding a load of late goals.

Long way off but I wouldn't be surprised to see Murphy back for this. He's the most natural for the right side, gives Gordon's hip issue a bit longer, and with both full-backs unlikely to appear for England would mean only Bruno and Isak coming back from actual playing-time international duty into the starting line-up. I guess it depends on whether Gordon stays with England and gets any minutes/proves his fitness.

We can hit two birds with one stone here - David Coote to host MOTD. "And now we go to The London Stadium for West Ham v Liverpool…c'mon you f*cking happy Hammers, f*ck the Scouse b@stards up. Commentary by Jonathan Pearce."

I just don't think Villa have clicked this season, much like us until the last few games. They have been struggling with trying to fit all of their best players into the starting eleven. They were lucky to beat both Everton and Wolves at home and only took a point at Ipswich. They did look much better against Liverpool, despite the loss. This time last year we were at Bournemouth having just come back from Dortmund with no striker, two keepers, Ritchie, Parkinson and Alex Murphy on the bench. As far as I'm aware Villa currently have four injured, three of which are due back next game. Champions League and the travel it involves does take it out of you, but they've had a relatively easy set of games so far (Bayern aside) and certainly haven't the injury issues we had. Looking back, Eddie performed wonders last year.

Am presuming Jim Ratcliffe hasn't had the gall to complain about Amorim's visa delay?

We don't play Southampton till end of Jan so should be good.

There's just been a knacker on 6-0-6* saying he's unhappy with Howe and wants Jose in. *I know, I know - I only had it on while I was in the kitchen.

Mate of mine did it at school diving to take a superb catch in rounders on a concrete playground. Doubt that's how he did it like.

Lovely to be able to rightly call the ref a knob from a position where fans of other sides can't say it's sour grapes. ‎

Hall and Willock been the pick of that first half for me. Annoying that they've been handed the goal and the perfect position to counter attack from by a combination of an incorrect ref call and poor defending.

That interview has been on at least three times across the weekend now too.

Any issue with Krafth? Seems strange having both Targett and Kelly on the bench if Krafth were fit?

I don't think they've played well for most games this season (like us) and results have started to catch up with them. They were lucky to beat both Everton and Wolves at home and Ipswich could have done them at Portman Road. To be honest, tonight was one of their better performances I thought. They could easily have taken something.

It won't be an easy game and our away form doesn't help. However, the game against Arsenal was the first time I've felt we were close to our 22-23 levels, and also the first game this season that Isak really clicked (and I'm not just talking about his goal). Forest actually have a fairly average home record despite their lofty position. Anything can happen of course, but I'm more confident ahead of tomorrow than I've been for some weeks.

Yep - just seen that and edited. Think VAR would have overturned that mind.

Yeah, good advantage but if I were a Liverpool fan I think I'd rather have the red card than the goal this early in the game. Edit: Just seen that Coote didn't even think it was a foul so no advantage was actually played (although I think VAR would have intervened had Nunez not scored).

Thought they'd made some decent signings and would be troubling the top eight this season. Then heard Lopetegui speak before the game today, and he made Moyes sound inspiring.

Surely that kind of midfield versatility just makes him ideal as Schär's replacement?

Considering how he seemed to damage it, came back early, and then admitted defeat in March, and that Lascelles did his just two weeks later but isn't anywhere near coming back, would it be possible it wasn't a normal ACL 'complete tear' for Botman and just some sort of damage? I'm just a layman but both Tino and Krafth were out for circa 350 days with theirs, so this 9-10 month return seems strange?

That's kind of my point. We may have been better against Sunderland and Norwich (the early big, six-pointers) had we had more games and time on the training pitch under Rafa prior to those fixtures. I mean we still got those points against Liverpool and Spurs, and should have had two more against Man City, were it not for an horrendous offside call. We were getting better as the season went on. I know Rafa thought two more games would have done it.

I'd have to disagree. The way we played under Rafa he needed a few weeks to really drill it into the players. You can see from the fifth game from where we went 3-3-0 including points against Man City and Liverpool, and that win against Spurs. We were flying. Imagine having 18 uninterrupted days on the training pitch and your first two games being Stoke and Bournemouth after that. Hard not to imagine we wouldn't have picked up three more points.