Neil

It's ok. It takes a special kind of team to beat Arsenal and lose to Stoke. Agreed.

Moyes needs to deliver a fucking rocket up their arses at half-time. Cahill's sitter aside we've not been here today. Arsenal haven't played well either but they haven't had to.

Lifeless at the moment.

My advice would be to keep watching the F1.

Rare that Cahill misses those. Coleman though, brilliant. Skinned Fabregas.

Similarly irks me when hitting the bar is described as unlucky. Sure, you came close, and it may well have been an excellent effort, but it's not unlucky. It didn't go inside the goalframe, it's not on target.

We can do it if everyone is on their game. Heitinga has a big job but if he can keep Fabregas quiet/frustrated we've got every chance (mind Nasri, Wilshere etc are hardly average). We'll get more space to play than we have in a lot of games this year so I'm hoping that means we can exploit what I consider to be a not-so-strong Arsenal backline.

Excellent, we'll win. Can't see a draw here. We'll either battle our way to a 1-0/2-1 win, or we'll get our arses handed to us.

Arguably would have put Yakubu in instead of Saha to try and give Djourou a torrid time. But yeah, that's strong. A large part of our problems have been similar to you - we've not had that cutting edge in the final third to make superiority pay. Though as opposed to the problems perhaps stemming more from your midfield, ours is that we just don't have a consistent, quality striker at the moment. Bit confused why Yak's been shunned all of a sudden though, he had a solid run of games where he performed pretty well.

Everton: Howard, Baines, Distin, Heitinga, Jagielka, Neville, Coleman, Arteta, Cahill, Pienaar, Saha. Arsenal: Fabianski, Sagna, Djourou, Squillaci, Clichy, Nasri, Song, Wilshere, Arshavin, Fabregas, Chamakh.

Wonder what he was doing with his groin to celebrate.

He's injured his groin? Sounds like another wild party at Kev's. Ride me ride me, oh fuck

I doubt there's nothing in this. It would have been his debut, I highly doubt Hughton would deny Carroll that, unless he is actually injured.

Chris: Here Andy, just gonna let Joey give you a little knock, we don't want you to be playing midweek Andy: But... Joey: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! *cuts to Carroll on the floor in agony* Joey: Whoops! Andy: AAAARRRGHHH! Chris: D'oh!

That is ridiculously unlucky. Did he look like he was carrying a knock in the match yesterday?

Aye, forgot about McEachran, and probably a few others. Of course it's very, very early doors with him - I've only seen him 2 or 3 times - but, like Wilshere, he's an exciting prospect in the middle. I'd say our midfield area is looking very promising at the moment. Give it 3 or 4 years and we have the makings of a hugely exciting midfield.

No Baines? Wilshere is the one who looks like he's a superstar in the making. Hopefully the team will be built around him in years to come. England haven't had a midfielder whose comfortable enough keeping possession at the top level since Scholes. We've certainly missed that - even though Scholes wasn't up to much in his final years in an England shirt. Leighton's too good for England, naturally. Agree on Wilshere. He shows a calmness and control you wouldn't expect from someone so young. Naturally I'm always going to say this but I really do think him and Rodwell could be a superb central midfield partnership for years to come. I just hope Capello gives these youngsters a proper chance. Calling them up and leaving them on the bench/giving them 10 minutes at the end doesn't represent a fair chance. Sure, they'll get the buzz of being in the squad, training with experienced England players but really we want to have them playing good chunks of matches. Hell, these friendlies - start them. Give them as much of a chance as possible.

The future does look quite bright. We have a lot of potential with the likes of Wilshere, Johnson, Gibbs, Walcott, Carroll, Rodwell, Albrighton, Henderson, Jones, Wickham, Smalling and others I've no doubt forgotten providing plenty of reasons for enthusiasm. Whether they make it at international level is of course a different matter.

We are paying something ridiculous like €3m, if reports are to be believed. Suppose he'll be cover/rotate with Iniesta in the "A"MC and winger positions. Anyway, he any good? Decent from what I've seen. Good passing/dribbling skills. And to think we were supposedly interested in him. Then Barca go and get him - such bullies.

How can you say Baines is comfortably better if you haven't really seen much of Gibbs? Hence why I said I'd dare say. I'll happily change my mind in due course. "comfortably better" may have been over-enthusiastic.

I'll hold my hands up and say I haven't seen Gibbs much, but I'm yet to see him play at anything like 'England standard'.

What's the sudden love-in with Gibbs about? Is he a left back? I'd dare say Baines is comfortably better. And that is a pretty depressing front-line. Smalling FML.

I agree. Their bellendricality has been through the roof recently.

We've also picked up 9 out of 15 points, out of our matches against last season's top 8 so far, with 4 of those 5 games being away as well. You can look at stats any way really, but the main statistic is that we have 18 points in 13 games, if we get 18 in our next 13 then we're going to stay up very comfortably. Is the crux of it really. I'm of the opinion your home form is very worrying at the moment, against 2 average teams, 1 poor team and 2 awful teams. I don't think you'll go down but it merits severe questioning. If you can keep getting impressive away wins, great, but I think they'll soon start drying up which puts the onus on your home form. Just depends which way you look at it.

2 points from 15 against teams at home you should on your day be looking to beat. "That's football." You do come out with some crackers, neesy.