Stottie

A win, I hope! fwiw, it would put us on 25 points from 25 games, the same as last season. Pretty good given where we were six weeks ago.

Everton zero shots on target today.

Over in League 1, the live scores have the Mackems falling out of the playoff positions.

Back to his best and easily MoM. Great to see him break the long duck and hope there are more goals to come. He looked far more like an England international than Declan Rice.

Great performance, he's really solid as a defender. What a great block against Antonio in the first half. He gets forward too and makes himself pretty useful, much more than was advertised when he came. If there is a point off, its for his delivery, which wasn't good today. I'd rather Shelvey took the corners. We need better delivery when we're playing Wood.

It's not worth risking ASM today if there's a decent chance of him playing in the more important game next week against Brentford. As for the lineup, we've been playing well, so its not worth changing the system from kickoff. That can be done in game as needed.

A lot can still happen but we are by far the best placed. A purple patch for any of the other three teams could happen as mid-table opposition enters beach mode and/or pile up the injuries like Leeds, but the net result will be to drag other teams into it. Its only been a four-team league due to terrible half seasons by the four teams, not great form from everyone else.

That doesn't sound like ideal preparation for this, but I hope JT got the lads got a stottie each on the bus. Terry Mac would have.

Four of our last five have been at home, so it'll be interesting to see what the lads can do without Trippier and the home fans pushing the team on. Leeds aside, our previous away game was the 0-4 at Citeh, a full two months ago. So long as we compete and don't look easy to beat, I'll be happy. The away game to target is next week at Brentford.

I don't know where to put this, but the club have announced a partnership with the analysis people Statsbomb. They've talked about helping Brentford in the past in their podcasts, and that club certainly has done well in the transfer market with their limited resources. Starting this now potentially means the club can use the rest of the season to start identifying targets for the summer.

Just my opinion, I've seen positives in all our Howe games bar two. The first was Leicester. They got a free headstart with that pen off the Madison dive (albeit with some dicking about beforeheand by us), but we capitulated second half and gifted them goals with pretty bad errors. The other was Watford, where we threw away two points with that annoying goal. The cross should have been stopped but once it came in, Trippier failed to block his man and he got a clear run at it above Lascelles, who initially looked at fault but was probably taken out by his own man. If you check the Relegationometer thread, there will have been lots of bumps around that Watford game. We just looked incapable of winning. It took the Leeds game to get that monkey off our back. Every other game has been great, with our midfielders completely transformed and us now racking up wins without Callum Wilson, which would have been unthinkable. The signings we've made look like they've been very astute, and I think we'll only get better.

Lush strip. JWP takes free kicks so he'll get chances created for free. ASM can't play 10. He's completely incapable of the pressing that position requires. The middle is more crowded and ramps up the likelihood of him running into trouble. Out wide and he'll create space in the middle just by dragging a covering CH or DM over to his side.

Fantastic so far. What a man! The defensive turnaround has been amazing. Now there is the first bit of breathing room, I wonder how he approaches West Ham away next week. Since its Brentford home the week after, a far more important game, it might be worth rotating some lads in, especially if injuries are piling up. Play Targett and Burn but start Bruno, maybe even rest ASM. Brentford have Arsenal away in the meantime, so it's likely that beating them would mean going level with them or better with games in hand.

He's scored as many Premier League goals for us in four matches as he did in over 100 for Spurs. Get well soon!

He didn't book Chambers for the closest to a goal stopping foul in the match.

One shot on target all game, 60 minutes of which they were behind. We had two.

Fantastic from Trippier! Why wasn't the foul a booking? Hope Manq is okay.

I know he's not been playing recently, but I'm pleased they're not starting Ings. He seems to do well against us.

I expect all the teams at the bottom to start picking up points as their motivation exceeds that of teams comfortable in midtable, but we're still the best placed. We have the best players, probably the best manager, and by far the best form. The three new defenders mean our defensive record so far, which includes things like Woodman conceding twelve in four games under Bruce, doesn't tell us very much. We've conceded just three in the past four games. Just the "fail to score" stat, but we are 23%, miles ahead of Norwich 62%, Watford 52% and Burnley 45%. They are not going to pick up wins without massive improvement there. Norwich didn't buy a striker in January and Burnley merely replaced the one we poached off them.

Trex arms nearly lobbed there. Lucky boy.

As they train together, Wood will tune into what ASM does and learn to anticipate it more. In fairness to him, he made the same run as Fraser and was right next to him when he scored.

Any risk and we should sit him out. I would say it ups the pressure to play Bruno in midfield, because we'll need someone to play through instead. With both new fullbacks out for this game, some expectations management might be wise.

Yeah, and QPR bought all those players in January and still went down. Unfortunately this precedent ignores the fact that they brought in players like the comically finished Bosingwa and not Kieran Trippier fresh from starting for the La Liga champions. On the topic of big name fullbacks at bottom three clubs, I also remember Wayne Bridge as an absolute disaster on loan at West Ham. They got relegated despite Demba Ba knocking in goals for them. Them going down was reason we got him.

Epic that Allan was in his face trying to wind him up before the free kick and he still puts it in the bottom corner. That's what winners do.

Maybe he's only a 6 out of 10 striker, but his presence in the team saves us playing ASM there. Instead we can play him out wide where he is a 9 out of 10, a clear match winner. There'll be games to come where we'll need more from Wood, but that was enough for someone still settling in.