Paullow

Sunderland want that to be a draw.

Plus Bolton couldn't pick up more than a point in their 3 games.

As it stands, assuming you mean they lose Fulham, Barnsley or Birmingham would have to lose all 4 of their remaining matches. They need more from those last 2 games.

Could really do with Barnsley hanging on vs Bolton. Draw is worst result there.

Ok

Whatever happens they are playing better these past 4 or 5 games and they likely will still drop, but looking more a case of them running out of matches.

Think I'd prefer Southampton to win (or at least draw) to really shake things up down at the bottom. Even if we lost every match I'd still be very confident that not all of Southampton, Palace, Huddersfield and Swansea would get to 38 points. We are at the point now where you can sort of pick and choose who you want to got down and, although least likely, I'd love Palace to drop. Ah well, that's gotta be a huge nail in their coffin now.

Yes!

Burton losing isn't too relevant, but all the other 4 losing is shite, especially Barnsley against an Ipswich side like Norwich with nothing to play for.

Reckon they will stay up. Still odds on to drop, but they've definitely picked up these last few games. If there were 6 games left I'd be more confident, but hopefully they will run out of games.

It's not often you'll see us as short as 21/10 to beat Arsenal.

Why don't you just chuck £50 or something on them to stay up at 9/1 and pocket £500 if the worst happens, because that's surely the end goal, rather than betting on them to win most weeks?

I see as soon as Lewis had got back to fitness, Woodman has been benched. He'll more than likely not get another minute of football for the rest of the season so may as well be back training with us.

You would think that after 2 successful loans in League One (Coventry, Blackburn) and 2 unsuccessful loans in the Championship (Barnsley, Bolton) that his level was around third tier, but he was played out wide a lot at Bolton and was in struggling sides both times. I'd like him to have one final season on loan next year to a Championship team, ideally one that's not just based upon surviving, and then assess where he is and where he is likely to end up. Blackburn may be a good option as with the likes of Dack, Mulgrew, Bennett and Graham they do have some decent players and I think they could be a bit like Sheff U next year and push towards the top half. Hope the lad has a good career, even if it is not here.

1-2 Everton

Bad couple of mins.

I've been following his progress and the Aberdeen fans don't seem too convinced, especially with his kicking and they reckon not a patch on Lewis, but he saved 3 pens in a shootout against former club Kilmarnock tonight so hopefully goes from strength to strength.

What's it done of note? Henderson and Pickford? Leadbitter, McCartney, Hourihane, Bridges, Waghorn, Egan. Nothing great sure, but better than ours I'd say, some solid enough players in there. We have Dummett, Carroll & not a great deal else. It's 6 and 2 3's really. We also have Marcus Maddison who will be a Championship player one way or the other next year, Forster, Tavernier, Sammy, Armstrong, Taylor going further back. Not great by any means, but not too much different. They've made significant money out of two of their players, we have from just one.

Good point overall and 2 wins, 4 draws and 2 defeats (both vs City and not really harming the goal difference) in our last 8 league games is decent enough form. Just a shame the home form has been poor as 2 points (and 4 blanks) against Swansea, BHA, Watford, Bmouth, Leicester and Everton in 6 of our last 7 games is inexcusable and may end up being our downfall.

Won their first two matches as well, both 1-0 vs Bmouth and Burnley so that's 10 draws and 10 defeats in their last 20 games.

Definitely. When you consider that very few non top 6 sides will get anything from the 12 matches against the top 6 (we have 1 from 6 games so far, Brighton, B'mouth no points from 6 etc) then when you look at the league table between the other sides without the top 6 then you can see that everyone are taking points. PLAYED WON DRAW LOST POINTS (ACTUAL POINTS) 1. Burnley 14 8 4 2 28 (34) 2. Leicester 14 7 5 2 26 (30) 3. Everton 14 7 3 4 24 (27) 4. Brighton 16 5 8 3 23 (23) 5. B'mouth 14 5 6 4 21 (21) 6. Hudders 16 5 6 5 21 (24) 7. N'castle 16 6 3 7 21 (22) 8. Watford 15 6 2 7 20 (25) 9. S'ton 14 4 6 4 18 (20) 10. Palace 15 4 6 5 18 (22) 11. W Ham 15 4 5 6 17 (21) 12. Stoke 16 4 4 8 16 (20) 13. Swansea 15 4 3 8 15 (16) 14. W Brom 15 2 7 6 13 (16)

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/startseite/wettbewerb/GB1 I think that's a pretty good indication of where teams should 'expect' to finish. Obviously it's OK having expensive players on paper and you have to put that into practice, but when you consider that their 2 goalscorers against us + the fella who got a brace tonight cost £63 between them, plus quality like Lanzini, Kouyaye and even Hernandez to call upon if needed, they, like Palace have so much more quality than most of the other teams in relegation contention and should really be in and around the top half.

Funny how Hughton didn't get Aguero money or a cool 50 million to spend in their promotion season and Brighton are still doing well isn't it. Rafa is under performing, and I hope he still turns it around but, things just seem to be getting worse rather than better. They also didn't literally lose 13/14 first team players from the 2015/16 either though. We had about 10 players remaining after all those transfers so had to bring in at least the same number of players to cope with the extra 8 (or 11) league games in the Championship. Brighton's team had been geared for promotion for years and the likes of Dunk would have easily been worth £15m, Knockaert the same (in this market), Dale Stephens £10m or so, whereas the bulk of our signings ranged from £2.5m to £5.5m, bar 2 notable exceptions. Pretty much all our quality was sold to generate that £90m - £55m was put back in to sign 14 players - an average of £3.9m per player and you just need look at transfers in that league from this season to see that that figure really isn't that much - Assombolonga £15, Neves £16m, Rhodes £10m, Braithwaite £10m etc. Brighton were at least equal to us last season, if not better as they were 7 clear with 3 games to go once their bottom line of promotion was secured. Make no mistake, if 1 was promoted and the other 4 went in the playoffs rather than 2 automatically, then we wouldn't have won the league, so we were at least equal and for whatever reason, their transfers this season have been better - Ryan has made a big difference, Davy Propper. We had Atsu last year, Joselu and Manq have arguably made us worse, Murphy non existent, so you could argue we are actually even worse than we were last season as only Merino has come in and had a decent impact. Is location a problem, are we more restricted on wages (really can't see Joselu, Manquillo and Murphy being on more than £100k between them)? But I can guarantee if Rafa had his way, he wouldn't have went to Mike and said 'Mike, whatever you do, please please give me that Joselu lad who can't get a look in at Stoke, he'll make a hell of a difference". We've had a bunch of top championship / fringe Premier League players bundled together in one window and while we could have coped had 3 or 4 proven players been brought in at £15m-20m apiece to add a bit of quality to a committed but ultimately limited group, but we all know that didn't happen, so I'd argue that we are at a worse level than Brighton now. People need to realise we are literally operating on a bottom 3 to 4 budget now (far lower than the likes of Everton, Leicester, Palace, West Ham, Watford etc) and if you were born after 1980 or so (which a large chunk of us on here will be) then for the first time in your life this is the first time that has happened - forget the top 6, we are miles behind 75% of the league.

Exactly. You know that if they get anything from this game, it'll all be "ooh little Palace gave Arsenal a game, Newcastle didn't even try last night" Arsenal's strike force is probably worth thrice the amount. 55m gets you Lacazette only. Don't let the fact we don't even want to compete blind you from what is still a significant gap between the top 6 and the rest of the league. There is a massive gap obviously from the top 6 and the rest, but (on paper at least) there is a sizeable gap between the likes of Everton, Leicester and Crystal Palace and possibly West Ham to the rest. Obviously Burnley are currently sitting in 7th but you have to ask yourself how many of our players would get into Palace's side? 2 of their players are arguably the best that we've had in the Ashley era and then Benteke and Sakho cost more than £50m between them - our first team is primarily dotted around with £4m or £5m players (Yedlin, Manquillo, Lascelles, Elliot/Darlow, Diame, Joselu, Atsu, Clark, Hayden) - figures we were paying more for 15 years ago signing the likes of Titus Bramble and Carl Cort well before the current vast inflation. Even Warren Barton cost £4m 22 years ago for some perspective. Palace have 2 left backs that they paid more than £25m for. They are definitely operating on a different financial level to the likes of Newcastle, Swansea etc.