Ellis H

That basically just puts all of the goal threat on Isak. Barnes could win us this game.

This is why selling Barnes isn’t as easy or obvious as some are assuming. Who would be playing today instead? Almiron?

For all they concede, their keeper has also made the most saves by far this season.

I’m not keen on Semenyo either. It’s very simplistic but he's got 17 attacking returns in the league since the start of last season while Murphy has got 13 in about half the time.

It’s not the international players that are the problem. It’s the 10 players who are hangovers from the Bruce era that were in the squad yesterday. Yes, 10 (unless I’ve counted wrong). If those players were consistently top 4/6 challenging quality they’d have had far better offers than us when they signed. It’s what he also did at Bournemouth, bringing a load of lower league players into the PL and making them competitive year after year.

Considering we’ve only got 3 genuinely good finishers in the squad (2 of which barely play) and a real lack of creativity it’s amazing we score so many goals. I think we averaged about 2.5 a game last year in all competitions. Really does keep coming back to Howe getting far more out of a lot of these players than we could expect and we should remember that when people are sticking the knife in after a poor performance.

At least half our squad isn’t good enough for regular top 4/6 tbf. Plenty of bottom half Bruce-era players still remain and are playing well above themselves and have been since Howe turned up. They’ll be filtered out over time if we can actually spend the money we have.

Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham and now Liverpool dropping points at SJP. Feels like that hasn’t happened in many years? In Howe we trust.

“Jesus loves you” was on tonight.

He’s got “Jesus loves you” on it tonight. Regardless of what he’s writing it’s extremely thick to do it again after getting a warning. Him getting banned over it will be a massive can of worms.

Players don’t actually have to wear them. The FA went after Guehi because he broke some form of messaging rule. Seems like he’s got something else written on tonight and the Ipswich captain has again opted out.

Both players are captain again tonight. Should be interesting.

There’s quite a big and deliberate difference between Cisse kissing the ground when he scored and what Guehi has done. The inference is extremely clear, even if some are choosing not to see it due to their own “beliefs”.

As well as the reasons listed on the last few pages, I’ve also heard Keegan say he doesn’t want to go to certain clubs games because he doesn’t want to be a distraction. I’m sure that’s just his immense modesty speaking but given the situation he’d probably be happier with a “support the team” display. After all, if he truly wanted the adulation he’d be at our games every week. The only thing he’ll really want from this particular match is a good game reminiscent of our mid-90’s classics.

What was the bigger picture with them? I only remember a very small one which resembled something drawn in human shit. Howe’s one is he’s doing really well despite performances not always being consistently good.

I know it’s simplistic but his record here needs repeating. First full season - 4th Second full season - 8 points off 4th (worst run of injuries I’ve ever seen at any club) Third full season - Currently 4 points off 4th. Pardew and Bruce? We’re almost at the Southgate stage of judging him on performances rather than actual, tangible results. Only Keegan and Robson have been this consistently good for us since about the 1950’s but it still isn’t enough for some, though I suspect nothing ever will be.

If Howe’s ultimate “live or die” remit is Europe then he’s not getting sacked anytime soon. Yes, the bigger picture doesn’t look like a masterpiece but it’s a points business and we’re doing fine there. It’s also worth noting Palace have drawn with Chelsea, Man Utd, Villa and now us and have beaten Tottenham this season (knocked Villa out the cup as well). Those are the teams that will realistically be challenging for the top 4 and sums up how inconsistent all bar 3 teams have been in recent years. Ipswich have taken 4 points off Man Utd and Tottenham in the last 2 weeks as another recent example. Inconsistency isn’t just a Howe/us problem, most teams suffer from it now and they don’t have the answers either.

Ginola was massive in France but nothing like Kluivert worldwide. Slightly different but similar subject, have we as a fanbase ever treated an opposition player with no connections to us as well as we did Kluivert? He loved scoring against us as well.

Don’t really know what this proves (if anything) but just worked out that in the league, in terms of minutes, Almiron has played the equivalent of 137.3 games for us and has 34 attacking returns. Murphy has played the equivalent of 82.1 games for us and has 33 attacking returns, with 2 assists in 5.2 games this season.

We’ve got a couple of extremely big months coming up now. I don’t think we’re currently at the point of Howe fighting for his job but if the club are planning on spending big in January they’ll need to know for sure he is their man long term. They won’t want to give him a few expensive new players of his choosing then have a new manager on the touchline in February who doesn’t want them. This kind of thing is so much more important with the current financial rules than it ever was before.

Pretty much just the Sheffield United game as the difference then? Also the freak result against Villa maybe.

Those penalties are probably my biggest football pet hate. I’d fine anyone who takes one like that regardless if they score or not. It’s baffling how clubs hire set piece coaches but continue to allow players to take those “50/50” penalties. Watch the penalties here (11:32) and spot the wimpy, piss-weak one that decided the game.

Barnes is a funny one. He’s only played the full 90 minutes for us a few times despite being fit since 3rd February, which seems to follow a similar pattern to his time at Leicester. He played a part in almost every PL game for years but his minutes played is normally about 1,300 short of the maximum.

I’m annoying myself now but stumbled across this “Alan Pardew: 'If I can deal with Hatem Ben Arfa, I can get Emmanuel Adebayor playing again'” https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/alan-pardew-if-can-deal-7187608 ”Emmanuel Adebayor describes Crystal Palace move as worst decision of career” https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11706/10913138/emmanuel-adebayor-describes-crystal-palace-move-as-worst-decision-of-career Also found this? https://imgur.com/gCC1chO

https://imgur.com/DDJA466