qwertyell

Salisu there - albeit seemingly training apart from the rest of the group with Elyounoussi. At least even if he doesn't make this game it looks like his injury isn't too serious. Tella back too. Improves the bench, I guess.

As long as he can walk he'll still be quicker than a pairing of Bednarek and Stephens.

Potentially seven players out: Lyanco, McCarthy, Tella for definite; Salisu, Elyounoussi, Walker-Peters, Long in doubt. Only three regular starters, but that would still be a big test of our squad depth. I'd take a draw with a patched up side.

Something was up: he's rubbish. Hasn't improved one iota as a footballer in three years. He's a bit better defensively, but has managed to get worse offensively, so it pretty much balances out. Only a year left on his contract in the summer. I think we'd be mad to offer him an extension, so I'd expect him to be moved on. Seems a nice lad, but the wild swings between extremely rare wonder goals and more frequent headless chicken meandering with his boots on the wrong feet aren't worth persevering with imho.

Fair play, we're giving it a go. Djenepo and Armstrong are shocking, though. That's £30m we won't get much return on. Diallo had a mental couple of minutes, be he seems to have recognised that passing to Saints players is the preferred course of action. Beautiful strike from Perraud - he's been threatening it for weeks. Defensively, he's been caught in some odd positions, mind you. Smallbone has been fairly decent. Let's see what the second half brings. We've done well to limit their set pieces so far.

Wow. That's... a collection of footballers. If Jack Stephens and Yan Valery can keep out a big, physical team who score a lot from set pieces, I'll eat my hat (provided it's made of cheese or something). There's literally no headers in that line up. Good luck, chaps. Stranger things have happened, I guess...

Brighton are doing it. https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2510189/albions-show-of-support-for-peace-in-ukraine

Remember that you support a club that once complained to the league because a referee slighted poor Adam Lallana by suggesting he'd "changed". Embarrassing indeed.

I think we're in a slightly curious situation where our best two strikers - Broja and Adams - aren't necessarily our best striking partnership. Broja doesn't seem to gel as well with Adams as he does with Redmond. And Adams has much better natural chemistry with Adam Armstrong. Broja and Adams are doing fine individually, but their combination play needs a lot of work. Primarily, I'd say that comes down to Broja's inexperience: not making the right runs off the ball, or holding onto it too long with his head down. But the only way it's going to get better is to keep banging away at it. I haven't checked, but I'd guess that they've only started together around 10 times. Possibly less.

In danger of fucking this up. Been way too casual this half. No intensity.

1-0 HT. Wouldn't say we've been amazing, but relatively in control. Norwich are quite well organised and we haven't exactly had a high quality cutting edge - Broja's having a poor game, Elyounoussi's been wasteful. We'll need a second. Norwich have looked fairly lively when they've been able to break. Come on, kill this off early in the second half and start preparing for West Ham.

We should be raiding them for Alex Scott, 18. Guernsey boy who spent some time training with us as a youth.

Yes, they're much improved. And playing better than Everton right now. Not a foregone conclusion by any stretch. Gunny's been doing quite well in nets too. Which is nice to see - got a bit of confidence back.

He has to be sold this summer if we want full value for him. He's only got two years left on his contract. If there's no news of him signing an extension in the next handful of months, I'd assume he's going. Because there's no point in signing him cheap, training him up, and then selling him cheap because his contract was winding down. That's the antithesis of our model.

He's definitely turned things around for himself. I suppose it makes sense, in Hasenhuttl's formation, that the best number 10s for us are actual number 10s - technical players - rather than converted wingers like Redmond, Djenepo, Walcott, Tella etc. Still wish we had more quality in that position, mind you.

A 2-0 battering. Really should've been 5 or 6. Not a lot of fight in this Everton side. 32 points. That's enough, I think, to say we can look forward to another season in this league and start focusing more of our resources on giving the FA Cup a red hot go. Watford and Burnley winning makes the bottom 7 or so look a horrible place to be dicking around with - glad to be well out of it.

No Perraud.

Not sure about that. I think he's pretty much at our level. Fantastic at driving through the midfield with the ball, but his end product and decision making in the final third leaves a lot to be desired.

Cheeky. Great effort to get through this run of fixtures (City, Spurs, United) unbeaten and bank 5 points. Could've nicked it too. That's City, United, Spurs and West Ham played twice this season without defeat. Let's start putting the lesser teams to the sword now.

Not quite at it today - the sharpness of touch and movement from midweek isn't there. Very open at the back - feels like United could run away with the game if they were more ruthless. But it's only 1-0 and we've cobbled together some chances ourselves. Wouldn't count out a cheeky point. Not betting the house on it, though.

Is it brave or stupid to be so wide open against a team that put nine past us last time out? Doesn't feel like the Spurs game where we were always playing well...

Might as well burn off my last post before the inevitable second half disappointment to say we've been terrific - Perraud in particular looks well settled in now and a great outlet going forward. Best of luck everyone.

Big Bro. Basketball game here.

How many own goals does Bednarek have on his slate now? He's certainly more prolific than Adam Armstrong at the other end. All very familiar - we're playing quite nicely but the opposition have all the quality going forward.

He won't. He's got a relatively reasonable release clause that kicks in this summer. £65-70m or so. Chump change for the major teams.