Sheaf Saint

West Ham conceding that equaliser means only Chelsea, City and Liverpool have a better defensive record than we do so far this season. Considering how awful our defending was only a few months ago, that's quite remarkable.

Although it's extremely unlikely, a win by a significant margin and the right combination of results elsewhere would see us move into the Europa League spots. That's how tight the midtable is right now.

We don't keep losing though. We've only lost 3/11 this season, and only the top 4 have conceded fewer than us so we aren't showing any signs of going on a losing run anytime soon. Yet somehow you're still persisting with this 'Ralph supporters are a cult' narrative. You're obviously seeing something in our games that no-one else is seeing.

We moved up to 12th briefly then, until Leicester's swift equaliser.

Do you actually have any idea how pathetic you come across when you keep referring to anybody who doesn't share your overly negative view of Ralph as 'the cult'? Ralph, like anyone has strengths and he has weaknesses. There's not a single poster here who would try and argue that he is perfect and has never made any mistakes. But your constant harping on about his faults without showing the slightest sign of praising his successes is getting very tiresome now.

If Leicester lose to Leeds and Spurs beat Everton by 2 or more goals then we'll move up two places on GD today. I feel a bit dirty wanting Leeds and Spurs to win though.

Could have done without Palace winning, but Wolves losing keeps things tight above us. Only 3 points separating us from 5th now.

0-2 now. Let them have their bit of hope today, cos they're extremely unlikely to win 2 in a row. Keeps Brentford below us.

City are just toying with them. It's like a keep-ball training exercise.

Would be perfect if they could do that today as it would stop Brentford from going back above us.

That dive from El Ghazi - I wonder if Dean Smith challenged him at the start of the season to step up and fill Grealish's boots, but he took it a bit too literally 😂

Norwich have to go for it. Draws are no good to them right now, they need wins and they will be targeting home games against teams in the bottom half to get them. That should play right into our hands.

Shame Villa have such a top class keeper, otherwise he would have got a goal of the season contender last night.

Only need to draw with Norwich now to stay on par with this. But given how things have gone for both teams since I started this thread, a draw would be disappointing.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong so far 😉

We're currently 3 points behind Man Utd in 5th. And as they're playing City at lunchtime, we'll probably still be 3 points behind them at the end of the day.

It'll be even sweeter if Everton and Leicester both lose tomorrow, as we could end up climbing into the top half on GD. Too much to ask for though?

Villa were always going to improve. Deano isn't an awful manager and he identified what was wrong, and made a change to address that at HT. Credit to Ralph because he recognised the effect this had and made a tactical change to adapt to it. Meant we lost a bit of control and didn't have as much of the ball in the attacking third, but McCarthy was never troubled and the best chance of the half was Ché's header.

That highlights Moi's biggest weakness - a total lack of pace.

Should be. Ref has bottled it.

We're really missing Redmond's corner delivery tonight.

Nearly.

That's 2 fouls from Cash in quick succession but no thing given.

Oh Stu!

Need to wake up to that danger. Got overloaded then.