Sheaf Saint

I'm assuming he's referring to one of these... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfstream_American_GA-7_Cougar

Worse than Darren Powell? I don't think so.

https://twitter.com/RCCelta/status/1087658686879883265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1087658686879883265&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skysports.com%2Ftransfer-centre

Talking to a Villa fan at work today and apparently he hardly featured. Seems a bit odd if they were paying such a huge amount for his wages.

Would have thought this would be a good opportunity for Gallagher to get some game time to build up his match sharpness.

Sky are reporting that Yannick Bolaise has exercised an option in his loan deal to return to Everton, while they evidently expected him to remain at Villa for the rest of the season. I wonder what implications that will have for their squad and their willingness/ability to buy or sell any players?

Yeah I saw that on the BBC live text. He's probably right though. Better to take a yellow card than to concede a free shot on goal, surely?

Bye bye Wesley. I wish I could say I will miss you, but I would be lying.

No way we would have won at Leicester either. The only one of our four wins under Ralph that I could see us perhaps getting under Hughes was at Huddersfield.

On recent evidence, the term 'black box' is probably appropriate, as we need to find out what caused the crash!

Cahill to Fulham now looking unlikely. They were wanting to buy out the last 6 months of his contract at Chelsea but he wants a longer-term deal and probably doesn't fancy dropping down to the Championship with them, as they are looking very likely to do now. Cheeky bid from us? He's 33 now but has a wealth of experience and the leadership qualities we are very much lacking. Would he fit into Ralph's system?

No, clearly not. But 36 would be cutting it a bit fine. In the scenario I laid out, two wins and a couple of draws in our final 10 games would be sufficient. I reckon we can and will do much better than that though.

Carroll's miss against Bournemouth!

If we maintain our form from the 8 games since Ralph came in then we'd get 8 points from these games, so two wins and two draws is on the money. Would take us to 30 points from 28. Then another 3 wins from our remaining 10 games will see us safe.

So, after today's showing I am going to nail my colours to the mast and predict with high confidence that we will be safe from relegation this season. We've got 13 points from 8 games since Ralph took over, which is just over 1.6 points per game. If we can maintain that form over the remaining 15 games (and there's no reason to believe we won't, given our favourable upcoming fixtures) then that will take us to 46 points, which is the same as we got under Puel when we finished 8th. Is it outside the realms of possibility we could finish in the top half still? 10th place is currently occupied by West Ham on 31 points with a GD of -4. And they lost today to a Bournemouth side who have been in terrible form of late.

The thing that I take most from today was the moment in the 2nd half at 2-0 already and Stephens charged forward and played the ball to Valery, who then very neatly exchanged passes with, I think, Redmond to set up an attack. You could see they were enjoying themselves and playing with a level of confidence we haven't seen since before Koeman left. And the whole stadium was rocking and willing them on. It feels like we've finally turned the corner and shaken off the nervousness and uncertainty that has engulfed the club over the last couple of years. Long may it continue.

Yep. He's been excellent recently and put in another outstanding performance today. And to think both MoPe and Hughes preferred Hoedt over him. Just shows what poor judgement they both have.

I don't get it at all. There were only 20 seconds left when Long went down injured. Where the hell did he find another 3 minutes from? I would have been seething if they had scored in that added time. Would have been worse than Roger Milford in that cup game against Oldham all those years ago.

Bournemouth 2-0 now

That was lovely. Attacking with confidence and getting the crowd right up for it. That has been missing from SMS for the last couple of years. Unlucky Stephens.

That's probably the right sub. Ings will be lacking stamina from his injury layoff and Everton are pushing us back to try and get back in the game, so Long gives us another out ball.

Only caught the last 20 mins but looks like we are the ones creating the best chances. Has McCarthy even been tested yet?

You obviously didn't watch that game then. They were terrible for the first half an hour and lucky not to be 2/3 goals behind against a Bournemouth team who have now lost 9 of their last 11 games. Everton are inconsistent at the moment and can be got at. With the players we have returning and a good pressing game to stop them playing out from the back as they like to them we have every chance of beating them.

So they stumbled through in the end, winning every game by a single goal despite being one of the standout favourite teams in the competition. They beat Uzbekistan in the final group game yesterday, although Maya was an unused sub. They have Saudi Arabia on Monday, and will play the winner of Iran v Oman in the qtr final next Thursday if they win that. Sounds like a punishing game schedule.

Hmmm. I'm not so sure we could expect to be mid-table by only fielding 10 players each week!