Lighthouse

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-59513011 Not a game as such but Barton looks like Harry Potter grew up, gave up magic and opened a vegan cafe in Covent Garden.

As always, I want someone sh*te at home. As always, we’ll get Chelsea, Arsenal or Everton away.

The Isle of Wight isn’t real, that’s just what they want you to believe.

I wonder how many of our current squad weren’t born the last time we won at Arsenal in the League. The way we managed to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory, in the sixth minute of stoppage, two years ago is remarkably similar to the Brighton game. It was like we were just determined for them to score.

I would assume he was signed as one for the future, as a 17 year old, and is basically third choice by default.

I don't know where exactly they train but geographically, he's not far from Chelsea's Cobham training ground, where he'd been going to work for the last four years. He's been in England for a good while now, so unless he was particularly homesick it all makes sense.

Hopefully he's fit and doesn't have any injury issues. I'd hate to see Willy getting too stiff and having to be pulled off at half time.

But that’s not what anyone is arguing. Like I said, we were better this time last year but not six months ago. Clearly, we had more points after 15 games but all we have to do now is not lose 18 of the remaining 23 and we’re better overall. There is no reason to think we will repeat last seasons drastic hero to zero drop in form.

A year ago, yes. Six months ago, unequivocally no. It seems a rather pedantic thing to argue over; Dellman claimed were better than last year, not at this time last year. I think that’s reasonable if we’re including losing 18 of the last 23 games or whatever that dreadful run was.

I think we’re talking overall, as opposed to the first 15 games. The fact that three of our supposed better players from last season can barely get on the pitch for mid table teams speaks volumes IMO.

F**k off ref, that’s a goal all day long.

About as perfect a set of results as we could ask for really, with Leeds nicking that equaliser. In other sports, nasty collision at the start of the Formula 2 race in Jeddah.

Data shows that 100% of people who died last month were breathing in nitrogen the day they died. Funny how none of the major news outlets have reported this, all part of the cover up.

In what way would that, or any other tactic, have worked out in a way which didn’t today? The way we played kept a clean sheet right up to the point someone made a woeful individual error, followed by another. Having Diallo on doesn’t change anything that happened, so it’s a completely moot point. The result basically ends up the same.

Everyone would then say he was ridiculously negative against a team as poor as Brighton and that we were just sitting back and inviting them on to us. They would be right. We didn't need to change anything, Brighton were barely troubling us and we were easily posing as much of a (minimal) threat as they were. This wasn't like other games where things needed changing or mixing up. Our game plan was working fine. It may not have been pretty but look at what we have on the bench to change things. Long, Walcott, Armstrong and Elyounoussi. I'll be kind and say that the jury is out on Armstrong but the other three are Championship players at best.

I really didn’t see this as a second half capitulation. They had one chance straight at McCarthy, used all three subs trying to change things but we contained them well, and had chances to make it a comfortable two or three - nil. Today was on the players, our game plan was sound and the subs pretty much correct. I don’t know what Ralph is supposed to do about JWP playing a truly astonishing ball across the front of his own penalty box, without looking and with a massive space in front of him.

I just can’t even begin to fathom what was going through JWP’s head with that pass. 1-0 at home to a ten man side, who were sh*t with eleven. All he had to do was run forward with the ball and if a tackle came in, boot it down the line. Instead he plays a blind pass across the front of his own box, straight to a Brighton player. No manager can account for that level of baffling decision making. Were we great second half? No, but we were comfortable and Brighton were hardly world class themselves. We had the chances for that to be a comfortable 2/3-0 win. WTF McC and JWP were doing for that free kick either, I’ve no idea. This one’s on the players for me and their collective mentality. They’re the most consistent bunch of gutless bottle jobs I’ve ever seen.

No, it would mean he isn't getting the attention he craves.

Probably the most damning indictment I have of PEH is that barely 18 months later, I’ve pretty much forgotten he played for us. Whenever he pops up on TV for Spurs I think, "oh yeah, him…"

I can’t remember anyone saying he didn’t make a tactical error, just that he tried something different, which didn’t work. It’s not like it went worse than any other team who’ve played Liverpool recently.

The club would probably take a 9-0 every season if we also avoided relegation fairly comfortably, as Ralph has since he arrived here. His mandate, given our lack of net spending, is to stay in the league.

What on Earth are you talking about?

We had to lock the whole country down for six weeks to stop the situation spiralling out of control, that doesn’t happen under a normal flu season, you’re comparing apples with oranges. Covid infections, admissions and deaths were shooting up exponentially. If we hadn’t done anything, we’d have ended up like India, Brazil and a few other countries who tried to carry on as normal.

Is "died with COVID-19" a perfect and flawlessly accurate representation of COVID deaths? No, absolutely not and I haven't seen anyone reasonably try to argue that but the NHS wasn't pushed to breaking point last January by people with terminal erectile dysfunction or rabies, who happened to catch COVID on their ward.

Neither had Eriksen apparently. All very scary indeed but it’s random, unverified half truths floating around on social media. The chances of having cardiovascular problems from the actual virus far outweigh any potential side effects if the vaccine.