Lighthouse

No because that requires compromise to your preferred game plan in order to compensate for a particular player. In all likelihood it will create opportunities for other players as Saturday basically proved. If Villa did one thing right it was keep Ings fairly quiet, at the expense of Long, Djenepo and Armstrong having a turkey shoot.

The stats show that if you take away Ings' goals, we don't have Ings' goals. That's all. If Ings weren't here, we would likely have signed a different striker, who may or may not have scored X amount of goals and set up Y. All you have 'proven' is that if you take away our best player and play with 10 men all season, we aren't very good.

And if Port Vale were on the Moon, they'd be on the moon. True story.

At the start of the season, playing 5-3-2, absolutely not. Now, playing 4-2-2-2 and having outscored them since we changed, yes. I don’t care about individuals. They have their system, we have ours. I believe over a whole season and without a typhoon hitting both our games, we’d get more points.

I don’t think less than a page on an internet forum in the six months since he left really counts as obsessed. We can’t help it if he regularly acts like a complete plank.

Enhance your career or, "I’ll make sure it’s the end of your career if you don’t,"?

Probably out of breath after eight minutes of jogging around. Probably the fans fault though, they weren’t lifting the roof off like a Rome derby.

About 37/38 I’d guess. Probably not the object of lust she was 15 years ago.

I think West Ham will drag themselves out of it. They've got enough talent who, when they can be arsed, will just about do enough to get them safe. I'd say Norwich, Watford (who's new manager bounce has well and truly gone) and Villa for the drop personally.

No way Carroll will score, Burnley are far too good.

Don't care about previous seasons (it's 2, not 3 by the way). Since we stopped farting around with 5-3-2 and Danso at LB we've outscored them. In my opinion we're better than Burnley. If you disagree, well it's a football forum, so isn't that just lovely. I suspect you understand my point perfectly and you're just after an argument, so I'll leave you and MLG to it.

Just had a look at that, Cardiff, Brighton and Fulham all got 9 points from their last 11 games last season. I think a couple of the teams down the bottom will start to pick up but not all of the bottom 5.

You're just trying to ridicule other opinions to distract people from your own posts. Since we changed our formation, we've outscored Sheff. Utd by 3 points and Burnley by 4. They both made hay whilst the sun was shining earlier in the season but since mid November I think we've been the better team. I don't care what has gone on in previous seasons, I think we're better now. If you're bothered, I also think Arsenal are better than Sheff. Utd and Burnley but I'm just a ridiculous, arrogant Gunners fan. In fact Everton probably are too.

Does anybody know how many years it is since we finished above Burnley, or how many games it is since we’ve beaten them?

In the same way that when we got promoted, Bristol City beat us home and away and narrowly avoided relegation.

You hate to see something so unfortunate happen to West Ham.

We ditched the 5-3-2 after the home defeat to Everton, at which point we were 19th/bottom (forget which) on 8 points from 12 games. At that same point The Blades were on 17 points. In other words, since we changed to 4-2-2-2 we've scored 3 points more in 15 games. Burnley clearly employ some sort of Shaman or witch doctor, who has summoned a typhoon to play in both times we've played them. Without that, we'd probably have managed a draw in at least one game and be level in the table. So yes, I do think we're better

Che Adams, who scored 15 goals at that level would struggle? Gunn, who all the Norwich fans were raving about, would struggle? Djenepo, man of the match according to many, against Villa? Boufal 'the most talented player in the Prem' according to someone on here? Was Hooiveld better than Vestergaard? Romeu, player of the season under Puel? It'd struggle in the Prem but I'm on about playing it in the Europa League. How do you think Hapoel Be'er Sheva would get on in the Prem? Or Levadia Tallinn, BATE Borisov and Grasshopper Zurich? Anyway, it wasn't really my point. People were suggesting we'd struggle in the League if we had to play in Europe too. My point is, even if we made no signings and rested our entire first XI, we could still put a reasonable team out. It's not like we'd be playing Fox, De Ridder and Seaborne.

Hypothetically (I don't think we'll qualify, even if 8th gets us in) our second string XI is a bit like Gunn Valery - Vest - Danso - Vokins Romeu - Smallbone Djenepo - Boufal Adams - Obafemi So if we rested our entire first XI for European games and put that side out, it's not a disaster. I think Boufal and Danso may well leave, so there could be a stronger option there. Possibly Stephens if we get a decent CB in. Also if we really insist on keeping Long, then one of the other two has got to go. One non-scoring striker we can live with but not three. Obafemi out on loan, a decent replacement and Long dropping from our first choice team would be my preference. In short, on the outside chance we qualified for Europe, I think we'd cope reasonably well. If anything, too many players is our problem and the likes of Moi and Hoedt might do alright in European games.

Lawro, Sue Smith, Crooks, Owen and Carra for me.

I was always taught that was an acceptable way of capitalising a title. Arguably the word 'which' shouldn't have a capital but I believe it to be otherwise correct.

No, I'm assuming that we're not one of the bottom 3 or even bottom 8 teams in this League. There's not one team below us I genuinely believe to be better than Saints and I think we're better than Burnley and Sheff Utd, in spite of the head to head against the former. If our early season form returns (and I can't think of any reason why it should, we don't even play the same formation) we'll end up about 14/15th.

If the season started now, all teams on 0 with 11 games to decide everything, I'd still bet on Saints being midtable and well ahead of Bournemouth, West Ham and Villa.

This is getting a bit sad TBH. If you two want to carry on this fascinating debate, PM each other or go to the duck rape thread.

If it’s up there, I’ll give you the money myself?