Lighthouse

More likely we'd terminate the contract mutually for free and Celtic offer him a big signing on fee to cover his drop in wages. I can't see us getting him off the wage bill AND getting a fee.

Even a comfortable 2-0, the only one I can think of was Fulham at home last year. We've had a couple of '1-0, backs to the wall and hit them on the counter in injury time' games, like Palace last year and Brighton this but comfortable wins for us are like hens teeth.

They're both worth one goal. Missing two easy chances is the same as conceding two goals, the problem is we do both. At least we are creating the chances to miss now, which is not something we could have said against Bournemouth, Spurs or Leicester for e.g. We tend to get robbed a lot. Perhaps if we didn't leave our wallets, phones and iPads in the middle of a car park on a rough council estate every weekend, it wouldn't happen.

I’m off to walk the dog, seeing as the game’s basically over now. There’s definitely no way we’re going to concede a sloppy goal against the run of play, then lose all confidence, retreat back into our own third and stand there like statues.

I’d take that result, the Blades are by no means out of reach.

Why, he's looked good to me? Save Boufal for the 70 odd minute mark if we're still not winning, then bring him on.

Looks like Mings has done a hammy, could miss the game against us.

Looking decent so far, some good attacks down the right.

On here then. Never a traditional points farm for us, I'd take a draw.

If he’d just gone down he might have got something. Sadly he has somewhat of a habit of throwing himself to the ground theatrically under minimal contact. That was no exception IMO, it’s a bit ‘boy who cried wolf’ to me.

Which league table are you looking at? Burnley and Bournemouth getting batter is good news. We’re exactly halfway between Watford and Palace too, so a draw there is prefect. It’s only the Everton game which went wrong and they won’t be in the relegation mix come the start of May IMO.

Agree, Everton are a top half team, severely underperforming. They will do enough to pull away eventually, regardless of who is in charge. What this result, along with Norwich beating City and Brighton beating Arsenal, does show is that you can’t just be happy with an ‘improved performance’ at Arsenal the other week. Big teams have poor weekends all the time. If your rivals are taking these opportunities, sitting there rationalising a 96th minute equaliser as, "I’d have taken a point before the game," simply isn’t good enough.

I'm sure there are plenty of complete helmets in the boardrooms of most major car companies, they just aren't a high profile as Musk. Not that I'm defending Musk here but $190m?! Have a day off. Perhaps if they'd demanded something less utterly insane, Musk and his lawyers may have just settled out of court. If anyone wants to call me a nonce, the starting price is £100. I can PM you my paypal account.

Be’er Sheva’s goal was a bit of a kicker, now that I think back to it.

Basically what’s been said already; Zlatan, Norris and both injury time Everton equalisers. When Davies scored I thought it was all happening again. I’ll add Steven Davis of all people, scoring the winner for Villa against us in 2005. The Boro game I vaguely remember having to go to work on about 88 minutes. Obviously this was in the days before smart phones, I spent the entire shift assuming we’d just seen out a 2-0 and ‘Arry would have us safely mid-table by May. Overall though, the Everton one was the worst, mainly because it was the third time it had happened.

Why? There are plenty of people with an hour or more drive home, early starts this morning, kids on a school night etc.

One point from safety in December isn’t how I’d define ‘certain relegation’.

When was this? We were poor but so were the three that eventually did go down. In the end we were comfortably clear of Cardiff, despite managing to somehow lose to them twice.

We've only lost Lemina, Targett, Moi and Austin. I'd rather have Adams and Jenny than those two. Anyway, happy anniversary Ralph. I still think we're better off with him than with BFS or some other rent-a-coach.

I've never bought into that argument personally. You pick the team you think will win the next game, not the one which has already won the last one. If Ralph thinks Boufal, Romeu or any other player would give us something we need against Newcastle then I'd back him to change the team. The only think I don't like is the defensive musical chairs we had earlier in the season but he seems relatively settled on that at the moment.

I disagree, we have had plenty of appalling performances with him in the team. I'd agree he's looked good in the last two but they were at home to the two worst teams in the division. The last game he started was against Chelsea and whilst they were good, we just looked hopeless all over the park.

Agree but with Adams for Long IMO. I thought the latter did alright tonight but still think Adams is the better player.

The two are not mutually exclusive, although I did think he was decent tonight.

We never make it easy for ourselves, that last ten minutes we just looked frozen and terrified. Kept asking myself ‘how the f**k is he unmarked there?!’ Anyway, we got there in the end so credit to them for that. I’m not sure bringing on Yoshida really helped, just seemed to invite pressure on us and take it off their terrible, terrible defence. We just lost that tempo from about 60 minutes onwards. I don’t know if it’s a mental thing or a fatigue thing.

I don't remember a few seasons. Our first season he wasn't great but then again he was playing in the middle of Fox, Kelvin and Jos for large part of it. Once Boruc got fit and we had Lovren, Wanyama and Shaw he looked a decent player for a top half team. I don't think Stephens is better than any of the other options personally. Leicester aside I'd still say Yoshida is our best CB.