TheDrowningMan

I don’t see Arsenal or City dropping any more points - if we do, that’s probably us out of the title race.

City have an aura of absolute invincibility to most teams, even if they’ve actually lost to them recently. We, on the other hand, are seen as an achievable scalp worth going all out against, home or away. When facing them in a close title race, that’s a real problem.

I strong suspect that City will be top after their game today - Palace will offer absolutely nothing and allow themselves to be decimated. If Hodgson was good for one thing, it was occasionally tripping City up while he managed Palace.

Not happy with that - it’ll make them a much, much tougher opponent at the weekend. Their win over us last season and the 0-0 at Anfield came off the back of some awful results.

Roughly half an hour to stay in the title race - I know we’re not far behind and some will (wrongly) say that’s dramatic, but there’s just no chance we finish above either of Arsenal and Man City if we aren’t capable of clearing this hurdle.

Not at all surprised by Villa’s capitulation. The only question now is whether we will go into tomorrow’s game in 2nd or 3rd place. Guarantee that Villa won’t be nearly as obliging when we play them.

We’ll have enough chances to put 10-12 past them. We won’t do that, of course, and an inexplicable draw is more likely in reality than a win that would make up the GD deficit with Arsenal, but we’ll probably never get a better opportunity to do a record-breaking demolition job. Would be a really good day to get clinical - in the last couple of months they’ve been beaten by 5 goals or more three times and Bournemouth, despite drawing 2-2 with them, had 32 shots when they played them in March.

Oh fuck, Villa have that Olsen character in goal against City again. I thought they might draw level with us on GD tonight, but they actually could end up ahead.

Arsenal will add at least 4 to their GD advantage tonight, and I wouldn’t be overly shocked if City are level with ours by the close of play. I have a feeling Villa are going to crumble.

I have a feeling Man City could be the destination Alonso is on course for - a recent Ornstein / Pearce article mentioned in passing that he’d been spoken of as a possible candidate for that job in future, which struck me as curious given he has no link to them. Given their resources, following Guardiola at City is a far, far easier job than succeeding Klopp at Liverpool.

Yep, people are continually dismissing them. After seeing how beating us galvanised Arsenal, a City win would be my second choice (after the draw) since at least it would still be in our hands. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to think that Arsenal can win the last 9 if they take 3 points today.

Draw or, as a very reluctant, distant second, a City win, please. I can see Arsenal winning the rest of their games if they do so today, and their GD advantage would basically guarantee them the title in that case.

Not at all confident we’ll win this. If this horrible Brighton side don’t score legitimately, I’ve little doubt that Coote will engineer something.

No way that gets allowed.

Thank goodness that De Zerbi won’t be our manager - he’d deserve an end-phase Hodgson reception from the very first day with his ugly, cynical brand of football.

Don’t forget Tottenham and Villa, another two clubs that have a considerably higher net spend over the last five years. History is one thing, but unless FSG are prepared to spend that sort of money post-Klopp, annual Europa League qualification with the occasional punt at top five (assuming the PL gets and keeps the extra place) might be a good achievement in context. I’m not expecting us to throw money around like Man Utd and Chelsea, but we can’t expect the magic to continue without Klopp if we’re still spending like West Ham.

I mean it’s possible, but you’d have to believe that it’s something genetic with English people.

Probably best to get Mac Allister off ASAP. This referee will be salivating over the chance of sending him off.

I’ve no doubt they will, but suspect it’s going to be a very hard game regardless - as big as it was, we’ve one win in four against them since Ten Hag took over. Perhaps if we can get one over on De Zerbi for the first time tomorrow it’ll help psychologically.

And not only that, but they look effectively safe because none of the teams within 3 points below them have any interest in winning. They should be more or less down already.

Everton level. They’ll never, ever go down.

Given that he was on our shortlist in 2004, who is the Gordon Strachan of the candidates?

On the other hand, Porto finished only 2 points and Benfica 1 point worse off respectively than the previous season while Sporting gained 25 points year on year when they won the league.

Danny Murphy loved Hodgson and look how well that turned out!

Whoever it is, unless we unexpectedly luck into someone who is on Klopp’s level, FSG need to spend a lot more on players than they have done to date. We’re not going to consistently challenge for the top four under a ‘normal’ manager while spending significantly less than the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham, Newcastle and Aston Villa. If that level of investment persists, we’ll soon have to accept Europa League qualification as our ceiling.