mike23

Just win our games and see what happens. Sunday they're at home to Villa so I've not much hope things are going to turn back around next week. Unfortunately, 'never ever rely on Villa for anything' has always been a very sound mantra for life if you want to avoid disappointment. I'm not sure relying on Spurs is a much sounder prospect, but the North London derby really does look like the best hope for Arsenal dropping points. They're the best team they play and at least the one team and fanbase they'll face who won't actually prefer them winning the title over us.

4 goals conceded this calendar year is extremely impressive, particularly in a season in which just about everyone else has really struggled to keep clean sheets. It's even more impressive when you consider that 2 of those goals were the one we were gifted by a defensive mix up and another came from a silly individual error by Ramsdale against Brentford. As well as keeping clean sheets, they're not even allowing teams to create many chances against them. Brighton looked like they could have played all night against them on Saturday without scoring. I hope it doesn't end up being like the first time we just missed out to City. I remember hoping that just once in that run-in that City would concede first against someone half decent, and then the only game it ever happened in was on the final day against a Brighton team who weren't very good and didn't have anything at all to play for. We need to see Arsenal go behind in a game to see what they're made of. It remains to be seen whether or not that will happen at any point.

And Manchester City are second in the table for points gained from losing positions - only 3 behind us. I'd say it was a sign of great resilience rather than luck. City also still have a slightly worse goal difference than us, so I'm not quite sure how they're destroying teams and we're only scraping past everyone. I can't argue that Arsenal have looked the best team and have seemed very comfortable in most games since the turn of the year. I feel pessimistic about our chances tonight, but there's 7 games left and one slip from them changes everything.

Never seen a more wasteful attacking performance. We actually managed to be even less clinical than in the FA cup game. Time after time they just kept giving the ball away and were absolutely wide open and we just kept screwing it up with either the final ball or the finish. Nunez, Mo and Diaz all missing absolute sitters (although you can guarantee they'd have ruled the Diaz one out for Robertson's challenge at the end). I'm surprised I didn't have a stroke after watching that miss from Nunez when he could have just pulled it back for Szoboszlai to slot home (although with the way Dom was playing he'd have probably found a way to miss). Genuinely one of the shittest things I have ever seen from a professional striker. We needed imperious Mo for the run-in and instead we've got him at his most infuriatingly wasteful. I don't think he did a thing right other than not manage to fuck up the penalty as well (I was hoping Mac Allister was going to take it as I was expecting him to miss it). Absolutely scandalous that we couldn't beat not only the worst United team I've ever seen but probably the worst side I have ever seen going under the moniker of a supposedly big club 3 times in one season. They barely even resemble a functional professional team. They were just begging us to batter them and we just kept turning down the offer. I said last week after the Brighton game that it would come back and bite us sooner or later if we kept on being so wasteful, and we didn't have to wait long for it to happen. We still could have won if we had just not made any mistakes at the back, but we couldn't even manage that. Quansah has been great but wtf was that for the equalizer? I love Klopp but I really don't know what he's doing in how he's handling Konate's minutes at the moment. First he gets injured needlessly being kept on in a Europa league first leg we were cruising in, and then he's played at home against the bottom of the table team instead of the trip to Old Trafford. I don't think Alisson gets caught out like Kelleher did either. There was all sorts wrong with the second goal as well. Even this absolute embarrassment of a United side were making the effort to close down shots properly, unlike our players on the goal. We seemed to just completely lose our heads after they scored the first and it ended up being fatal. It's not over, but it's out of our hands now. If Arsenal win every game and win it then fair play to them, and we will have only ourselves to blame for it. Truth be told, it's hard to see us not dropping any more points anyway if the forwards continue to miss chances at a historical rate like this. Motm - I'm giving it to Elliot simply because he was the only attacking player after Diaz's goal who didn't take the absolute piss.

I just laughed when the commentator said that VAR had instantly cleared it. They can't even be bothered to make enough effort to pretend there's no bias any more.

Luton level. Draw is still not really much use for them at this stage though.

What's going on at Villa Park? Brentford now 3-2 up after being 2 goals down 10 minutes ago.

Everton winning and Luton now a goal down. Could be the day where things are pretty much decided down at the bottom unless Everton's next points deduction is much bigger than anticipated.

I'm sure my own judgement when watching Arsenal and City games this year has been skewed at times by personal bias, but anyone who thought we should have had more bookings against Brighton should just stop watching our games because it's clear that what they're seeing has absolutely no connection with reality.

Sky Sports always put together 3-minute highlight packages for all the games and stick them on YouTube after the games. I did wonder how they would even find 3 minutes of highlights from the City-Arsenal game today, and indeed they couldn't as they ended up cutting the game's 'highlights' down to 2 minutes. God knows how MOTD2 will stretch their selected highlights much beyond that tonight. At least they'll have plenty to show from our game.

Incredibly nervy at the end. It was always going to be the case after the second Diaz goal was disallowed (remember United's 2nd goal against us at Old Trafford last year that looked clearly off and how the explanation afterwards was they were going to allow more leeway to forwards on decisions? Yeah, that was yet another load of bullshit that was never mentioned again after being used to justify a clearly incorrect decision). We do need to be far more clinical in the run in, though, as it's either going to lead to dropped points eventually or games like this being about ten times more difficult than they should be. That was a gutsy win, though, after going a goal down against a team who have been a really bogey side for us.

Ref blowing every time we breathe on one of their players, yet he sees nothing wrong with a clear shirt pull on Nunez in the area. We'd have a healthy lead at the top of the table with fair refereeing this season and these cunts still have a massive part to play in where the title ends up.

I thought we'd had our full quota of 12:30 games too. They've also regularly moved this fixture to 8pm for other teams so it's not like it has to be at 12:30.

Fair enough. You're right: the team has done wonders recently, and even the very best teams have games like this. It's why it was so incredible and unprecedented that we came so close to the quadruple 2 years ago. I'm just annoyed at the moment like everyone else. I was calling them all pricks at the final whistle because I was so angry with the way they twice threw the game away, but even in that moment there was a voice at the back of my mind telling me to stop being so ungrateful after all the other recent things they have done. I'll sulk about it for a bit this evening and then tomorrow I'll have moved on from it and be grateful for what's been achieved so far this year and be looking forward to the other games again.

And last season. They'd just been battered in their first 2 games of the season by Brighton and Brentford, and then we went to Old Trafford and turned in an utter turd of a performance to kickstart their season. We've failed to beat them far too many times recently because they really are fucking dreadful. We either seem to completely humiliate them or not beat them at all. We need to stop falling into this trap of playing the occasion and just treat games against them the same as we do with all the other mediocre dross in the league.

In much of the first half and extra time they did, but they completely gave up in the second half and weren't even doing most of the basic things you'd expect a team to do - tracking runners, closing down shots etc. The story after the match should have been all about just what a complete embarrassment most of their players are. This all occurred because of complete complacency from us. Hopefully it spurs us on in the league and a game or 2 less may even be beneficial in the long run, but it's also hard not to worry what sort of impact a defeat like that will have on morale.

Absolute fucking shambles since it went to 2-2. Lucky to get back in front and we still manage to fuck it up again somehow. This team have been great this year but they want fucking crucifying for losing to these today. Should have been 4 or 5 goals up in the second half.

Absolutely criminal that we didn't finish them off in this second half.

Went for a 5-0 Arsenal win for the pickems and it turns out I massively overestimated Sheffield United.

There were some great opportunities on the break for United at 0-1. Shame they were too shit to make anything of them. As good as Rashford's goal was, he was genuinely appalling in the rest of the game. A City win felt inevitable when they equalized with plenty of time left.

Great stuff. I gave up trying to watch it. Couldn't find a stream that would work for more than a few minutes all afternoon and eventually just decided to follow it on the forum hoping more than expecting for something good to happen. That's a huge win under the circumstances. Hopefully Mo is back for City and the players who came on today are ready to start by then.

I was thinking halfway through extra time that even if we went on to lose it would still be a performance to be really proud of. They had so many excuses not to win the game - yet another injury early on when they were already down to the bare bones, every little decision going against them in the game, already having 1 winning goal scandalously ruled out - and yet they just kept going and found a way to win. They rode their luck a bit in the final 10 minutes of normal time, but other than that spell were by far the better team throughout and were fully deserved winners. Everyone was outstanding, but special mentions for Kelleher, Konate and van Dijk.

You've just got to laugh at the state of refereeing in this country now. The ref somehow doesn't book a Chelsea player all half despite numerous bad challenges, including one causing yet another serious looking injury for us, and then he decides that Chilwell acting like a complete prick while Bradley just walks away should lead to equal punishment. Unlucky from Gakpo. I don't know what it is about cup finals with Chelsea but the ball just never seems to want to go in no matter how many chances we have. Great save from Kelleher earlier.

That was a nice few seconds of football. The Brighton equalizer and Fulham winner seemed to occur virtually simultaneously.

Red card will bail them out second half. No way the PL’s number 1 tv subscriber base will suffer the indignity of being beaten by Luton at home. The Blue Watch Player Valuation: £10m Yesterday at 9:01 PM New Add bookmark #79,916 Doped up to their eyeballs. If even that isn’t enough, a friendly ref bails them out. A sickening organisation. Yarrgh Player Valuation: £70m Yesterday at 9:04 PM New Add bookmark #79,917 Phew! Breathing more easy than a rs player after a half time inhaler. heatmeiser House of Correction Forum Supporter Yesterday at 9:30 PM New Add bookmark #79,920 Here goes the gurning chemist fist pumping to every stand after beating the mighty Luton Town FC "just get down the tunnel" eh Jamie No idea where this number of fouls = cards has come from, but it seems to be a new narrative from the shite. The mighty Luton Town who have won twice at Goodison this season.