HalfTimePost

Everton wouodve made that tough for nearly any club today. Tough game, not great performance but grinding out wins in difficult circumstances and when not at your best is what we need to be able to do more of. Not great but good result.

Oh **** off

5 minutes?! We had that when VAR took 5 mins to rule out the goal at United.

Elbows everywhere from Everton. Rafaball + Fergusons thuggery has made them old school Stoke pretty quickly.

Would be a good shout imo

**** sake we stopped playing thinking we'd given them a Freekick. Jesus. Play to the whistle taught at U7s ffs

McGinn pushed over in the face

Come on then Danny, show it's been the set up and not you.

Liverpool was worse imo

Carney wouldn't have been my choice. Not sure he helps Digne out as much as is needed. Maybe he can keep the ball in the Everton third but I'd imagine if we were capable of doing that Coutinho would've been doing it.

Gerrards had some bad decisions in subs in recent games (United aside). He can confirm a win for us with some good subs here.

Let off there. We need a change, they're really piling on down our left. Neither Digne or Coutinho have been awful but it isn't working (understandably). Give Ramsey Coutinho's place, for some energy and workrate Infront of him. Then get Sanson on to help in midfield with the role Ramsey has been doing so far.

The lino **** up not Mings

Take Coutinho off and put Sanson on with Ramsey moving into the 10. We need more energy down the left

Put it into a dangerous area, these things happen, should've looked up but instinctually he put it into a dangerous area and in a wide open space with no Blue shirts... Not that bad

Lovely by Watkins, a goal or two and the confidence will be back and he'll start pulling passes like that off. At least he looked for the pass this time

This really riles me. When Mings doesn't play and we're under the cosh nobody does it and we concede more goals. We are under pressure with them pressing us and we aren't holding the ball in midfield. He's better off clearing it than putting someone who has an opposition player on his arse under pressure. Statistically we won't retain possession as much lumping it and I hate it too. But Mings gets blamed for a smarter ball than giving it to a struggling Digne or Coutinho under pressure or to Luiz and McGinn with Doucoure up their butt cheeks. Also, as I'm typing, we should've scored from one of his 'aimless long balls'

You're joking right?

Lovely challenge from Mings, love a clean sweep of the ball like that almost as much as a cruncher

...and then he does that pass. Which is why I said in a couple years

Ramsey is really looking more and more a key player every game. His confidence is increasing and as a result the other players are looking for him more often and he's more confident to drive with the ball and take players on. Really excited by what he can be in a couple years.

Perhaps, but Newcastle's FFP situation is they can spend circa £300m and be OK. I'm not suggesting they'll be Man City in 3 years but the idea it'll take them 20 years is wide of the mark imo.

I hate headlines like this. First of all, it's not possible. United, Barca, PSG, Chelsea all lose players they don't want to. City, Bayern and Real are more immune to it but they will too. Second of all, it's presented as though Gerrard offered up this quote out of nowhere. But it's undoubtedly to a variant of the question 'will Aston Villa still be forced to be a selling club after players have signed these long term deals' to which Gerrard can only answer 'no we don't want to be a selling club' ..and then this comes out and can be held against him and the club every time we undoubtedly sell a player.

I just think this is short sighted. Yes they have to spend it well and they may very well spend it badly, but... Man City were bought on August 4th 2008 then they won the FA Cup in 2011, the Premier League in 2012 and their first League and League Cup double in 2014. Took them 3 years. This idea that it'll take Newcastle a decade or two is weird. They don't have the backroom team but the people they are after from Newcastle and Brighton show they're making strides there too. I really don't think any clubs with their own ambition of competing should be selling them anybody and helping speed up the process.

I dunno, if he signs for City and goes on loan to a City Group club I think he would've been gettable for us in the summer as we'd have had him in a major European league 12-24 months sooner than he will be with that path. May be he's not gettable now, but if that's the path he takes I feel like we would've been well positioned last summer