JoshVilla

And they got to see a wonderful goal from Vlaar. We didn't play fantastically, but they still got to see better football than they normally do (or don't, except for the last few knuckledraggers that still actually go down the sty).

I'm quite excited to see him back. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of his anonymous performance and sometimes laziness when considering his wages, but very occasionally he can be the difference between winning/drawing and losing a game. He's another option for us and is still a threat.

I must admit, I might start to worry a bit if we don't get 3 points from this one. They've had a win and a draw and we're surely due a win, so hopefully the law of averages should work in our favour . Hoping we line up very attack minded as they don't have anything huge in terms of threats. Delph's return will help to make things happen and I can see Gabby's pace giving them problems if he's back too, and of course, they're gonna have to keep a very hungry beast quiet. We have a good opportunity to sort out our home form a bit so it'll be a massive disappointment if we throw this one away.

Yessssssssssss! Go Skins!

Skins will throw this away now. Bloody hell

Come on Skins, turn this around now

Brilliant drive ending in a blocked FG, ffs!

Another frustrating performance. Yes, it's a point away from home and a clean sheet, but 4th game now without scoring is worrying. The 2nd half was better, but the creativity isn't really there, which we could really do with when the counter attacking isn't working. West Ham's defense is strong, but I guess it just feels crap in the light of our past 3 results. Hope the Cardiff game will end our goal drought.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz. We really need to get the first goal to have any hope of getting more than a point. We miss Delph, Gabby and even Luna's knack for getting forward. Hope Lambo sorts this out for the 2nd half !

I'd certainly be for giving Helenius a proper go. From the small amount that we've seen of him he looks to have something about him that can be developed. His height would be quite useful too for this.

This is the time when we really need to be getting some points on the board. We've got a nice little run of fixtures now, and I really hope we don't throw any of them away. Hopefully we should be able to out do them in terms of pace and firepower, but they'll be strong in the midfield and we'll have to be prepared for a bit of a physical battle. We should win this, but I always worry when that's the case.

Way to balls this one up Redskins! Bring on next week.........

Typical bloody Redskins. Had a 14 point lead and have completely effed it up. No idea why we've abandoned the running game when it was working so well for us.

Yet again, a lesson in what happens when we don't take our chances (yeah.....like we really needed another one). I had a feeling that penalty miss was gonna bite us on the arse. That, Weimann tripping over himself while one on one with the keeper, Gabby's chance, all chances that would have maybe been converted had they been Everton's chances. The frustrating thing is that, yet again, I feel like we were playing so much better than the scoreline suggested. The first half was incredibly tight, and the second half was looking as though we were the favourites to get the first goal, but in the end, it just adds a bit more sting to the fact that there's only one statistic that matters at full time. Delph was MOTM again for me. Tonev did a lot better in the second half than he did in the first. As for Weimann, well, it's a massive shame. He was my favourite player last season due to his work rate and his decent scoring record, but he only really seems to be showing one of those so far. He appears to have lost his composure again. Everton are a better team than us and I can't say I expected us to win, but I certainly didn't expect another 2-0 loss at home. Onto the next one though. UTV

Interesting Line up. I would have probably swapped Sylla in place of KEA instead of Tonev, but it's obvious what Lambo's intentions are here. I do worry that the midfield will be over-run, so Gabby and Weimann are gonna have to drop back and help out rather a lot. There's a lot of nervous excitement about this.

10 points taken away from them now would be effing comedy gold. They don't have the quality to get those points back, and it'd whack them right at the bottom with 6 points needed just to move up to 23rd. They can say what they like about us, but the hard facts that they need to face are that we're an improving team in the top division whilst they're a rapidly declining 'team' that are grasping at very thin straws to stand a chance of staying in the championship. It's a shame that such an embarrassing club defaces the city's name. I must say though, debating with bluenoses is gradually becoming even more fun since they literally have no way of defending what they have any more.

Really not sure about how this will pan out. For me, Everton don't really have as much of a "fear factor" about them as other teams in the top half, regardless of the unbeaten run they had for a bit. Keeping Lukaku quiet will obviously be the main job, and this is the 2nd bloody time we'll have had to do that in fairly quick succession, with us playing Chelsea earlier on. Benteke will hopefully be back for the entire game which'll give us a better chance than Sunday, but I find it really difficult to predict how it'll pan out when we play Everton.

Strange game. I thought we had a much better first half than the scoreline suggested, and it did seem to have knocked the wind out of our sails. We had brief periods where we looked like something might happen but, as previously mentioned, there's only 1 thing that matters overall and that's who scored the most goals. Again, it's a matter of taking our chances. It was similar at Hull, where I felt like we maybe rushed our shots a little too much (Weimann especially). Sometimes I think our forwards have a bit more time than they think they do to just take a moment to steady themselves before shooting. Can't say I expected us to get something out of it, but onto the next one with fingers crossed!

I wish a mod would just delete all those silly posts. Ruining the thread. Agreed, the mods usually crack down on this sort of shit.

I think, given time, he'll become a solid player for us. I don't want to always use the "needs time to settle" card, but I think it's going to take him some time to bed into the Villa style. After seeing him for these 3 games, he seems a bit more of a "tap-in" striker than one who creates chances and space for himself, but I think that'll change. We play a more high-tempo running game that requires our attackers to be very mobile, and, because of the way Benteke moves and creates space for himself, we haven't really been used to using a goal hanger, so to speak. I just think it'll take a little time for Kozak to get used to our fast paced style of play, but once he does, he'll be some player. He's got the attributes to be a great centre forward and the coaches will no doubt work hard with him, as they have done with Benteke, to get the best out of him. I doubt he's gonna be Benteke 2, but I reckon he'll still prove a great striking option for us.

It's funny how, during the summer transfer window, this was the signing that I was the least excited about. It popped up pretty much out of the blue and didn't have quite as much hype surrounding it as the other deals. Now, Bacuna is probably one of the most exciting for me out of the new ones. What a difference some gametime makes!

Great to hear that he's back. I wonder if Lambo will start him next week or start Kozak and then bring the beast on if we're trailing? I guess it really depends on whether he gets any gametime during the week.

I struggle to see Spurs losing 2 on the bounce, and us being undefeated in 4 games is also quite a big ask, but as this season has shown so far, anything can happen. I can't help but think that we kind of have a bit of revenge to take after they put 4 past (albeit quite a different squad) us at Villa park in the cup. I think we'll put in a good performance, but I'm not sure which way it'll go. 2-1 either way

Bacuna's looked a lot more solid defensively so far this season, and it does make me wonder what's gonna happen with Lowton. He hit some fantastic form towards the end of last season, and he's capable of producing some brilliant crosses. I have a feeling Lambo will just keep pushing Bacuna back and forth from RB to RM depending on whether he decides to put Lowton back in or not. It'd be good to keep Bacuna at the back and push Lowton into midfield, but there's so much competition for midfield places already and there's no guarantee that it'd work out well. I'm a fan of Lowton and would love to see him hit form again and be back starting, but it's difficult to see at the moment.