El Segundo

Don't think so. First, I don't agrees position 3 or 4 would be higher pressure or higher leverage than position 1. Position 1 is probably the highest pressure apart from maybe 5 in my view. Listening to the radio commentary on the Blackburn Newcastle game last night and both the commentators agreed "send your best taker up first". That seems to be the most popular strategy and probably the reason why the first penalty has the highest conversion rate. I'd argue that the conversion rate is pretty obviously going to reduce as less competent takers come forward, and is a more logical reason for lower conversion rate at positions 3-5 than additional pressure. All your strategy is likely to achieve would be to make the first penalty conversion rate lower, and whilst that may in turn increase the conversion rate of later positions as better takers come forward, the extra pressure of a missed first pen will add more pressure to subsequent takers. Sending up a middling taker first merely increases the chances of handing the initiative and a psychological advantage to your opponents from the start.

He may well take one because of the misconception I mentioned previously. If he must, surely it makes zero sense for someone with a better than even chance of missing to go first. It puts us immediately on the back foot and places even more pressure on the subsequent takers. Should always put your best takers first.

Statistically relevant or not missing 5 out of 9 is more than enough for me not to want him anywhere near penalties. I suspect some people make the mistake of assuming that because he's a striker, and a more than decent one, it follows that he should be a good penalty taker. It doesn't work like that, pens are a different ball game. Not all strikers can hack it, and there are plenty of consistently successful penalty takers who have been full backs, centre backs etc. Like Andy Brehme for Germany, Koeman for Barcelona and Netherlands, Julian Dicks for West ham, Phil Neale for Liverpool to name a few.

Amazed people would trust Watkins let alone make him first up. He's proved he's pretty shite at pens generally even without the pressure of being in a shoot out. I wouldn't have him anywhere near the first 5 takers. Maybe not even the second five. Also Diaby looks like he can't strike a ball properly and I'm not convinced Bailey would be suited to pens. For me Luiz, McGinn, Tielemans, Ramsey, Torres and Digne all look like they have the technique and calmness to take a good pen.

Whatever Emery has done to Bailey I hope he can do similar to Diaby at some point. He's having the fullbacks on toast every week now, home and away. Great to watch. Cash played quite well but was once again at fault goal for a conceded at home. Would really like us to sign a powerhouse of right back in the summer. Some brilliant attacking play first half and I was livid when we lost focus in the added time and let them score, then did the same at the start of the second. Good management by Emery - he could see Luiz had lost focus and gave him a "pep talk", and could see Moreno was having a bit of a mare and got him off early. I thought Chambers did ok and considering we ended up with 5th and 6th choice CBs on the pitch we were reasonably comfortable winners in the end. Surprised the ref didn't get more really poor marks. I thought he was making some absolutely bizarre calls especially first half.

Blimey CV, you must be an absolute riot at parties.

I still think 4th is achievable but no higher. 4th-6th is now between us, Spurs and Man Utd, as it would take quite a collapse for us to end up any lower. That seems unlikely under Emery. I'm not convinced we have the strength in depth or can hit the right form to win that particular battle, but hopefully Ramsey and Digne will get back to their best, Ollie will find his shooting boots, Torres and Konsa will come back strong, Iroegbunam can step up and maybe the likes of Diaby and Zaniolo will finally start to live up to their reputations and valuations. After a full calendar year of being second or third best for points, finishing outside the top four will certainly feel like something of a disappointment. But not so much when you to look at in the context of how far we've come in the last 5 years, three years and especially the last 15 months since we binned Gerrard. I remember all too well that absolutely abject night at Craven Cottage. We're a million miles from that now and 5th or 6th would still be very impressive in that context.

The sky 6 are far more used to the chase for the CL places and have experience of hitting their stride rather than tailing off when it comes to the final third of the season. United had a poor-ish first half of last season but ended up in third without doing anything great. I don't think they are as good as us but they seem to have hit a groove of grinding our results even when outplayed, whereas we have hit a bit of a slump. This coming weekend will be interesting - if Utd win at Luton and we lose at Fulham the gap is suddenly 2 points, and possibly Spurs further ahead of us. I wonder if we'll find it hard to respond under the increased pressure.

I believe Kamara played a fair bit at centre back for Marseille in the past and is supposed to be an option there for us as well. If so then not really a mismatch. Maguire is often very good from set pieces. Then Ollie was slow to come out and played Hojland onside. No doubt about the about the foul the goal came from though, I couldn't believe it when I saw it back. No contact whatsoever, blatant dive and the ref awarded it based on the reaction of Rashford rather than what actually happened. Which is the kind of thing that marks out a truly shit ref. As was penalty not awarded for the blatant shirt pulling and wrestling on Carlos by Lindeloff and his failure to give yellows for dissent to at least two Utd players.

Result aside, lots of positives about the performance today, and if the ball had run for us a bit more of if we'd gone for the corners we could and should have had 3 or 4 today. We didn;t deserve to draw, we deserved to win. Taking Bailey off was a mistake. He and McGinn were making stuff happen and were a big threat second half down their left. We lost some momentum after that and Lindeloff must have let out a huge sigh of relief. Diaby just isn't up to snuff - I had zero confidence in him scoring from that breakaway for example and it was no surprise it went very high and very wide. He never seems to connect properly with the ball, whether crossing, shooting or passing. I'm still hoping he will come good like Bailey eventually did but he's had 8 months under Emery now and seems to be getting worse. Much as I like Matty Cash I'm getting very frustrated watching him. Not sure he is good enough either defensively or in attack. He should have competed better for the header McTominay scored from, but seemed to go at it half-cocked. I don't know if he's playing to orders but the number of times he's had the chance to pick out runs by Bailey and instead turned back inside and gone backwards is really frustrating. Seems afraid to play the slightly risky forward ball.

67 years and counting but listening to radio on the way to the game one guy mentioned we'd got one FA Cup win in the last 102 years. It's actually the last 104 years now we're out of this one. Still better than Blues but as a top flight club for most of that time law of averages should have seen us win it at least two or three times.

In some sense you could say we were victims of a sort of Villa “curse”. When struggling teams need a result, struggling managers need a performance, or struggling players need a goal, Villa, no matter how good or bad they are at the time, often oblige. So a team of misfiring misfits that cost a billion suddenly finds a game-plan and clicks. Gallagher had never scored for Chelsea and put one right in the top corner making it unsaveable for Emi. The up-to-now massively underperforming Fernandez produces a top draw free kick, also unsaveable. Worse still, the hitherto largely hopeless Jackson was allowed to locate the cow’s arse with his banjo and get on the scoresheet. Even the Chelsea fans were gobsmacked – “How shit must you be, we’re winning away”. And that was at 0-1. But to put it down to things not going our way would be masking the decline in our performances generally that seems to have set in since we beat Arsenal. Sheffield is the only game where we’ve looked anything like ourselves – a game where we were neither pressed nor low-blocked and given ample time to play our game. I was delighted at that result but wary that it was as much due to Sheffield’s naivety and awfulness as any upturn in our form. Injuries haven’t helped us, sure, but that doesn’t explain the sloppy and lazy approach of some of our players, our sudden inability to pass to each other. Emery needs to find ways to counter those teams that are pressing us into submission, or we can kiss goodbye to top 6 let alone top 4.

Chelsea probably played the best they have all season. That’s not saying much , but their midfield dominated ours and actually looked like the £200m+ midfield it is. They were quicker, hungrier and sharper all over the pitch and played with zip and pace. They went from end to end in seconds, we took minutes to not get there. It’s the worst I’ve seen us in a long time, so may awful individual performances. One wonders why that was though – surely we should have been up for this one after battling to get the replay. We just seemed half arsed and after looking really good for about 5 minutes we decided we couldn’t or wouldn’t pass to each other, or move, or cover, or mark, or create anything. It was worse than the awful Everton cup game. I’d already had a shitty day and it was so bad I went for a pint after 35 minutes as I couldn’t take any more of it. We’ve been poor in our last 4 home games, conceding 9 goals, all against teams that are either at the bottom of the league or have been struggling for results. We’ve won one of those , and were fortunate to get that. I fear Emery’s approach has been sussed out. Brilliant as he’s been up to December, his apparent inability to adopt a different approach to suit the circumstances and respond to adversity makes me concerned that perhaps he’s not quite the elite manager we like to think he is. Not making changes at half time tonight was a case in point, it coudln't have got any worse if he'd brought some under 11s on. I hope he dispels those doubts soon. Sunday for starters.

It appears they have decided to do something different and add tonight's tickets to our season ticket cards, but it seems they didn't feel it necessary or important to advise us of this fact. And surprise surprise they've had quite a few complaints. Who'd have thought?

No attachments with mine, just a ticket confirmation. Very efficient in taking the money, the opposite when it comes to providing the goods. Just called again and told they are closed until 2. On a match day where they have failed to send out multiple tickets (friends also not had theirs yet). Utter incompetence. Lady wished me a lovely afternoon - I said it's hardly likely if I have to spend it chasing down my ticket.

Anyone else still not received their e-ticket? They emailed me to say I'd purchased it on 31st January (done automatically it seems, I hadn't ordered it). Since then nothing. Called about 40 minutes ago, waited 5 minutes in queue then told to try later as too many calls. Emailed and got a response saying it could take up to 10 days to respond, and if urgent to call them. Genius. They really are fecking useless. What do I do now?

I don't think so. They neither pressed us nor applied a low block (like they did at VP) which have been our two main vulnerabilities recently. I don't think we changed much, we didn't have to, we were just allowed to play Emery's preferred game.

Great result but we won't have an easier game all season. Unlike recent opponents, especially Newcastle and Man Utd, they didn't seem to have a game plan to stop us, gave us all the space we needed to allow us to play our game, and they got punished. We were playing through their midfield easily from the start. We could and probably should have had another 3, but I guess there was one eye on not over-exerting ourselves with a heavy fixture list coming up. Which is fair enough. First time I gave a ref very good because I barely noticed him. Archer looked the biggest threat for them, maybe they need to start him. Enjoying the thrashing but won't get carried away as they were very poor.

I like the idea of having a link to Birmingham in the badge - not necessarily the word "Birmingham" but in a split shield design like this you could have the Lion where the castle is, a Bull/Bull's head representing Brum where the harp is and maybe something else where the ship is - perhaps a bear with a ragged staff to represent Warwickshire. Maybe a start where the ball is too. Edit- just added a very rough example as my personal icon

I wanted rid of MON because I could see he was an outdated, limited egomaniac and could tell he would never get us higher than 6th despite (mis-)spending the family silver. Unai is nothing like him.

I've not been impressed with this bloke at all. Even in the early games where he got some goals and assists he didn't strike me as great, just ok. His decision-making, crossing and passing are generally woeful and he's too easily dominated and marginalised. But Monchi must have seen something in him to so hopefully it's a Bailey/Luiz type situation and he will eventually come good. For now though we might as well play Kellyman or pretty much anyone else, they could barely be worse.

I think Howe and Newcastle deserve credit for that. They not only pressed us intensively very high, but also backed it up by man-marking our four midfielders so there was no easy out-ball. We had to resort to long punts up to Ollie or out wide which were too often either inaccurate or easily turned over. It was crying out for a defender to step out beyond the high press and bring the ball out, like Torres would do and Mings used to. Moreno did on occasion but not often enough or effectively enough. Konsa seemed afraid to try. We compounded that by defending like novices - Schar allowed a free shot for the first, Cash at fault for the third. The high line defence needs protecting with a really good press and we are not pressing anywhere near as well as required. They had time and space to pick out multiple long balls to expose us. I know Emery likes us to control the game and draw the opposition out before trying to play through them but it needs a bit of tempo and zip at times and we were so slow and ponderous in our build up. Even with 5 minutes left and two goals down we seemed to be still trying the patient approach – surely that’s the time to go shit or bust and get it in the mixer? When Baily came on and started running them ragged Howe brought on Livramento to double up on him and it stifled him for a while. Bailey sending Burn out for the papers was genius but ultimately led to nothing. Newcastle were “clever “ in getting “injuries” to stop our momentum when pressure was building. I’ve not been Diaby’s biggest fan this season and tonight convinced me he’s £35m-£52m of lightweight mediocrity. Wild stab in the dark but I doubt any of the add-ons have kicked in yet. Bailey did more in his first 5 minutes. But then I guess Bailey was just as bad 18 months ago. Might be just a glitch but I’m concerned too many coaches have sussed Emery out and he could do with a plan B and C. The ref, as usual, seemed too ready to deem our fouls as yellows, while they got away with it until very late on. Yet another on the PGMOL conveyor belt of clowns. Poor since the City game, need to snap out of it soon.

I'm also not massively confident about this one, mainly because our last two home games were rather lumpen performances against the two bottom sides and Newcastle are better than them despite their injury list and we need to step up again. Form in general seems to have taken a real dip since we beat Arsenal. Diaby owes us a performance if he's selected, and it's about time Ollie got back on the scoresheet. Despite wanting desperately to put 3 or 4 past this lot again I'm going for a narrow win 1-0 or 2-1 but a draw would not surprise me.

For those who believe in omens, it's our 150th anniversary and 150 in roman numerals is.......CL. It's written in the stars I tell ya.

I hope you're right but I think a few things are a bit different to the second half of last season. One, our away form isn't as good both defensively and attacking wise. Two, more teams seem to have cottoned on that we can struggle to break down a low block and we seem to be missing the extra bit of creativity that Buendia/Coutinho were bringing to the final third in the second half of last season. Maybe Tielemans can fill the gap when fully fit. We also have more injury and poor form issues than last year.