Frederick

If we went down far worse things would happen than a world class player deciding he didn't fancy playing in the second tier so yes, bigger matters at hand.

Bigger matters at hand. Timmy's win ratio? Well, yeah, actually.

Bigger matters at hand.

You score three against QPR at home and end up fumbling around for a point, oh the insipid fragility of life! Dear little Timmy tactically outwitted by his old number two, Benteke carrying the rest of the team on his back like sandbags to a flood site, Kieran Richardson so bad that suddenly Stephen Warnock seems like Paul Breitner by comparison. Hell of a game. Oh and welcome back Vlaar, right on cue to look completely disinterested but receive a bunch of ballyhoo about what good news it is that you're back, all from people that haven't seen you play in a year.

Talk of a new contract for Darren Bent when I've said my goodbyes to the man more times than a military wife! He's Hachi the dog meets Rocky Balboa and you just know I'll end up at his testimonial game!

Was less One Night in Istanbul, more One Night in that club in Southport.

Another late goal denies us an invaluable point. Didn't play particularly well but were at least more purposeful in the second half; sadly Scotty Sinclair was far too selfish and lacking in composure when it mattered most. Man U away next then QPR at home a few days after, better win one of 'em!

After Mesut Özil was actually really good last night, I thought the usual pathetic sniping from the press might subside a little this morning. No such luck. There genuinely seems to be a campaign against him at the moment, and it's getting unbelievably tiresome. The Mail and Sun are still crying that Bale trotted off to Madrid (hence all the lovesick gossip they incessantly peddle about him returning) and felt short changed that they/us/we the customers of 'EPL' were 'only' getting the chap he was replacing, thereby besmirching the holy brand. That and he probably declined invitations to do some puff pieces when he first signed. Also his body language is a bit too 'oh well, I'll get the ball back in five seconds' instead of 'right, I'll put that bastard into the stands' like a true Scholesy playmaker.

No need to play Devil's Advocaat on the Poyet sacking, it's Big Dick to the rescue!

I can't help wondering what would've happened if Ben Foster hadn't had that brain fart at the end of the first West Brom game but boy am I glad he did! Suddenly we're bound for Wembley, Agbonlahor's flying, Benteke's flying and N'Zogbia is at least partially levitating. It obviously aids the cause when you're playing a team who were utterly putrid but we played good stuff regardless. Michael, the supporters weren't exactly enamored with Poyet before, is this a step beyond? A quick sacking before the Newcastle game has worked before!

It's both, a lot people were practically falling out of their chairs laughing when Arsenal drew Monaco and PSG are always regarded as a big fish in a small, grey pond.

Always fine with a pile up at the altar of Moronho and Chelsea but to have Graeme Souness decrying all dem dirty foreigners for ungentlemanly conduct was pretty hilarious considering his own outstanding contribution to skullduggery and bastardliness as a player and a manager over several decades. You could also see young Thierry biting his tongue fairly sharply so as to not make the same point.

Oh no, the nation's nonexistent love affair with Chelsea is in turmoil!

According to EA Sports Jozy will be knocking them in for fun by around the 2017/18 season after joining Juventus or Real or Fulham (another of their odd specialty cases).

Hertha to beat Schalke at the weekend.

After the Stoke debacle and the first half at Newcastle we certainly deserved that.

Seems, theoretically, a decent few games are on deck for Gus and the lads; Hull is a game they can surely get something from, home to Villa is almost a freebie, West Ham are rolling downhill without crash pads and then cometh the derby against some barely known, grudge holding, stone faced weirdo!

How to get it wrong: give a performance as bad to watch as the Clooney/Schumacher/Arnie stinker!

How to get the Batman and Robin thing right: dismantle your reliably frail foes in a derby demolition

Sixteen seconds and I still feel spoiled.

Yawn, Arsenal. The endless crawl to 4th, players preoccupied with group selfies in their tighty whities after enthralling narrow wins against West Brom, a manager who drones on and on about how he nearly signed 'insert player's name here' when he was 7 but didn't because he couldn't fit his Game Boy into his suitcase...let me guess, a 2-0 second leg win just for the hell of it?

Well if that doesn't finally put to rest the tired neutral notion that Ron Vlaar is actually brilliant then I don't know what will. Three years of average to below average service with a good World Cup sandwiched in between doesn't cut it with me, for a man allegedly made of concrete he seems awfully paper based most of the time. Needless to say everyone else was pretty much rubbish too, same old dreary performances from our assuredly not too good to go down motley crew. Can't see Tim putting up with that bored looking burger vendor we allow to aimlessly walk around the pitch every week. Oh, wait that's Agbonlahor, a man who supposedly 'bleeds claret and blue'.

Wouldn't be surprised if the entire 'debate' was nothing more than thinly veiled marketing for Break Your Leg or Dive, a forthcoming Saturday night game show on BBC One hosted by Gregg Wallace.

Gus condescendingly telling off supporters for supposedly wanting the return of the Reidy/Quinny/Super Kev axis definitely spoke of a bitter man spending too much time with the thoughts inside his head. Annoys me the same way when commentators routinely decry half empty stadiums for fixtures that have been moved to inconvenient kick off times to suit the money making practices of their employers. Make that connection or shut up about it. At least Kevin Kilbland had the temerity to call Wazza Roo a diver, obviously not daunted by the thought of being barred entry from some future charity golf day. Hodgson would probably feel obliged to defend Rooney whatever the case while P. Neville is in every sense 'all jawline, no teeth'.

Dortmund beat Mainz with a glimmer of genuine authority while Lord Sherwood of Cockney evokes Churchill to sink lunatic Nigey Pearson's Leicester. Anyone but Arsenal, Liverpool, West Brom and most of all, Bradford in the quarters! Oh and van Diagram's billion dollar snooze XI, I suppose.