Frederick

If we stay up I will personally build gold statues of Benteke and Guzan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wakp_wML13U

What a joke penalty that was. Think I'll give Europol a call.

In fairness, Michael, if Ramsey's playing Arsenal will lose 0-8 and end up finishing 12th. At least according to every taxi driver on earth..

Probably the most feeble six weeks I can recall in my time. I thought we might just be getting it together when we beat Norwich and Liverpool back to back but the reality is, the squad is terrible and the tactics are getting more baffling by the second. I find the whole enterprise a complete embarrassment at the moment.

At least this happened

Not that we deserved anything from the game but nevertheless...

Good job Brian "no more kidding around" Kidd was on hand to stop these two washer women fighting.

My favourite one is "he's entitled to go down". Pulitzer prize winning pundit Gary Neville can keep crowing on about this until Ed Chamberlain can finally grow facial hair but the idea that this phrase in any way successfully exonerates cheating is an absolute non-starter.

"People keep saying I'm diving, but if there's contact it's not diving. Referees need to look more closely." Pull the other one, you cheating, chimp faced bastard.

Well, we're abysmal again. Fifteen against, none for...in three games. Utterly unacceptable by anyone's standards, let alone Aston Villa.

A club record 8-0 defeat two days before Christmas, three days before Spurs, six days before Wigan and nine days before Swansea. You've got to laugh.

Europa League last-32 draw: BATE Borisov v Fenerbahce Inter Milan v Cluj Levante v Olympiakos Zenit St Petersburg v Liverpool Dynamo Kiev v FC Bordeaux Bayer Leverkusen v Benfica Newcastle v FC Metalist Kharkiv Stuttgart v Genk Atletico Madrid v Rubin Kazan Ajax v Steaua Bucharest FC Basel v Dnipro Anzhi Makhachkala v Hannover Sparta Prague v Chelsea Borussia Monchengladbach v Lazio Tottenham v Lyon Napoli v Plzen

Shakhtar's a toughy but a goody. There's no doubt that we're not as defensively tight as in the past two seasons but I would except us to outscore them over two games. Bayern away in the DFB Cup, too. And as for Bradford, its the the team we wanted to draw but we have to make sure we don't, ahem, Arse it up. We must show no mercy.

Champions League last 16 draw: Galatasaray v Schalke Celtic v Juventus Arsenal v Bayern Munich Shakhtar Donetsk v Borussia Dortmund AC Milan v Barcelona Real Madrid v Manchester United Valencia v Paris St Germain Porto v Malaga Capital One Cup semi-final draw: Chelsea v Swansea Bradford v Aston Villa

Well, it IS Saturday night. A magical afternoon, Lambert's getting it together, slowly but surely. Liverpool to finish 2nd, right Brendan?

Bearing in mind that we're no prize ourselves, I was pretty stunned at just how poor Reading were against us a few weeks ago. I mean, Jason Roberts, seriously? What year am I living in? I was half expecting Steve Chettle and Neil Redfearn to appear from the bench just to completely solidify in my mind how doomed to relegation they are.

Sunderland could have a 8-2-0 formation, lose 32-0 against Reading on Tuesday and Oliver Holt would still find a way to churn out a few hundred words about how brilliant Martin O'Neill is doing "under the circumstances".

Cue every phone-in on earth being solely devoted to toddlers with rashes banging on about how bad Aaron Ramsey is, how Wenger's "lost it", how they'll finish "no where near" the top four, blah blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

(to the tuneful dirge known as Blue Moon) - altogether now! Blue Moon, You saw me standing alone In the elimination zone Even got battered by Ajax Blue Moon, You know we're forth out of four You heard me saying a prayer for Someone Italian hired by Sheikh Mansour.

I honestly thought O'Neill was building something very special at Villa, that it all went to pot wasn't (just) because of the some of the expensive deadwood he signed but also because of his inability to mix things up tactically. Arguably he had the most talented starting XI we've had for nigh on twenty years but ultimately lesser players in lesser eras were able to achieve a lot more than he could. At the time I thought Randy had played hard ball with him but really it was a cowardly exit from an ego maniac. I never understood why Bruce couldn't get Sunderland ticking and likewise with Martin. I just don't get it. Moreover, they seem to crumble against teams they should be out muscling in all departments. They look so timid, especially at home where they should be rampant, pressing high up the pitch. I don't see a single leader in their team but maybe its bigger than stuff like that. I don't know.

Five points from three games counts as stability when you're down at the bottom but we're still frightening to watch most of the time.