Your best post ever and great advice.

I did like that post of yours, TG, self-deprecating as it was. However, the complicated question of whether attributing humility to yourself - as you've done - is actually a bit arrogant is a philosophical conundrum. It's worthy of Socrates himself, if only he was still with us.

Yeah - It only affects certain browsers like Firefox. I believe Chromium based browsers are ok.

Hope Everton step up tomorrow

Hello Bernard....not sure I fully agree with your Xhaka ranking....I'm not a regular Xhaka basher despite some of his occasional brain farts. But yesterday I was concerned about our left side.
I'm not sure if he was at fault for their first but there seems some confusion. Martinelli is marking the Watford player with the ball and then when the guy releases it he chases after the overlapper but cannot stop the cross and bang they're level...shouldn't Xhaka have been marking the guy with the ball and Martinelli the runner....like I say it may not have been his fault but there was a breakdown just like in the second half when they missed a sitter that started on our left with a ball inside our defender and a right wing cross that Dennis(I think) should've scored comfortably.

Their second goal was a result of him giving the ball away.....I cannot see why he thought a long diagonal ball was a good idea at that moment.....gave us a very nervous last 5....not saying Xhaka played bad but I would dock him a point or two
There's a good player in their somewhere and he has played some good games for us but (top 4 permitting) his position is one I would upgrade for next season.
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It wasn’t my ranking but I think he was well worth the 7 whoever’s ranking it was gave him. He had a good game. Rich is right and he seems to be playing further forward now. So I can only assume that’s Arteta’s direction. It would be ideal to improve any player who isn’t the best in the world in his position. But a new striker or two is a way bigger priority than a replacement for Xhaka this summer.

I think the math checks out in my previous post. I started doing the calculations quite early in the morning though, so I can't guarantee anything.

Looking at the table, I'm wondering if 70 points won't be enough to get fourth place.

If we draw against Man Utd, they lose against Chelsea and Liverpool and win the other 7 games they have left they end up with 69 points. I don't think that's a far fetched prediction, in fact it possibly flatters them a bit considering their patchy form (their last 10 league games are 4 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses).

I think Tottenham will need 9 wins out of their last 13 games to get 70 points. They could do it with 8 wins and 4 draws, but that means they can only afford to lose one more game and they have both Man Utd and Liverpool away remaining, plus the home game against us. Either way would be quite a tall order for a team that has lost 6 of their last 10.

West Ham, like Man Utd have ten games left, but are only at 45 points. To get 70 they need 8 wins and one draw. Included in those ten games are Arsenal and Man City at home, and Tottenham and Chelsea away. They can only afford to drop points in two of those to get 70 points. In their last 10 they have 5 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses.

Wolves are out of it. 11 games to go and thirty points to get to 70, and they still have to play Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool. Not happening.

So, if we set 70 points as a benchmark, Arsenal need to find 7 wins and 1 draw in our remaining 13 games. That means we can actually afford another five losses and can still reach it. Say we lose against all the other big teams, Man Utd, Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool. That still leaves us another loss, and a draw, and we could still do it. In our last 10 games we have 8 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss.

All of this is very speculative of course - teams can find and lose form, important players could get injured etc etc. But from a pure points perspective, you'd have to be extremely pessimistic about Arsenal to not consider us the front runners for 4th place right now.

Xhaka had a shocker ! Reckless passing and not bothering to track back. Honestly what are you on.

No more than a 5

Spurs 5 now...that Goal Difference is disappearing pretty quickly.

You’re the very last person I’d look to for a fair assessment of Xhaka, so it’s almost comforting to see this.

You’re hardly rational about him yourself. You don’t have to look far to find people who thought he was pony yesterday

He divides opinion. Plenty of people think he played well. I don’t actually like or dislike him. I try to make my views dependent on how he actually played. I strongly suspect you allow your opinions to be driven by personal dislike. You presumably enjoy moaning about him.

Nope. When he doesn’t put a foot wrong I give him credit.

It’s a rare occasion. He doesn’t bring much quality

Do you give him credit when “he doesn’t put a foot wrong”? I must have missed it. Perhaps you should think about what expectations are reasonable? If not putting a foot wrong are yours, how often has any player achieved that? Perhaps the likes of Beckenbauer, Maradona and Zidane occasionally did? Perhaps?

But it doesn’t seem a reasonable expectation for nearly all players. Ødegaard and Saka had blinders yesterday. Neither had a perfect game.

Many players have games where they don’t make mistakes xhaka less so. I’m sure I gave him credit after the spurs game this year. Anyways enough about the guy you always want to talk about him.

I'm sure Southgate will stick with Pickford as in truth he hasn't ever really let England down but for me Ramsdale is the better GK despite not being up to the standards he set earlier in the season. .

Kane overtook Henry in the all time prem scoring lousy last night as he moved to 176 prem goals (Henry got his at a better goals/games ratio), Shearer is on 260 prem goals so Kane needs another 85 to go ahead. In the last 4 seasons before this Kane is averaging 20 goals a season, it may be unlikely for him to keep that rate up in to his 30’s so I would say Kane needs the rest of this season and a further 5 seasons at 17+ goals to overtake Shearer. At the start of that 5th season Kane will be 33. I think it is a record that massively motivated Kane, the guy went on rb to swear on his daughters life that he touched the ball so he could take a goal off his team mate, I think he will do it but it will depend on injuries.

See this is the stuff that makes me laugh. Someone says something, it’s gets repeated and repeated and accepted as standard. How has Ramsdale gone off the boil ? A misplaced goal kick on Sunday. The 2nd goal? What white losing it on the edge of his 6 yard box. How’s that his fault.

We’ve taken 25 points from our last 30. He can’t be doing that badly.

Ramsdale is still doing very well for us but in my opinion, and others on the forum, he’s not quite hitting the heights of earlier in the season.
And yes I do think he was partly at fault for the second goal, not the primary fault because the ball should never have got there but it should have been harder for sissoko to score than he made it for him. I’m talking about Ramsdale performing at 8/10 now compared to 9/10 earlier in the season, I’m clearly not saying he’s a poor player. But equally we can’t just judge every player as playing fantastic just because we’re winning games. Individual performances can be analysed within the team winning.

Blaming him for either goal Sunday is incredibly incredibly harsh. Micro analysis at its finest...

You are spot on about micro analysis. It is a product of multiple TV replays from various angles. It inevitably finds a guilty party to explain away any incident or goal. I prefer the old saying that the ball is round and can run anywhere, meaning the game will always hold surprises. Arguably the frailty shown by individual players is as important for entertainment as their strengths.

Absolutely

Every once in a while you just need to shrug your shoulders and say that didn’t run for us. You could lambast Ben white for letting sissoko in but he’s been a very good player for us this season and seemed to make an honest mistake of getting his legs in a mix so he kind of tumbled forward ahead of the ball.

2 players who have served us very well this season.

I don’t think Ramsdale or any keeper would survive making a mistake like David Seaman did in the semi v spurs that time or in Paris v Zaragoza. Benefit of the doubt doesn’t exist anymore