At the min our financial situation is pretty good actually, our main problems are squad depth and motivation against teams who we should be beating quite comfortably. The last one of the two has always been a big problem for us, and once we are playing these teams and go down, we find it harder to get back into the game than if we were to go down to Man Utd, Everton or Chelsea say.

I don't think we are any better than Spurs, Arsenal or Chelsea, but I also don't think we are much worse and we should be competing with them. I also don't think United have as good a squad as everyone makes out but they are still playing good football getting good results.

All it takes us is to have a couple of injuries or suspensions and we are screwed, take this season for example

Gerrard out quite a bit
Bellamy out for a few games
Suarez out a bit
Lucas out most of the season
Agger out for a while
Adam out for the season (what a God send)
Johnson has been out a while
Kelly injured.

At the minute we have Lucas, Agger, Kelly, Johnson and Bellamy all unavailable. Some of which have been our most influential players of recent times so it has been tough for us yeah, we have also had a few fresh faces trying to gel into a team which is not easy for most players to adapt to so it will be a dodgy season for us.

I am not going to lie and say I am happy with how it has gone but take it all in to account and we maybe should have more points but wouldn't be much higher in the league.

No team suffers more than Arsenal for injuries, but people never think about that when they are writing them off, and what a run they are having at the minute, 7 wins in a row for them now i think, they were 15 points behind spurs at one point so fair play to them.

No one is doubting that, they have done amazing to turn it all around, the key point during that being the game vs Spurs, what an attitude the players had there.

Wonder where Liverpool are now? Oh wait I see, 8 points underneath us.

Our playing squad is average. We are 4/5 players away from Champions League and Kenny hasn't helped buying over priced British 'talent'.

We all make mistakes, in the Summer I back him to rectify them. He has earnt that right. Now he must rectify the problems in the Summer or his contract will not be renewed.
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The fact that people would rather us finish 4th and play in the Champions League than win trophies is there issue. I'd take the FA Cup and League Cup every season over entry into the Champions League 3rd round qualifier.

I don't care about 4th in particular because it's rubbish. You shouldn't be rewarded for failure, and 4th is failure. It is a small club mentality to aim for anything other than 1st in any competition you enter. To target 4th spot is madness, to celebrate it even more so.

If we can't win the league, win the cups!

The Champions League has taken over football completely in Europe. It is a great competition to be in, but it doesn't mean we should drop our traditions of winning cups just to be a part of it.

If people took a step back and thought about what they were saying they'd be amazed!

People would rather finish 4th in the league than win trophies! It's going really well for Arsenal at the moment!

Edited at 18:08 Sun 25/03/12 (BST)

Ben Arfa was brilliant for Castle today, class player....him, Cisse & Ba are looking very good!

The fact people are more bothered about us than their own team makes me laugh...

Newcastle just hammered West Brom and played fantastic, yet all Jack is bothered about is where Liverpool are. My facebook yesterday was clogged up with Everton fans, not buzzing because they beat Swansea away but that Liverpool lost.

Si come on last night having just gotten a draw to Man City, commented only about their goals yet made a 2 and a half posts about Liverpool.

Seems everyone just has a crazy obsession with us.

Well we are a big talking point right now given our relegation type form since christmas.

The way I see it we are already back in Europe next season so why not take the opportunity to play some of our reserve players such as Sterling who I think could be better than Oxlade-Chamberlain.

After the season we had last time around winning a trophy (or two) and getting European football should definitely not be seen as a failure by any means.

I see this as a 2005 type season, good in the cups, terribly inconsistent in the league. But the next 3 years we were much better in the league I expect the same pattern to follow over the next few season climbing up the table gradually. Champions League football will be back in 2013.

It's just a matter of keeping our patience as the mentality of a lot of fans was shot to pieces during the late Benitez and Hodgson era with a Chelsea-style mindset coming into play of blaming everything on the manager and getting them out if they did not get results.

Edited at 19:50 Sun 25/03/12 (BST)

Nah, I just love seeing your reactions haha

Some love us, some hate us, but nobody ignores us.

Wow, sad how much Motd 2 is going on about Crouches goal...
It was good yeh but it wasn't so good that it needs to be shown and talked about 24/7... Not goal of the season either lol...

Is it just me who hates Colin Murray on MOTD2!?

It is embarassing watching him trying to be 'one of the lads'. Plus he said Ben Arfa is more about running than technique? Wow, wtf!?

And yeah the the Crouch goal was annoying. I've seen him score better for Liverpool! Colin must have used a whole box of Kleenex during that hour over it!

Horrible presenter, knows nowt.

Double

Edited at 23:22 Sun 25/03/12 (BST)

As far as I'm concerned any goal against city is goal of the season now .

Give me a better goal for goal of the season... The ball doesn't touch the floor from keeper to goal... He Kicks up field header to pennant chest back to Crouch set up beautifully and amazing put in it's always been goal of the season.

And I had a bet on Stoke to draw to City so I wasn't to shocked when it happend that's why I didn't go mental over it Mich lol it is an amazing point we've just drew to the most expensive team in the Country (possibly world) not only that the sheer class of their players for Stoke to take anything is amazing.

The reason I question Liverpool is because alot of their fans think they are much better than they actually are so it's all about perspective on their actual true form.

I love football I can watch Crew vs Crawley as much as I can watch Man Utd vs Liverpool, I've been to Anfield when Stoke wern't even playing them just to add another ground to my growing list. I've got passion for the Sport that's why I love Stoke more than possible haha Them 2 minutes after you score it's the best feeling in the world when you stand and chant your teams song there's no place I would rather be! The world without Stoke would be like living and never experiancing love! Bad times

A goal of the season kind of goal for me focuses on an individual effort, so I'm basing my opinion on the fact that all Crouch did was volley it in to the top left corner from outside of the box. Brilliant goal don't get me wrong, but I've seen hundreds like it before. It certainly wasn't so good that Colin Murray had to show the fkin clip about 10 times on MotD2, one of which was bang on in the middle of the Newcastle v West Brom game which was just disrespectful to be perfectly honest.

Ryan Taylors goal against Everton wasn't that far off of what Crouch did.

I didn't see MoTD so I can not really comment on what happened and if he did show it mid flow of the Newcastle game then that's not right.

Listen to this link below the commentator on the match for Crouch's goal

http://audioboo.fm/boos/726075-crouch-oh-my-god/embed

Saw that yesterday. Was like Stan had just seen one of his dogging pals in action.

Can't see anything other than a stadium of light double tonight. Benfica and Sunderland to both win

£1 returns £5.64 on that double, barely worth it...


I might go for 2 draws though, £1 returns £10.89 might be worth a cheeky fiver.

APOEL and Bolton both 9/2 to draw also... might be worth cheeky £5's