Cornish Steve

"When compared to forwards in Europe’s top five leagues over the past 15 years, Calvert-Lewin ranks in the 93rd percentile for goals, 91st for shots, 94th for touches in the opponent’s penalty area and 98th for aerials won." Those are remarkable numbers.

It takes a certain style of play to improve from 17th to 12th (which is about where I think we'll finish after points are docked). It will take a different style of play to improve from 12th to 8th, say, and a different style of play again to progress from there to top-6. Right now, we're on the first step of that journey. The style isn't pretty but it's increasingly effective. Let's rally around that for now and stop worrying about whether Dyche has the smarts to succeed with Steps 2 and 3. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't, but that's for a future discussion and not for now. Currently, he appears to be succeeding with Step 1, which is more than we've witnessed in recent years.

Everton 2-1 United McNeil

It's a measure of our optimism that most of us predicted an Everton win against Palace. The winner for the week is Finn balor for predicting the win and identifying Doucoure as one of our goalscorers. Bill forgot to predict, but Boston Toffee failed to win any points, so there's no change at the top for the season.

For round 11, three of us predicted a 1-1 tie. Congrats to Matt for predicting Mykolenko as our scorer. For the season, Bill is beginning to catch Boston Toffee.

Did Mali actually qualify?

This is exactly how I view the table right now. Hope for the best; plan for the worst.

Wouldn't it be nice to have Dele ready to make the first team before the Africa Cup of Nations.

You mean the guy whose team just lost to Bournemouth?

He was made to look poor by Eze, who's a fantastic player. I thought Branthwaite improved in the second half.

For me, it was Mykolenko. He's improving with each game.

Watching today's match, I thought the teams were well-matched, and we did well to win. Eze is a brilliant player and dominated Branthwaite in the first half. Indeed, the latter was the weak point in our defence, with Tarkowski making some fine moves to save us in the first half. Both Mykolenko and Young did well, I thought. In the second half, Branthwaite improved, maybe learning from incidents in the first half. Harrison and McNeil aren't yet realizing their potential, although McNeil is partnering well with Mykolenko and Doucoure. You could tell Onana wasn't at full strength, so it was wise to replace him at half-time. Garner was workmanlike, but this wasn't his best game. DC-L was well silenced by the Palace defence; Beto was a live wire, and it might have been good to see him come on at half-time as well. Despite grumbling from some, I thought the referee had an excellent game. Starting the same players each week is beginning to pay off. Some of the build-up play in the first half, in particular, was excellent to watch. There's increasing confidence, and our balls into the box are really causing opponents trouble. Give it another month, and we could really be scoring more goals on a consistent basis. I can't wait for the holiday period; we could really move on up the table. What a pity we didn't strengthen our offense until after the Fulham and Wolves games, which we could and should have won. With those additional six points, we'd be tied with Newcastle for seventh spot.

I’ve been traveling all week and today am driving from New York to Atlanta. Apologies for not having updated the spreadsheet but I shall do so tomorrow. palace 0-2 Everton. DCL

Patterson played well last week after some initial hesitant moments: he takes time to warm up. Hesitant moments would be a risk when looking to defend a lead in the second half. If he was to play, he should have started.

Name your charity. Mine is 'old farts of Atlanta'.

You're on. My concern is points being docked. Points in the league must be the priority until that issue is resolved.

Been there, done that.

Glad we got a point, but I can only repeat what I said several days ago. We will struggle playing three games in a week, so we must prioritize: League Cup or league? Rest players midweek and we win this game. As it is, we fielded a strong team midweek, and they ran out of steam today. I just hope we don't rue this decision late in the season. Of course we all want to win every game, and of course fans want silverware, but this is a season to play smart and prioritize. Being in a cup quarter-final just cost us two points in the league.

You get a point for predicting the right outcome (so yes, a point for correctly predicting a win). You also get a point for predicting the correct number of goals by Everton, a point for predicting the correct number of goals by our opponents, and a point for predicting the correct goal difference. You get a point if your prediction is closer to the actual result than most other people predicted.

As I read this, it comes across as lame excuses in a non-apology apology. All they need to say is "we screwed up, we apologize, it won't happen next time". Done. Move on.

Brighton are an excellent team (and I was very impressed with Adingra when Brighton played pre-season in Atlanta), but they appear to be going through something of a lack of form right now. Their eyes might also be on an upcoming European tie. They're fully rested, though, whereas this will be our third game in six days with essentially the same players. Let's hope we can continue our upturn. I'd like to see the same team as beat West Ham.

What matters is momentum in the league, and we're building that. It would be foolish to tire our players ahead of a game for which the Brighton team is fully rested. I'd hate to see us be relegated at the end of the year because we dropped points against Brighton. We should plan as if we need 52 points to be safe this year. Everything else is secondary.

Which is more important: going all out to beat Burnley in this meaningless cup, or securing 3 points at the weekend? If we're docked 12 points, as rumoured, every single point in the league is precious. Do we want to risk a 75m plus financial hit with relegation to win a trophy that generates virtually no revenue and carries no cachet? Let Burnley tire their players for the weekend league match, not us. Priorities, priorities. Brighton have no midweek cup tie, so they'll be playing us in three days' time with a fully rested team. If we have to risk players who are just starting to gel, at least rest our spine: Pickford, Branthwaite, Onana, and DC-L. McNeil and Harrison were clearly off their best against WHam, so give them some rest as well.

We shouldn't underestimate the importance of Tarkowski's experience beside him. You can see them communicating all the time.

Everton 1-1 Brighton DC-L