Bailey

I am really impressed by the way he semi to have eyes in the back of his head. The number of times he looks like someone is coming into to tackle him or intercept a pass he makes and he just turns the other way and goes clear.

Yes Mirallas is inconsistent but he is more consistent than anyone else we have in that position and like MC says we look more of a threat with him there. Other than possibly Lookman, he is the only one that can do nothing all game and pop up with a bit of skill or shot to get us a goal.

I though Garbutt was back from his loan already?

Was anyone really surprised that Joel was still in goal? We surely can't be arguing that you lose your spot for one below par game despite several good ones?

I don't criticising Ross in public has had anything to do with the improvement as he was sulky right away. The work has been done on the training field and by getting him into a formation that suits him better. If we start playing him off Rom and lumping long balls to him he will play crap again. Now he can express himself more in more space and his confidence is sky high. That's the big difference!

The changes were definitely right yesterday and it showed. I wasn't too surprised that Barry started because he wasn't that bad last week but he was getting pulled around as no-one really knew where they should be as we had 4 people who ideally wanted to play in the same spot. You end up second guessing all the time. I was glad to see Jags in as well. There isn't much between him and Mori but the latter is just that little bit more unpredictable and against that West Brom team we didn't need to give them any encouragement because they were poor. I hope this shows to Koeman how he needs to set us up in a 433. He has it sussed in the 352 so now he doesn't have any excuses for the rest of the season.

Going back to the dissolution of the UK, I was watching Question Time the other night and the SNP candidate, pro independence, was praising how their Universities are free. Aren't Scottish unis funded by UK taxpayers as a whole? Surely if they did become independent they would have to start charging for them?

Yeh true but if he lost to Pacquio there wouldn't be much of a comeback either. I would also expect Khan to get beat but I don't expect him to get blown away so I think there will always be a way back for him. Surely Brook is the biggest payday for him?

I don't think anyone has said anything like that. They just realise he is a solid 7/10 player week in week out with the rare 9 or 5 thrown in.

Khan needs to start fighting more regularly and he needs to fight Brook. There isn't a bigger fight out there for him.

Pushing defensive players doesn't make a formation more attacking, it just makes it more unbalanced. Against Spurs we had two natural attacking players. That's Moyes esque... I thought Rodwell was going to turn up on the right wing again!

I think Bellew could do well against Parker. I don't rate the latter at all. I don't rate Wilder either but boy can he punch!

Yeh I will take that one back! Fair play to him, no idea how he carried on!

I'm not sure his style is that of a Barca manager either.

Spurs taught us playing 5 central midfielders at one time doesn't work. Barry was potentially MOTM in the first game against Spurs and he did lots of good things on Sunday but he gets more stick than others because he is older. Balance is everything in football, it's one of the most underrated factors of any tactic and we had none of it on Sunday and it was detrimental to several players in that team. Against West Brom we need to go back to what has served us well. 1 all out DM, likely to be Morgan, one box to box (Davies) and 1 ball winner (Gana/McCarthy) with Barkley one side and Lookman/Mirallas on the other. I think we will still creak a little at the back as I'm not convinced by the Williams/Mori combination but they are still our best bet.

I don't get why this has become such a big thing. He has done well recently and this was an average game, one average game. Unfortunately it happens!

9 times out of 10 they have both done the right thing. Morgan shows in more than enough space, Joel finds him but the problem is Williams isn't paying attention and I'm not sure too many others are. In hindsight it was probably the wrong situation to play out because of Williams but if Williams switches on or Morgan turns the other way there is no problem as there wouldn't be the 98 other times that passage of play unfolds.

I didn't think he was as bad as is being made out. He got a bit more desperate as the game went on and I thought he played a couple of people into trouble, mainly Mori, but it wasn't a performance that means he means he has to be written off especially as he has been solid in the games before.

It's more or less the same with all South American CB's. I don't know why either.

Ross for me. Alli will get the plaudits but Barkley was by far the better and more influencing player throughout the game.

He proved that at the moment he isn't a world class keeper. Would have taken a bloody good one to save the first, a more experienced keeper "might" have thought twice about playing out the second but he didn't make another mistake in the game. I get the feeling some people, who have probably never played in goal themselves, think that every shot should be saved. They watch goals in slow mo and think the keeper has loads of time but it's not the case especially as you need half an eye on the everything else that is going on in front of you.

Apart from one mistake where he missed the ball I think his defending was alright. His distribution was absolute wankers however.

Yeh they were. In my opinion they all seemed a bit confused about who should be doing what. At times Davies or Gana came central and then Schneiderlin would move a little and it was a case of too many cooks. Blame lies with Koeman for this one. It was a strange formation and he took ages to change it up. Certain players let him down as well. It's also worth saying that Barca won't go near Koeman with tactics like that.

Came from a couple of bullshit free kicks. Valencia scores!

Terrible again...