Tonto

Can did enough to warrant a place on Sat. Henderson in for Allen, Gerrard for Lucas, Sterling for Markovic. Lallana or Coutinho is marginal except that Phil is going to be fresher. That leaves whether you persist with Borini, revert to Balotelli or go with the diamond and play both but at the expense of a midfielder. I'd stick with Borini to start.

Sakho out for another week:

Don't think we can do much on the attacking side until Sturridge comes back in. We need him to push defences back and create space for Coutinho, Lallana etc. We can't keep relying on Sterling alone. Without that threat, teams will push right up on us and we'll keep seeing our attacking midfielders being smothered. Hopefully, we'd start seeing Markovic looking more lively if he has more space in front of him too. Defensively, who the hell knows?

Our attacking set pieces have deteriorated too.

Yeah, that's the definitely the downside of it.

I'd like to see how a Lambert and Balotelli partnership would work. They seem too similar to play together but having two players capable of physically occupying the back four, holding up the ball and getting the deeper players running onto the ball at speed could be interesting. West Ham can't get too comfortable, with the relative lack of pace up front and try and force us up the pitch because there's still too much pace elsewhere in our side.

Well yeah, but we weren't 1-0 up with the job done when Manquillo did his thing.

Going from memory here, Moreno was stranded way up field so we had three defenders back with the ball coming down our left. Stands to reason that the entire defence has to shift to the left, with Sakho as our leftmost defender. I think there were a few errors in that goal, starting with Moreno getting a bit carried away (there was no reason why, at that stage, he should have been in front of Sterling when we lost the ball), our midfielders not being in good positions to cover and then Mignolet's decision to come out.

Good point on City's approach. I think they will finally start to punch their weight in the CL this year. Their games against Chelsea, and to some extent against us, last season, showed a bit naivete in being too open and attacking from the start. They were a lot smarter last night. I think this game (our toughest fixture don't forget) just came too early with too much sorting out still to do.

Mignolet, Johnson, Lovren, Skrtel, Moreno, Gerrard, Coutinho, Henderson, Allen, Sterling, Sturridge Hart, Zabaleta, Demichelis, Kompany, Clichy, Fernando, Nasri, Toure, Silva, Jovetic, Dzeko

Pretty sure it definitely would not have been given if it actually did touch Vlaar, but if it didn't touch him and had gone in, what would happen? I recall there being a case in a shoot out where the ball rebounded off the post and went in off the keeper's back and it was not counted. Something along the lines of the ball being dead once it stops moving forward or it only counting if it is scored based on the momentum of the initial kick rather than a rebound. I've had a trawl through the laws of the game and can find nothing about this. Anyone know the details? Edit: surf posted his link as I was typing.

No.

Baby started crying at about the 75 min mark so I never saw the Palace goals. While looking after screaming baby upstairs I managed to check my phone three times. Each time there was another Palace goal. Bizarre. Still haven't seen the goals. Don't think I ever will.

And hadn't the news just filtered through the to the players that Bolton had lost meaning QPR could afford to lose?

Unfortunately refs seem reluctant to book players despite it being clear in the laws that this is the punishment for delaying a restart in play. Teams can be clever about and it rotate the time-wasting too. I'd like to see refs able to reverse the restart. So, the throw or free kick is awarded to the other team. A delayed goalkick becomes a corner.

I think we were a bit more conservative than usual in the first half. Partly because Lucas is nowhere near as dynamic in attack as Henderson but also because the full backs seemed to get forward less than usual. A few times when we attacked in the first half it was noticeable how few players we had in and around the box compared to our usual style. The approach in the first half was pretty much spot on. The second half was different and we ended up looking ragged and desperate, but you'd have to make allowances for the pressure they must have felt under. It's funny that the general narrative since Sunday has been that Mourinho got the better of Rodgers tactically and psychologically, but can you imagine if we had sat back and abandonned the tactics that have served us so well all season? Surely that would have been a clear case of Mourinho's mind games working. Instead I think our approach was pretty much right. Brendan tweaked it a bit for the occasion but generally we stuck to what we're best at. We lost because of a mistake and because we lacked options off the bench in the second half that could have galvanised us rather than seen us lose our cohesion (given the Sturridge sub didn't really work out).

I have no issue with his tactics at all. Football is all about there being lots of different ways to get a result. The time-wasting is bloody annoying but the blame is largely with the laws of the game - it's not the wasting of time that matters, it's the effect of destroying all momentum and taking the tempo out of the game. What gets me about Mourinho is the "tactical masterclass" stuff. You can't make that claim without acknowledging that playing so defensively is also the reason Chelsea will most likely finish 3rd this season when really they should be top at this stage. And yeah, we're still in it. I refuse to believe City will take 9 points from here and I have no doubt we will beat Palace and Newcastle.

Most important selection question for this game is "Is Sturridge fit?".

It's funny how there was no moral outrage from the media in general at the City players clearly trying to influence the ref to get Luis sent off. However, anyone "waves an imaginary card" and it's all tut-tutting and outrage. Just a general point at the double standards and hypocrisy from those who try to be moralistic about football rather than specifically about this incident.

"We go again. Come on."

Hopefully Palace are safe by the time we play them. Usually a massive fall off in form from teams that have been in a relegation battle but have just guaranteed their safety.

A 2-1 defeat is the smart result to aim for here.

When Coutinho scored he ran off pointing to someone (in that "I only scored, it was all down to this lad" kind of way) )on the Centenary Stand side. I couldn't make it out on MOTD but was he pointing to Flanagan?

Just bought mine via the FAI Season Ticket early purchase scheme.

If we get past Arsenal then the home game against Sunderland will be moved to a midweek slot. If we get to the cup semis, the Man City game will have to be midweek too.