Really does make you wonder how bad Hugo's injury is. I suppose there's part of me that would like to think that Poch has told Walker that because he injured Hugo, he won't play until Hugo plays again.

Could be the game where Yedlin gets his first start maybe ?

Also reading that Capoue captained the Under-21's against Liverpool and was apparently quite poor. If things are really that bad, then he really has to be one of the first out of the door in the summer.

U21s lost 3-1 last night. Capoue played 70mins and Captained the side. Reports say he played ok. Apparently we created majority of chances but couldn't stick them away.

Swansea's loss today means that a win tomorrow would move us ten points clear of them in 8th spot and effectively guarantee another season in the europa league because, even in our current form, not only do i think we won't lose 4 out of our last 5 games, but also Swansea have Ars*nal and City back to back in the league as well so there'll almost certainly be points dropped there.

U18s beat Man City 4-1 today, Kaziah Sterling with 2, Ryan Loft and Anton Walkes the scorers. Marcus Edwards apparently bossed the midfield playing as a no.10 and got 3 assists. Shame he's still a bit too young for the first team.

Yeah saw that result, a fine win there indeed.

With Southampton losing as well today, that gives us a chance to go back above them in the table tomorrow. We play them away the following week which could effectively be the decider for 6th place, though I don't think that would make any difference to which Europa League qualifying round we join.

Obviously by then we'll know the line-up of the FA Cup final and it'll likely rubber stamp the Europa League place no matter what happens.

Although if we were lucky enough to win today and next weekend and City did drop more points, the law of sod would mean we'd actually be right back in the chase for 4th.

dear god .. Paulinho starts..

#THFC team: Vorm, Dier, Fazio, Vertonghen (c), Rose; Bentaleb, Paulinho, Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela; Kane #COYS

I hope Lamela isn't there for the 2nd half. He's been poor again, and with his tackling ability is a red card waiting to happen. Chadli has been better today, and scored a decent goal, but it's lucky we're playing the worst team in the league.

FFS caught napping 1 - 1

Bentaleb 2 - 1 that's a bit better.

Edit: Eriksen credited.

Newcastle are not, in any way, shape, or form the worst team in the league.

here we go ..

Maybe not but their current form is poor and we should be capable of comfortably beating them, not making a meal of it.

I'm sure Lamela would fall over if someone farted on him

Well 3 - 1 with Kane's late goal. Looked comfortable in the end but some awful individual performances.

Dang, turned it off before the end due to my crappy broadband

Still not a performance worth shouting about, and didn't tell us anything about the players that we didn't already know, but a good away win nonetheless so i'm happy to take it.

absolutely. just like Burnley and Villa before them.

Interesting really, for both the goons and Man Utd their seasons have been turned around by a run of fitness/selection of a £35-£40 mill player (Ozil and Mata).

The other two in the top 4 are Chelsea and Citeh, both complete strangers to conventional financing.

Then there's us and Liverpool on the same points.

With Villa getting to the FA Cup Final, I suppose it means if Ars*nal then win it, it'll guarantee 7th spot qualfies for the Europa League, because 6th is already set.

Not sure what a Villa win would mean though - if it potentially means that they'd take the Europa spot, it could mean that 7th would be "safe" from qualification.

So we'd potentially be in the "interesting" position of wanting Timmy Tactics to do us a favour or hoping that Ars*nal don't drop us in it

It does seem to appear that a Villa win would mean that 7th is "safe" from Europa. Don't think i'd be massively upset if we ended up there TBH.

I think they're worthy contenders as the worst team in the league at the moment. Six defeats in row, playing with less desire than us, a club crumbling around them.

Points gathered earlier in the season have saved them from relegation.

Newcastle clearly struggled from not having any sort of cutting edge up front. Perez looks as if he could be useful but not as a main striker and certainly not without any support. Carver started too defensively. It didn't help that they were without Tiote and Sissoko and had a midfielder at left back either.

We were pretty poor in the first half but improved in the second. Having slagged the defence this week, I thought they played ok although admittedly they weren't really tested. In particular Vertonghen and Rose looked good and it was interesting to see both Fazio and Vertonghen bringing the ball forward at times.

Good game from Paulinho too and apparently MoM! Lamela was just appalling in the first half. It was unbelievable how poor his touch was and how many times he gave the ball away. He improved a bit in the second half and I wouldn't be sorry to see him start all the remaining games to see if he can run into a bit of form. The only problem is that as his confidence grew he tried to get more involved in the middle and at times we ended up with everyone in a narrow channel down the centre of the pitch and no out ball to the wings.

Overall an "interesting" performance.

From our remaining games only Hull looks definitely winnable. The rest we are going to have to work hard and up our game to come away with even a reasonable amount of points. Everton and Stoke have both hit decent end of season form and we are playing away to both. At least we get the Southampton and City games out of the way first.

As much as who we play it's pretty clear without Vertoghen and Lloris we're mid table at best at the back. Obv. a little better this weekend but would love to see Lloris back as well.

Decided I don't care who plays right back - you have to expect Walker to cause at least one goal from his positional ineptitude and Dier is generally a little random. Walker just f***s me off though.