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Fair point. Maybe I over estimated their squad at the start of the season but I thought they were second favourites (mainly on the basis that they had a settled squad and manager whereas Villa were making wholesale changes and had a new manager in, especially as I didn't rate Di Matteo). The...

Agreed. I think it is fair to say they are not a threat to us being automatically promoted as, if they catch us, the chances are a number of other teams will be further ahead. To put it into context, we're 18 points ahead of them and dropped 18 points in the first half of the season. Having...

I agree to a point but it is very odd what's happened at Norwich as they looked so good early season. While he might not be as bad as their form suggests, if you look at the respective squads there is no way they should be 18 points behind us.

Only in football could Alex Neil still be in charge at Norwich, with one of the most expensive squads in the league, after eight defeats in 10 while Rowett is sacked from Birmingham with the budget they have and position they were in when he left. I understand why the Norwich board want to be...

Agreed. It is easy to focus on Duffy and Murray when talking about summer signings but the permanent signing of Sidwell after his loan and also signing Norwood has meant we've coped brilliantly with Kayal's injury, which would have been a disaster last season when he missed three games and we...

Brilliant performance today. Really under rated by some on here but he offers so much and he and Murray have become a great partnership. Also adding goals to the other work he puts in, including a couple of fantastic strikes against Fulham and QPR.

Dunk. But it could easily be any of Stockdale, Bruno, Duffy (despite him not joining until end of August), Knockaert and Murray and I might even be leaving one or two out.

Absolutely. Fulham and today are two very good examples. His substitutions changed the game at Birmingham too. We are so lucky to have him.

Stockdale 8.5 - Three good saves and a couple of good punches. Impressive Bruno 7 - Not his best game but still solid Dunk 8 - Very impressive again. He looks a different player to this time last year. Duffy 8 - Same as Dunk. What a partnership Bong 9 - Best game for us in my view. Decent going...

Agreed. I think the issue was their extra man. Neither Stephens or Norwood were at fault, they just overran us a bit. Whatever it was, Hughton sorted it at half time and that was our best half in a while in my view.

He is immense. I was surprised when we broke our transfer record on a centre back but what a decision it has turned out to be. Him and Dunk are the best partnership I have seen in 27 seasons of watching Albion. If we do go up, I think they'd be a very good Premier League pairing for us.

Seriously? I think you are the one who needs to look at his kicking. His kicking is so far ahead of FDM it is ridiculous to compare them. As for the point of this thread, he has been great this season. You don't keep 14 clean sheets in the first half of the season without being a superb keeper...

Exactly, and even they will get it wrong. I imagine, if we do go up, we'll make in the region of 8 or 9 signings. With that many players coming in, there will be at least one or two who don't work out, as with Manu last season.

Fair point. I just find it odd that he gets a similar sentence for whatever he said to the referee (ignoring the punishment for the original red card) as Shelvey does when found guilty of using racially abusive language. Although I don't know what Kaz said to the referee, it does seem strange.

They will have ideas for January and the summer, whichever division we're in (and I think we can exclude League 1 now), but it is often surprising who does make the step up. I remember thinking certain players wouldn't make the step up when their team go up and being wrong (and vice versa) so...

Hopefully you're right. I wasn't thinking so much about Villa any more, they have a long way to catch up (and I think it's us needing to lose 5 now before the last match isn't it as we're 17 points clear), but we're not so far clear that other teams couldn't make the last game interesting and...

My point is thought that one is due to a racist comment and the other is dissent to a referee. Seems very odd to me but I do realise they are separate offences.

Wish we were playing Villa away next month rather than having to go there on the last game of the season. Really hope we don't need anything from that game!

I see your point but, as I didn't start watching until 1990, the idea of watching Brighton in the top flight will be amazing. Yes, we would get thrashed by a few teams but going to Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal etc and knowing it's not just a big cup day out but a league would be amazing...

As I said above, Duffy's valuation is irrelevant. He was at Blackburn, a club who are struggling, so people weren't seeing his best football and he was out of contract at the end of the season. This was always going to bring the value down. I would say we'd sell him for more than double his...