was the everton game on thursday with the team we had out last night? would joey, drogba and ricci have played last night if we didnt play thursday. also, did jose have a little input into last night. we played the same game we would have if jose was here and probably have won, but with grant not able to inspire the players as well as jose we paid for that tactic.

It played a big part in team selection, but it shouldn't have. We should have gone for it last night, without winning, Thursday's game is not as important now

I honestly thought we would win last night and draw on Thursday. We may still win on Thursday but United's win over Arsenal meant that we had to win both games. Even if United drop points against Blackburn we would probably have to win the rest of our games and hope they slipped up in one of their other games. It is a lot to ask. Under the circumstances we would probably be better off preparing for an all out assault on the Champions League instead.

Last night's result had been coming for a while though. Look at most of the recent games that we had won and they were very similar. A combination of luck or missed chances from the opponents meant that we held on and got the win. Our luck ran out last night.