Eddie

There is no way that 7th spot will see us qualify for the UEFA cup.

No. Manchester United winning the Champions League pushed UEFA cup qualification down to 6th. It's only when the FA Cup final is contested between two sides that have qualified for europe through the league that the top 7 all make europe. I have to say the longer this goes on the more it starts to confuse me, but I'm pretty sure that is right.

Anytime.

No. If Arsenal win the champions league then 4th spot is now a UEFA cup spot if they don't make the top 4. As long as they make the top 6, which they will, then 6th spot will certainly be a UEFA cup spot, it could only not be if they let's say finished 7th and won the champions league. Then 4th and 5th would be UEFA cup spots and 7th is now a champions league spot. I'm not sure how clear that it is now that you read it, but basically Arsenal winning the champions league will only matter to us if we finish fourth.

What is nice about that run of fixtures is thay maybe now we could get to a point where Bolton could help us out in that game against Spurs. This is a very big weekend for us. I also can't help but feel that Birmingham winning tonight improves our chances at Portsmouth. Portsmouth were on the crest of a wave and had pretty much everything going their way, this may have given them a slight knock to see close rivals pick up an unexpected three points.

Well. With them losing then I'd take our draw. Overall the two days have gone quite well for us. They can't overtake us now so if we wan't to stay in the top 6 all we have to do is get better results. Finally it is entirely in our own hands...why am I more worried?

Darren Royle?

Yeah it is.

I agree T4E. That's why I think even though the decisions probably evened themselves out we can feel really hard done by. I don't think we would have given up the lead and would probably have gone on to score more.

Correct

Whoops...he scored the first...ok who scored the first goal of the new millenium?

That's right

Ferdinand hasn't played this season has he?

Actually, come to think of it, last year he was just in the championship.

Oops

BBC team of the week eh? Sheringham...I'll go for the obvious haha.

It seemed as if he was hedging his bets. I don't think it was very malicious, but he did swing the elbow round and it wasn't a jumping with his arms raised sort of thing, so I can't really make my mind up.

I thought at the time there was certainly a case for a red, but a yellow would have been the correct decision. Giving no card made no sense, much of what the officials did last night made no sense though. As for us getting the better of the decisions I'm not sure. Bellamy was called offside several times when he wasn't and Roberts should have been sent off for the elbow (I would have understood had they given nothing, but once they decided it was a foul and he should be booked he had to go).

Either that or he was talking about the De Zeuw one where a foul was given, that was just outside of the box, couldn't understand how he wasn't booked for it though.

I think we all agree that we won't be upset if we only get UEFA, but there is still a chance of more. As for how we aren't up to the scratch of the wonderful stuff Arsenal are playing at the moment based on what we did last night, you are right. However, a few weeks ago Arsenal weren't up to the stuff we were playing. When in form they are a better side than us, for most of this season they haven't been in form. The league table doesn't lie after 32 games and we deserve to be level on points with them.

Just to put this in perspective before the doom and gloom kicks in; in the last two weeks Spurs have lost to Newcastle and Bolton to Boro. Those are both games that they should have won on paper and points that they will feel they let slip through their grasp at a crucial stage of the season. It happens to everyone.

Agree with you totally joey. If we don't lose any of our remaining games (much more realistic), then I'd be very impressed. I have to say I thought we were going to lose, so there is a certain feeling of relief at the moment. A real shame though that Filan produced that save from Bellamy.

Yes, I thought it was a foul, but to be fair the keeper didn't have the ball under control. As far as I know the rules of the game state that if the keeper doesn't have the ball under control then he and the ball can be challenged. Yes, though, made up for the other. True, they also had a goal wrongfully disallowed but MGP would have put us into the lead and I don't think they would have been able to come back for that. Stop the doom and gloom jim. Alright, we weren't great and we've missed out on a possible three points, but we can't be brazil every week and not even Chelsea always win. Bolton and Arsenal have very tough games this weekend and I expect City to bounce back and give Spurs a run for their money. Hopefully we will play the way we can against a team in the bottom three.

My dad, a United supporter, turned to me after that and said "doesn't look like 4th place stuff to me". As I pointed out to him no one really does in this end of season scrap, the only exception being Arsenal, but then again they go from one extreme to another and are likely to be crap in one or two remaining fixtures. Spurs didn't look top quality against West Brom last week. The important thing at this time of the season is to pull of results, we didn't quite do it tonight, but it will do.

Oh well. I always knew we were going to have an off game between here and the end of the season, let's hope that we have it out of our system now and can get back to the good stuff, at least we came away with a point. We obviously haven't helped our champions league aspirations much with this result but not losing when it looked like we would has done our uefa cup hopes the world of good. Just a shame that Filan produced that great save at the end to deny Bellamy. Loved the goal though, nice old fashioned one.