Very strange formation with one flying winger and Ozzie operating all over the place. The way he kept going was absolutely amazing.

Or course, the one negative was the Barry yellow card. He can't play in the City game and he'll definitely miss one through suspension. Unfortunately, Gibbo is still on the sick list along with our other possible, Alcaraz. Osman wasn't strong enough when tried there and Martinez will have to put his thinking cap on. I hope he has a go at Barry. Some of his yellows have been stupid and needless.

When teams sit back then we struggle without ideas so we need teams to go for it, hence our good performances against the top teams who naturally go for it.

Watching it on some link I had was one of those fantastic nights when I just felt after the first 10 mins or so that we were going to win. The movement was great, Osman was on song, Barkley and Deulofeu had the beating of their opponents, McCarthy was winning all key tackles, Stones was playing like a seasoned International centre half he will become, Distin was the captain steering the whole lot(and in my opinion should be given the Captaincy when Jags is out).

I actually thought we looked a much better outfit with Mirallas out. He does give us goals and creates but more often or not he just is too greedy and we lose the ball when we are overcommitted. Martinez's policy of rotating his midfield 3 seems to be working, and even though its a long shot getting 4th is achievable with a following wind. Mind you 4th place is going to cause us a huge amount of disruption with very early qualifying rounds after a World Cup summer. But here's hoping.

I make one more point: this team is considerably better without Mirallas – he has offered nothing this season and I doubt he would be first choice again this season. He seems to have a following at Everton but for the life of me I cannot see why.

I think Roberto has finally realised that he is not all he seems to think he is. His attitude alone stinks and greed as a player in his position is frustrating although I still do not know what he thinks is his best position, I know it is simply as a sub.

Osman was captain but for me Distin has proven to be a real rock you can depend on game after game, and my comment was that Distin led by example once again. The Captaincy when Jags is missing seems to fall on the Scousers in the team Ossie and recently Baines (was Howard captain against Swansea ?) .

Why not give Distin the armband he richly deserves.

I think Martinez knows he doesn't need to make Distin captain to get a captain's performance out of him. He's the same consistent player, week-in & week-out. Allowing the responsibility of captaincy to fall on Ossie or others has raised their game in recent weeks which is great to see.

Though it is sometimes hard to gauge a game on the T.V, it looked an excellent performance by us against Newcastle, bar the first 5 or 10 mins and was gutted not to be there. Still things return to normal on Sunday when I make the trip to Fulham.

COYB