Holmes_and_Watson

Good game form Stu. With cramp kicking in, good time for the sub. Come on Redders!

Whew! Big Man makes himself...well, big to keep that one out.

t's all Arsenal. We could do with putting a couple of passes together. And another excellent save by Forster, as above. They are trying to constantly get it central for those efforts.

Sakha made one massive scream wehn he got tackled. Surprisingly, both his legs were still attached wehn he bounced back up. I thought they'd fallen off with a scream like that.

Odegard had a decent shot to take there. After Smith Rowe just fell over on the other side.

Soares off, so no goal from that ex-player.

Tight lipped Arteta off down the tunnel. Forster made a good save earlier, and Arsenal didn't take advantage of any of their runs at our back line. We didn;t offer much, but didn;t look as though as though we were going to be cut to ribbons due to the formation change. I think that was Peraud hitting it back in for the Broja assist to Bednarek. Another reason for him being in the team. 🙂 Second half will be interesting. We may just keep it the same, with the odd hopeful break. Broja is our best option for that anyway, so I hope he stays on.

nice running down their keeper there. Nice to see us with a bit of a boost.

Yuss!

Lots of creative Arsenal players, only to happy to run at our defence.

took a while to get that cleared.

Loud

Swirl

I'd rather not be reminded of the dark days, when spreadsheet prints lined the streets after the xG/Pony wars. 😒

Fear

Yeah, but because it was Claude's team, all of those *must* have been random efforts from within our own box, which apparently where the team lived. Super Ralph has embraced xG, so although there are fewer shots, they are of a higher quality. 🙂

Tail

Donkey

I look forward to our intercontinental pre-season tournaments!

I'd be very surprised if he went anywhere this season. I suppose he could lose the dressing room, or we get a few more of those fluke cuffings in consecutive games. Something drastic happening. I've the concern that if our run continues, that it also goes into next season. Much like I had that concern last season/into this one. Then, there would be some questions. It remains to be seen how the transition works. In some places, things go on as normal. In plenty of others, the outgoing manager is seen as a lame duck, and ends up leaving sooner than planned. The club have their contingency plans either way. When he goes, it will be interesting to see how the new manager changes a team that has ridgedly followed Ralph's instructions. Or tried to at least. We've played some cracking stuff at times this season; We're doing better than I expected; There's always room for improvement, from the players, recruitment, and Ralph. That's what I focus on, repeating it like a mantra after Saturday, right enough.😊

Interview questions: Do you know every word of the playbook? Isn't it the best thing put into print? Would you consider contradicting anything in the playbook? Yes, yes and no. Well done Kelvin. Welcome to the coaching team. 😊

I watched a video with many similar clips recently. That bizarre Chelsea vs Barca goal is in every one of them. The one I saw had a Man City clip in it from earlier this season. I had seen the game. City were struggling, and had their 3rd choice keeper in. A kick out and backpass went badly wrong, resulting in a goal. I remember thinking that Salisu had got away with just such a horrible backpass, not long before. Nearly in a clip montage itself. He just had enough physical strength to save himself.

I'm trying to remember which player arriving to us off the Old Firm conveyor belt, when I finally stopped being a little dismissive of their quality. 😊 Each of them were already skilled. But their time there improved them. Celtic struggled a bit through some of Mo's time there. But there's a lot to be said about playing regular football for a big team that's expected to win every week. It's less the position than using a number of related skills against opposition who see it as a massive game every week. Ralph may also have improved him, in that he performs a function within the playbook tactics. I agree though that I could see a number of managers without the same tactical focus leading us down. There's possibly fewer of those around though, and those in charge have their shortlist. It's a risk, but one we'll be taking soon enough, one way or another.

I had us down at 14th with a good season. So I have to check myself when we have matches like the Chelsea one. And we're falling to that position. Which is better, although not great watching, to struggling our way to 14th from a relegation dogfight.

Yeah, Sheldon and his tweets have become an emba... Oh, wait... 🙂