Whitey Grandad

Not a silly idea.

Well, I've watched MOTD again before deleting it and I stand by what I said. Antonio starts off wide and runs in to attack the goal in case there are any crosses or deflections. Yoshida is a total spectator throughout and hasn't got a clue that Antonio is running in behind him. It's the fullback's job to protect the flanks and watch for anybody attacking from that direction and he failed, and not for the first time when playing in that position. If Antonio's header had gone straight into the goal then we'd all be blaming Yoshida and quite right too. Was Cuco really that bad that Yoshida was a better choice for that position?

Nice one. What an epitaph that would be.

Me too. For the second, why was Yoshida on the pitch if he's just going to wander about spectating?

Did they say when? We are bound to have ups and downs and top six can only ever be a long-term aim and it's not going to happen when players want away every season and we don't have a settled team. I'm pretty sanguine about it all.

We've needed that for some time, too much hope was pinned on J-Rod's return.

A draw would be solid progression. I'd be disappointed with anything less.

Nothing to worry about, unless you think that we should be in the top 6 every season. We're a mid-table team, you'd expect us to beat the teams below us and to lose to those above, on the whole

To be fair, it could have been read that way.

Dibdab

There's an article on him in The Times today: 'Victor Wanyama Shows Arsenal What They Are Missing' It's a pay subscription so I shouldn't quote it wholesale.

I assumed that having another game two days later might have influenced the decisions to substitute.

And they were away and we were at home. Of course we played later so it sort of evens itself out.

All very true. Was it Davis who headed the ball back? I thought it was an Arsenal defender.

Apologies, I was using 'you' in the plural, but must admit I had quoted you. I haven't seen any comments on the ref's performance apart from a handful on here, which is hardly representative.

But it's already been spent and is no longer relevant to the debate. Besides, in today's market £12m is not excessive for a team with aspirations of being in the upper half of the Premier League. Just take a look at all the other teams and see what they have been playing.

We have this debate after every game and it's not because the refs are rubbish, it's because some people think they should be biased towards Saints on every occasion. He got a couple of minor decisions wrong but on the whole he let the game flow whenever possible and in that sense was partly responsible for a great evening. If you think that every ref is sh!te then that probably means that you don't understand their job / the laws / what is s expected of them. They can't all be bad.

I couldn't see the bend on he shot from my position in central Kingsland but when he had first hit it I thought it was way off target. I was quite surprised to see it hit the side netting, well inside the post.

Long had been mouthing off and arguing with Moss for some time before that. Whether or not you think it was a foul there was no need for Long to touch the ball and he could have just got on with the game. The whistle had gone before the backheel.

Not now, I don't think it does.

I don't remember this head injury and I can't recall any booing of the ref. Perhaps we saw the game differently?

I didn't see any evidence of bias from the ref but there were a few decisions that seemed a bit haphazard and a couple that were incorrect but these were very minor and should not detract from our performance on the night which was perfectly suited our opponents. Whether we should play the same way against every team is questionable.

When you say 'do something about it', what exactly do you have in mind? We could cut all our carbon emissions to zero and it might not make any difference.

Hardly. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and executed it perfectly. Whether he could, or should, try it again is questionable but last night the ball sat up nicely for him.

Vincent