Sheaf Saint

I think it's time to face the facts - Adam is not up to it at PL level. He just looks lost. Despite a good team performance today he made no good contributions. Never knows when to make a run, and doesn't have the quality to make chances for himself. When he did get the ball in a good position on the edge of the Arsenal box, he had no idea what to do and just mis-kicked it straight to a defender. Sorry to say it, because I like his effort, but if he was ever likely to be a success here we would surely have seen at least some sign of it by now.

5 points and undefeated. Honestly, who thought we would manage that?

Pleasing to see he reacted to their dominance and made an early tactical change. Once we switched to a back 3/5 we really started to get a foothold in the game. I'm wondering if, like with Puel, Ralph has been forced to try and play more defensively recently due to us failing to sign a striker and/or AM in the summer and missing some key players, but because that is contrary to his normal philosophy it has just taken some time for it to begin to work for him.

Lyanco, no question.

I was literally just about to post this word for word.

Was more obvious than the one he gave against Saka.

Whatever the result now, this second half performance has been excellent. More of the same please Saints.

Only if he'd brought him on earlier 😉

Where did that come from!?!?

DCC is playing a very risky game with these holding fouls.

No better (worse, even) than Shane Long.

That shot came from a fluky deflection off a defender. When was the last time that happened in our favour? The difference is a team playing with confidence will anticipate these things and get in positions to capitalise. Whereas we have A Armstrong up front.

Great save Baz!

WTF is Jesus whingeing about?

Ooh, we managed a touch in the Arsenal box!

Brilliant. A prolonged period of just passing it sideways and backwards, and as soon as we inevitably give it away they get through and have a shot on goal. This is beyond turgid to watch. It's fucking pathetic

DCC was very lucky not to concede a penalty.

Far too easy.

Can't for the life of me work out why he didn't follow through with that run.

Did Sky just crank up the volume of the Arsenal fans? Absolute c*nts.

Yay. I seem to have worked my way onto Turkish's vendetta list. I'm going to wear that as a badge of honour.

Thankfully, the club physios will be in a much better position to make that decision than you chaps. It's entirely possible that the tightness has eased and they don't consider there to be any risk of damage if he plays a part of the game today.

Some people seem to be going to extreme lengths to bash Ralph here. It's very simple. Che ran himself into the ground on Wednesday and had a tight hamstring (not the same thing as a torn hamstring which would obviously rule him out for a few weeks). As a result of his tight hamstring he hasn't trained with the rest of the team during the preparations for this match, but is fit enough to play if called upon from the bench. What is it about this people don't understand?

It's not. Southend News Network is a parody site.

Do you honestly trust the membership to make the right choice after last time? It was plainly obvious to anybody with even a modicum of intelligence that Sunak was by far the better option, but they still voted in Thick Lizzy. If he couldn't beat her then what chance does he have with the blue-rinsers against Johnson? They will never admit to it publicly, of course, but there are just too many of them who could never bring them themselves to vote for a man with his ethnic background. If it comes down to them as the final two, Johnson will breeze it.