Sheaf Saint

Decent half from us and we would be deservedly leading if not for a brain fart from Fonte giving Van Persie an early xmas present. I would so love for us to beat them. They are badly disorganised at the back and there for the taking.

Good to know that we have forced LVG into a tactical change. He's obviously very concerned about their defensive ability against us.

Utd are definitely vulnerable at the back since Smalling went off. We just need to put more pressure on them.

YYYEEEEESSSSSSSS Pelle you absolute beauty!

So annoying. Utd hadn't threatened our goal once and yet we're 1-0 down. I guess we used up all our luck in the first 12 games.

FFS. We play really well for the first ten minutes and then go and giftwrap it to RVP.

AS 'Arry would say: "We're down to the bare bones". The first 11 should be good enough to give Man Utd a decent game, but Look how inexperienced that bench is.

What change would you have made then?

Andre Marriner - what do you expect... professionalism? The guy is a prize tit. The bias he showed towards Arsenal tonight was so obvious it was embarrassing.

No, me neither. Mane looked like he might be a good acquisition when he first arrived but he doesn't look interested now, and has an air about him that displays a bad attitude problem. I get the sense he isn't well liked among the rest of the players.

You would have preferred he stayed on and made his injury a lot worse would you? Jeez - what is going on in here tonight? We ran sh*t out of luck tonight with injuries and horrendously biased refereeing. Up until about 80 mins we were looking really good value for a point IMO.

Yeah, because he was psychic and could foresee that Toby would get injured wasn't he. The level of moronity always goes up a notch on here after we lose.

Have you actually watched these games? Have you seen what limited options we have on the bench? In no way can Koeman's substitutions be blamed for either of these defeats. In all cases they were a result of an injury rather than tactical. We were already a bit lightweight on the bench, now after Arsenal kicking lumps mout of us all night we've lost another 3 players tonight. Gonna be playing kids from the Academy against Man U at this rate.

I really, really, really f***ing hate Arsenal. They've kicked us off the park tonight and left us down to ten men because of it.

Absolute c*nts

This ref really is a prize bell end. The amount of stupid, unwarranted free kicks he has given Arsenal tonight is just ridiculous. Every time Wanyama challenges for the ball he blows his whistle.

Oh cacky poo. This is where it all falls apart isn't it. 3 players going off injured tonight, and we've made all 3 subs as well. It really is history repeating.

Mayuka coming on. Long has run his socks off tonight.

Decent half from us I think, despite losing Cork. Is this ref going to give a FK every time an Arsenal player runs into one of ours and falls over? He's buying it every single time FFS.

Great save from Forster but that should never have been a FK.

Oh well. It was nice to stay second as long as we did. The simple fact is that Man City are a much better team than we are.

I just knew Lampard would score against us today

Wanayama needs to come off. He's just not there at all. Sloppy passing, not backtracking enough, not trying hard enough to win the ball back when he loses it.

I just knew there would be one or two numpties on here blaming Forster for that goal. It took a deflection and he was totally unsighted. Not his fault at all. Also worth bearing in mind that's only the second goal we have conceded at SMS this season.

Meh. Can't win them all. Frustrating, given Villa's poor form of late, but their game plan worked. They defended in great numbers, crowded out Pelle every time the ball got played up to him, and got lucky on the break with a poor defensive error, which have thankfully been very rare this season. Was always going to be a tricky game against a side who were obviously going to be fighting hard. I'm just thankful that we came through it unbeaten and with no new injury concerns. We badly missed S Davis in the middle tonight.