S-Clarke

I think that's the sort of performance we've all been crying out for really, just a bit of fight and bottle left out on the pitch. It's been solely missing for a few years with this group, but to their credit they grouped together today in adversity and were just like ''you're not going to beat us'. Absolutely crap touch from Vestergaard, he's prone to those stupid lapses and he needs to cut them out. Although, he got the ball and it was an excellent error-recovering challenge - I'm not sure how they thought it was a denial of a clear goal scoring opportunity when he won the ball. I think that decision worked in our benefit though as it seemed to give our game an edge. Bednarek was much better today than he has been for weeks, that's the Bednarek you can build a solid defence around. Salisu I felt was excellent as well, he reads the game really, really well and his pace is an added benefit. He's a little bit raw in places but from what I've seen he looks like he should be a starter for us to be honest. After the red there wasn't really much of a game for our attack, it's just not really fallen for Minamino here what so ever. Adams battled hard but it never really stuck sadly. Overall, a nice backs to the wall performance as those have been solely missing.

They're all really bad outcomes and I feel equally as bad for each of them. But as SuperSaint said, they at least still have a career - albeit at a lower level. All unknown with McQueen at the mo.

Glad he's doing well, he'd have been a decent player for us this year. I can see why he was sold though. We needed more up front and he was the only viable option we had to raise cash, so from that point it had to happen sadly. I'm sure he also wanted to play regular. Ideally we'd have kept him around and he would probably have been first choice by now, it was just at the point we sold him Bertrand was still much better and £15-17m for a backup was just too good for a club in our position to say no to.

That's really sad news, he was one of the good news stories from Puels period in charge. He looked very accomplished in the games against Milan and the other Europa League games I felt, very versatile as well - probably a LB by trade, but could comfortably play anywhere. Arguably he'd have played a lot this year. Shame, he was one of the more promising young players we've had in recent years so hopefully he can find a decent life outside of playing football.

Definitely not the end, these big clubs are now in situations where they need to cut their cloths, some of them have never been there. You know, like 90% of the rest of the football world. But the big clubs don't feel they should have to do this, they have a very entitled attitude so they still want to be able to sign Mbappe, Halland and are invested in this 'galactico' type of instant success you often see. They will keep peddling and keep pushing this, so we need to tighten up our own rules so it's not as easy for clubs to sign up to things like this.

Exactly this, but on your last paragraph the club need to back this philosophy if this is the case. It's self defeating if they continue to commit to this way but don't actually provide the squad needed to sustain it. This is the tough position we're in, so we need to be quite clever in the market - and there have been signs, albeit tiny, that we are a bit better (Diallo/KWP/Salisu are all bought with the philosophy in mind) Ralph feels a bit like right person wrong time to me. The summer will tell us a lot.

If we sell everyone and don't replace well enough it'll be hard to throw that at Ralph, but he'd certainly be the sacrificial lamb at that point I'd have thought.

I'd personally expect to see around 15 points after the first 10 games, but huge caveat around that is either a fit ings or a proper ings replacement. If we strengthen the squad well enough, maybe we could sustain that sort of form over a season and we could end up around the 50 point mark.

Agreed, need to stop the rot. The thing with Ralph is that it's all about extremes, there's no middle ground. We either play really well and stack up the points and wins as per the start of the season, or we just lose every week. I want to see him capable of getting the odd 1-0 or 0-0's during the bad periods, i.e. just shut up shop and get a result on the board when we're not in a good place. I doubt it would make much difference in terms of our finishing position though over the course of a season though. In my opinion a new manager probably wouldn't have got this group overachieving as well as they did at the start, so whilst we'd have not had the extreme highs and lows under a different manager, we'd probably still be sat around the same points/position in the table.

It's all very confusing really, but apparently the 'ESL' entity was owned equally by each club. The ESL is still a 'thing' whilst the Spanish and Italian clubs are still part of it, so I'm guessing the penalties the British clubs are required to pay is just another way for Madird/Barca to get some money to help them out of their predicament? The biggest cheerleader is the Real Madrid chairman, so it all stinks a bit.

Using the reasoning that he 'got the best out of this squad before' as a reason to now dump him seems an odd thing to say. Surely that alone is a reason to keep him, as he's the only manager out of the last 3 who has managed to get anything out of this lot? Ultimately he's proven with a fully fit squad, no injuries, peak fitness etc he's able to overachieve with this squad of players he has at his disposal. The depth in the squad has been shown up massively this year, December onwards, which is unsurprisngly when our form went through the floor. We are also probably as much of a one-man-team as Villa with Grealish or Newcastle with Alain Saint-Maximin. Missing Ings for large parts is the difference between us having a good season and having a poor season. We have no one else who can score goals on a consistent basis, it really is that simple. One of the main things you can throw at Ralph is this approach - is it a bit stupid going all out with gengenpress with a squad as weak us ours, or would it have been more sensible to be conservative? But if we're honest with Ralph you probably only get that way and the club would have known that when they appointed him. They either back him or stop hanging him out to dry with this bunch. The squad and quality of player we have is not good enough to sustain a top half finish in this league over an entire season, end of.

The thing is, he then went over and looked it numerous times and for some reason felt it was a red when he didn't in real time. It feels as if whenever they ask the on field ref to have a look at the screen, in effect they are saying ''we think it's this, i'll let you see it before confirming'. In effect, it totally undermines the on field referee really. They've got to fix this VAR shit.

I would agree with that. If I was a Spurs fan and we were selling Kane and replacing him with Danny Ings, I'd be pretty pissed truth be told. That's a bit of a comedown. That's not me degrading his ability just because he's 'going to leave' either, I think we all appreciate that he's a very talented player....but not quite at that next level. I think Danny is a perfect fit for a club such as us, middling premier league football team capable of having the odd purple patch here and there. Even if Danny stays, I'd be looking to get another number 9 anyway as I'm not sure how much you can rely on him over a season. I think he's only got 8 goals in such a stop/start season.

Yep, I saw that. Absolute load of waffle. Why is everyone intent on re-engineering the game? ''Let Celtic and Rangers in''. What happens to the Championship and his former club such as PNE? Absolute nonsense and would again create another them and us. Let's be honest, they wouldn't be guaranteed 'PL1' themselves. The approach to the review should be simple - a review of the ownership model at all clubs, and more governance of that waffle of a Fit and Proper persons test - it shouldn't be as easy as tim and bob to take over a PL club without clear intentions. Granted, that will probably harm us in terms of an immediate takeover, but I'd rather than than be saddled with more non-entities. I keep going back to what happened with Wigan - those guys passed the fit and proper test, then stuck the club in admin just weeks later, which plunged Wigan into L1 and now L1 strugglers. Shambles.

I think they were referring to the Semi Final they play next week, rather than getting there in the league. They've got no chance in the league, and to be fair...very small chance of getting Europe via winning that comp. The squad is so poor for a club of Arsenals size, that's the overriding reason as to why they've regressed so much. Just nothing really there.

I think he was fairly close to joining us at one point, but we chose Redmond instead. I think it was a case of one or the other at the time, but truth be told they're both fairly similar players to be honest. Average with a capital A. Capable of a couple of purple moments but not worth the outlay he'd want.

I forgot about Long, I honestly thought he was on loan at Bournemouth to play out his contract. But he's still got a f**ing year left! Great. He should have been given a 12 month deal with a 1 year option at the most. So he's another one I'd let go by whatever means, as he's on a fairly decent wage and taking up a position which could be used for a player who could actually contribute.

I rate Martin to be honest. I know a lot of people generalise it by saying ''the board are rubbish/the board need to back him'' - but it's not the board per-say, the problem lies with the ownership. In my opinion, what Martin has done with the club in light of no support from the owner has been mightily impressive - especially in the current climate as well. It would be pretty typical for us to lose one of the few good things in the running of the club, but retain what we want rid of.

I still think there's more chance of Diana awakening from the dead 😉 Maybe I've just been too confident, but i've never really felt 'too' worried to be honest. I can't remember exactly, but I think we had an 18 point gap from the bottom 3 at one point this season - so that was always going to be a tall order to overhaul. Honestly, we are so fortunate we had that start - and we never usually start seasons well, so god help us next year.

It's a shame it has to be like that to be honest, but I see where you're coming from re: the selling those 3. It's probably our only real option to take if we want to add some real starting quality to the side, but it just seems counterproductive that we have to sell our starting quality to sign starting quality. Just hope we can get sold soon and be able to operate a tiny bit more flexibly. I have a bit more confidence in the scouting now at least.

I think the general consensus is that the quality isn't really there, that's the problem. If you look at it Mane was a similar style of player to Tella/Moussa etc - but he's just light years ahead of them. Tadic was a similarish type of player to Minamino and maybe Armstrong, but again...light years ahead in quality. That's the main difference for me, the squad doesn't have the quality we had under Koeman and I don't think we should be expecting similar results, to be honest. Now, if Ralph had been given £200m over his 5 transfer windows to shape this side then I'd have massive questions right now, but he hasn't had that...and for that reason that's why I'm with you in that it's hard to throw the lack of a plan at him.

Plan A, B, C, D etc is overcooked in football. Whenever something doesn't work, you're then often labelled as not having a Plan B. I think we have lots of plans to be honest, we shuffle things around during games and in different matches, but we have one philosophy - that's the key, our philosophy is clear in the approach we play. And you're not going to get clubs with two philosophy's as that won't work. People will rightly argue that the philosophy isn't working at all, and they'd be right - but there's evidence to suggest that it did and does work, as long as you have the squad to deliver it - whether that's quality, depth or luck with injuries etc. I'd say a lack of 'Plan B' probably translates to having a lack of depth and quality in the depth to make those positive changes.

If you think about it though, the core of this team is still the same team who have struggled under Pellegrino and Hughes - and to a certain extent with some of them, Puel. So, Ings, Redmond, JWP, Romeu, Bednarek, Bertrand, McCarthy, Armstrong, Vestergaard. I wouldn't say any of the core players are his signings, apart from KWP - and he has significantly improved us in that position. I think with a fairer crack of the whip and more ability to build his own squad more suited to his way, it would be a different story. Certain players will always have flaws and I've seen these flaws in this core group across 3 different managers now. Decent technically in part, but the wrong mix and certainly not deep enough squad wise to play this way over a season. As I've said before - the club either back him, because this is the way he plays and that's it. Or they let him go and we bring a new manager in, maybe someone more conservative and less gung ho. But the reality is we'll probably finish in similar positions, just less extremes.

Fair enough mate, our results aren't helping but I just feel that our start gave us that cushion. If you look over the weeks that cushion hasn't really disappeared, that's been our saving grace really. We've won 2 in 16 games or something and we're still well away from it, and that included Fulham winning 2 out of 3 and WBA winning 2 on the trot (and beating us). It's going to be incredibly tricky for either of those two to overtake Brighton, Burnley and Newcastle to then land a punch on us. Just too much for them to do, in my opinion. Next season - totally different story!

I don't disagree with the views, I probably factored in the '10' role into the wide players to be honest. I think any wide player we sign (I hope we do) needs to be able to operate across the entire front 3 and drop back to a 10 in my opinion. I'd dump Moussa to raise funds, certainly - but i guess you have to weigh up on which one creates more value, Redmond or Moussa? I wouldn't be fussed if either went really. Theo, not been great, i agree. I'm torn really, I keep flipping. He's a player who can look good in bursts, but overall he has been nothing but average - as well as a big injury thrown into the mix. The only reason for me keeping him is the fact that you'll struggle to find similar PL/CL and International experience for free. For free, it's probably worth the risk to keep him around for 1 year with an option. I'm just thinking from the money point of view, we won't have the money to buy anyone with his equal experience...so we might as well take him.