benjii

Atkins, Witterington or Arrigo Sacchi, for me.

That attack you mention highlights our problems though. We played ourselves into a great position and Bertrand wasted it with a ****-poor pass straight to their goalie.

Absolutely agree. We can't compete unless Gao wants to spend a fortune so we can at least have a distinctive identity or playing ethos.

We attacked with zip numerous times against Burnley and got in plenty of decent positions. Ultimatt's post nails it. We've filled our squad with tidy technical players with a proven history of not scoring much. The difference between now and under Poch / Koeman was having Lambert/Rodriguez and Mane/Pelle. Now we've got Gabbi/Redmond. I like Gabbi but he's not well suited to a loan striker role. You could play him with Long but Long is a proven non-scoring forward so you're still lacking goals. You could play him with Austin but his all-round game is very average and I'm not convinced he can physically muster a run of starts. Whatever tactics we play it's hard to see more than one of our squad scoring over ten goals in a season. This was obvious in the summer and it was obvious in the previous summer. Throw in a keeper who can't save stuff and a crowd full of spoilt dinlows and it's a tricky job.

Nah. You need to get your Boufal anti-boner under control.

This season maybe but they are miles behind the level we were at before and there is zero evidence that they will sustain that position.

I think this is a great summary.

As for the match, I haven't been much of an advocate of the 352 but our attacking play is getting so predictable and one dimensional that I think it's time for a switch. ---------------------------------McCarthy(?!)--------------------------------- -------------Yoshida-------------Van Dijk--------------Hoedt---------------- Cedric-----------------------------Romeu-------------------------Bertrand ---------------------Lemina------------------Boufal-------------------------- -----------------------Gabbi-------------------Long-------------------------- Sub: Forster, Targett, JWP, Davis, Redmond, Tadic, Austin.

Everton is a tough job. They have an aging and pretty poor defence and no striker. Would take at least a season and a half to make them "good", and "good" for them will be finishing 7th or 8th but their mongy supporters think they are better than that. That said, I doubt he will ever get offered a job at one of the contenders. I don't know much about Burnley but presume they lack the budget to be a regular top-half team so it would make sense for him. Do a decent shift at Everton and he'll be in line for the England job when Southgate goes.

I don't believe those figures. We're mad if we're offering that because it will mean we can't shift them to Championship clubs.

If the ref had booked Dale Stephens on one of the two occasions that clearly merited a yellow card then Brighton may have won fewer 50/50s but yesterday showed how important Lemina is.

It was the players that largely forced Puel out though. A lot of them hated him and mugged him off. Rightly or wrongly, the club sided with the players but that's starting to look like the wrong decision.

We won't be looking at anyone, sadly.

That was a nonsense. Not sure if Pellegrino's fault or the players being lazy but that was a complete waste of time.

Nazi!

Well, didn't we only manage 4 home wins last season? We've got two already so not too surprising if we're ahead and let's not forget, we only got about 46 points last season and barely scored a home goal in the second half of the season. So we can be doing "not that great" but also slightly "better" at the same time. Of course, a cynic might also point out that we haven't had to contend with Europa and have also got ourselves knocked out of the league cup by a lower division youth/reserve team.

This. If we offered him what Koeman was paid there he would have come.

Completely different. Bellerin's foot had every right to be where it was. If you place your hand on someone's leg to try to pull them back you are trying to commit a foul. Very different from natural contact which occurs when two players run alongside each other.

I would suggest you consult a medical professional.

Exactly. The moaners need to maybe turn their hearing aids down a little.

Lol. What tripe. Go to any gig and it will be much louder.

Dunk is ****e.

I don't understand your first point. It's not strange at all unless you would play with literally one central midfielder which hardly any team has done, ever. Unless you think Davis is better than those two?

The final bit of footwork before sidestepping the last man on the edge of the box is much more intricate than it appears from the wide-angle camera view. Amazing composure and talent after having already run about 60 yards with the ball. The guy has reasonable pace, is quite strong, great balance, can shoot and tracks back. All this "plays for himself", "can only do ten minutes" guff is prejudiced nonsense. I will say that there is possibly a question mark over temperament as he's reacted to a few challenges whilst he's been here and you can see him picking up the odd red card.

Or maybe it's just wrong to say we've been terrible.