OttawaSaint

Villa 1-0 Palace

Ugh good pace but Theo needed to release Adams there.

Fulham haven’t won at home on Boxing Day in 17 years, oh shit!

Ugh, watch Long somehow hit a post with the goal wide open, while the camera shows us that stupid smile Fulham punt the ball upfield catch Jack dozing off and they score the winner.

If we can’t get him in vs Fulham then we’ll not see him until Shrewsbury unless another CB gets injured. This was a low risk chance to bed him in.

Can wait for a comedy open goal miss by Long /s

Same as what I just said. The young players must be shit if they are behind Long in the pecking order.

I didn’t think he’d let us down...

So it’s looking like: McC KWP Bednarek Stephens/Salisu Bertrand JWP Diallo Armstrong Djenepo Walcott Adams Ralph will probably go with Stephens. Maybe he’ll blood one of the young strikers and move Walcott back.

4-0

In your opinion, which let’s face it, isn’t all that.

Who decided that Arteta was a world class tactical genius? Maybe Pep purposely talked him up knowing he’d be out of his depth and thus take Arsenal out of the title race equation.

I would have been unhappy too but the big teams get them all the time.

A team that is one of the most expensively assembled teams in the world and that have conceded one goal in the last 7 hours of football (an own goal at that).

2–1 Everton. Arsenal are trash, we should have buried them.

Assuming that Ings is out then Diallo in for Romeu Armstrong for Ings and put Theo up top with Adams.

VAR can’t work when you have dinosaurs like Dean with the whistle. Old habits die hard. Sterling handled it and he saw it and thought “hit the hand but it’s City, I’ll get crucified if I’m wrong”. But that’s what VAR is for, they can check it and get him off the hook but what they’ve done is give us a system where a dino ref can still cheat but having the obscenely subjective “clear and obvious mistake” rule. Two games and two penalties not given that we’ve seen given to the big teams time and time again.

It seems they knew Ings was having a problem before the game. I know it’s hindsight but what a terrible decision to risk him with so many winnable games coming up. Hamstring, hope it’s minor, we probably won’t see him again until mid-January.

Ugh! If that’s the case then he should have sat this one out. Why risk our talisman in a game we were unlikely to win?

Ffs Aubamayang not even in the Arse squad today.

Mike Dean MotM. Prevented 2 clear goal scoring opportunities, the difference today...

Looking ahead I feel we don’t get anywhere near as much out of Bertrand than we do KWP. I think he’s dropped off quite a bit, he ignores his winger, rarely gets any crosses in and is often at fault for goals against. I think we need a better LB and someone better than Walcott/Armstrong/Djenepo/Redmond. Redmond is finished, he’s just not void enough on or off the ball. He killed us when he came on. Djenepo was poor today but had just made his best contribution of the match before making way for Redmond.

Looking ahead I feel we don’t get anywhere near as much out of Bertrand than we do KWP. I think he’s dropped off quite a bit, he ignores his winger, rarely gets any crosses in and is often at fault for goals against. I think we need a better LB and someone better than Walcott/Armstrong/Djenepo/Redmond. Redmond is finished, he’s just not void enough on or off the ball. He killed us when he came on. Djenepo was poor today but had just made his best contribution of the match before making way for Redmond.

You just know that the handball by Sterling if done by a Saints player in our box then Dean would have had no hesitation pointing to the spot. I know it hit his leg but what’s his arm doing there? Preventing Bertrand getting the ball, that’s what.

Difference, a world class move and finish vs us with two teenagers up front...