Saint Fan CaM

See, if Walcott is as fast as he’s supposed to be, I would suggest he’d be a good option to hit them on the break? Perhaps he’s not got the legs fr a whole game, but I’d rather he tried affect the game early on, rather than later when the games gone.

True but the problem with this of course is not allowing them to dictate the game which sitting deep tends to encourage. If this is the tactic employed then pace to break quickly will be extremely important which is not really a strength our usual starters exhibit, which in turn tends to provide the opposing team more opportunities. If Ralph doesn’t set us up properly the midfield will be overrun and we’ll lose IMO.

Looking like 1-1 draw or if Palace step up in relation to the quality in their squad, perhaps a 2-1 loss. Need JWP and whoever partners him to improve significantly or Saha will dominate and cause our defence issues. Personally I’d like to see Lyanco given a sweeper type role man-marking Saha out of the game just for the entertainment factor when they clash.🤣

MOTM - Lyanco. Moi, Bazunu, DCC and Salisu all run a close second. Poor performance awards to JWP and Aribo…just passengers.

Amazing draw really with a depleted team. Took a moment of magic from Ely and Stu which thankfully earns us the point. Once though, I don’t think the result does anything to convince me Ralphball is the way forward.

Nows the time to make a change Ralph. Did you hear Ralph…NOW!

Brilliant move!

AA and Aribo are just f-Ing passengers…get them off FFS!

Utter rubbish attacking threat from Armstrong there…completely muffed the opportunity.

Only positive is that we’re just one behind. Ralph has to get more presence into midfield somehow - think get Edozie on for Aribo, put Larios in at RB and put Lyanco into CDM allowing JWP and Diallo a more forward role. I don’t know, its as likely to work as what’s happening out there so far. Otherwise we might as well hand them the three points now and have an early tea.

Brilliant save from Bazunu!

But that’s the point - they have apparently been practicing set pieces in training, so clearly that coaching is piss poor!

Lyanco is our best player. Let that sink in!

Our corners are dogshit considering we’ve supposedly got one of the best set piece deliverers in the country!

What is the point of Aribo? I want him to succeed, but just don’t see anything that tells me he wants to.

JWP caught ball watching in our area. Aribo looks behind the pace and disinterested. Tactically no different from Ralph. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

I think the emphasis is we should give up on Championship players until such time the overall unit can sustain the risk of a struggling player. We urgently need a proven EPL standard striker, even if it’s a youngster such as Broja. Both Adams and Armstrong were top scorers in the Championship before we gave them the opportunity in the EPL (in consecutive seasons IIRC), but only Che has just started to show some of the promise expected. AA is a significant work in progress - a luxury when we’re struggling to score IMO, but still a safer bet than Mara at the moment.

Can’t be any worse than AMN surely?!😜

I wouldn’t touch another Championship striker like Adams and Armstrong who’ve both struggled to gain traction in the EPL, especially when the risk of relegation is so stark this season. We need to think bigger and better, established at a high level if possible, otherwise what’s the point of another squad filler???

Yep. What’s the betting that’s going to mean another high % of sideways and backwards passing with JWP leading the stats?! We may start the game trying to impress, but Arsenal are a much better drilled unit now and they’ll dictate exactly how the game flows. We’ll retreat to the safety of tippy-tappy, nobody takes responsibility mundaneness within 20 minutes of the first half. Arsenal will have 60+% possession. And we’ll lose 4-0. Or will Ralph confound us all and magic a draw, so gifting himself another reprieve? We can but hope, but realistically this will be a repeat of the City game.

One thing the Bournemouth game proved was that we can score (e.g. when Che gets himself into the perfect position). But it also showed that we’re still not resilient after going ahead and all over the place defensively…it just so happened that Bournemouth were worse than us in attack. And that means we’ve not really improved in terms of team performance. And Ralph is still tactically missing something. For the reasons above, plus some key missing players I see nothing but another big defeat on the cards. 4-0 Arsenal.

Make no mistake, that was a Championship level game played under the banner of the EPL. An awful advert. Bournemouth actually seemed capable of passing the ball, but lacked decisive quality in the final third but were coming into the game. Great to get the win, but nothing has changed for me…we were very poor indeed and change of management is still required. Che deserved his MOTM - he actually did well in relation to the rest of the team. Diallo looked good when came on late.

Based purely on results and trajectory for both teams, there’s no other way to predict this but a win for Bournemouth. If the lads click and put in a real shift we may come away with a 1-1 draw, but I suspect we’ll not score more than 1 goal and let in 2 before the end.

Yeah I get that and agree to a point. Thing is, we’ve no guarantees any new manger, temporary or otherwise, will be bring about the improvements we all want. The important thing for me is that we have enough evidence now to suggest that keeping Ralph will mean more dismal performances and likely end in relegation. I just don’t think Selles would be a bad caretaker manager choice to shake things up a bit.

Of course not, but four subs at one time tends to suggest he’s lost faith in nearly half his team. Do you think that helped matters?