Saint Pete

If they think he's so rubbish, perhaps they shouldn't have spunked £25m on him?! Not that I think they do, sure he will get his chance. If it doesn't work out, would take him back in a heartbeat (at a knockdown price)!

This sounds like utter b/s to me, sorry. Emery is known for taking time to introduce players to 1st team so don't think it is any more than that at this stage. Crazy (and a shame) though really that a player like him is not playing football, but that is modern English top level game I guess and the impact of Champions League. He ihas now been added to Champs League squad at least (he's on their bench tonight), sure he will get more chances eventually.

Some unbelievable passing from Kane in the Bayern-Arsenal game. Great assist for the goal but several others too, including one from one end to the other from a goal kick!

Well, there is reason to think he would have been "kicking bricks" in U21s as you put it as that is exactly what he was doing for the majority of the part of last season that Tonda was in charge. Tonda made the call to bring Edozie back into the fold when previously he was out in the cold under Still. So clearly he felt Edozie was the right choice as backup rather than Robinson and has continued with that view into this season. Like I hinted in my post, I don't really agree with Tonda's (and/or Spors') choice but once they had made it, there's little point in Robinson staying to be 3rd choice and that's not realistic to have 3 choices for 1 position? We are not Chelsea. I hope Saints are not lining him up for a move as I think he can be useful for us, hopefully in the Prem.

I get that there was a plan behind what Tonda did, but I think a lot of what you say above could have been achieved without moving so many of our key players out of their normal natural areas of the pitch. It seems like we totally uprouted most of what we do so well at home to counteract how the opposition play, which as some others have said is giving too much respect to a middling Championship opponent. We should be largely letting them worry about our many dangerous attacking weapons when we are at home. The same kind of thing was evident with the starting of 3 CMs in the Pompey game, which wasn't needed in my opinion vs a very average side. That said, I agree we had the chances to have won the game, but I still think it would have been a performance that could have been much better even if we had converted one of those opportunities and got the win.

I guess Tonda & Spors made a call that Edozie was going to be the backup for Scienza in the squad this season. There's definitely an argument whether that was the wrong call and Jay should have been the backup with Edozie going out on loan or sold instead. But having made the call, it's much better Jay is out getting 1st team experience at a good level rather than waiting around in our U21s, which is what would have happened. Monza looks a good fit for him so far and it will be a great life experience for him in Italy too.

Perhaps it would have been better to start him in his natural position on the right though rather than playing all 3 attacking mids out of position from the start? Just a thought.

Not a complete disaster after the wins earlier in the week. But definitely a missed opportunity to close/keep up with the top 2 and the kind of game we should be winning. Tonda needs to stop pissing about with formations and playing people out of position and keep it simple from the start of games. We got away with it vs Pompey, but dropped 2 points today that we might not have done if we had started players in their natural positions. If the starting team doesn't work, then is the time to try different things later in game, not from start vs a team we should beat.

Because Tonda is determined to play all of our attacking players out of their normal positions by the end of the match?

Haven't been watching the game, but feel a little sorry for Fellows if he's been given a start but played out on the left. Don't understand the logic from Tonda. I'm a big fan of his, but think he is starting to try to be too clever with formations rather than keeping it simple. Which is all we need to do when our players are significantly better than the opposition.

Shocker of a start for Burnley really, 8 points from 11 games and only 1 win. Surely auto chances gone already. I guess with play offs going down to 8th place now you can't totally rule them out of that yet but will need quite a turnaround.

I think that's a good sign Tonda is learning what works best with this set of players. Putting extra defensive players on to defend a lead isn't that effective when your defenders aren't that good! Far better to have players on who can help you keep the ball further up the pitch away from our goal.

I think that IS a negative way to look at it. A more positive view would be that after less than a quarter of the season, we have already fully reversed the impact of the 4 point deduction on 17 of our 23 competitors (74%). We have another 36 games to pick off at least 5 of the remaining 6 teams to get top 2, and we have already started reducing the 4 point deficit on 4 of those teams. Yes, there are 2 teams that have outperformed us so far this season, but there's no guarantee both of those teams will continue at the rate they have achieved so far. I don't think we will be far off if we continue the way we have started and I also think we have potential to improve, particularly away from home.

Yep, fair point. Wasn't writing him off in any way, just probably not the ideal debut getting brought off at HT, which I'm pretty sure was not pre-planned. But sure he will get more chances and of course we know he was bought primarily as a CB anyway so no judgement should be made on 45 mins at RB.

2 clean sheets in a row with Stephens at CB. Who would have thunk it?! Importantt win for a few reasons really - Keeps momentum and feel good factor after the derby win - Gets us over the hump of our first away win of season - Gives us confidence that we can still win a tricky looking away game while resting a few key players, which we will need to do as season progresses Main downer on the night (excuse the pun) is Downes injury, he has been so important for us so far this season, just got to hope he is not out for too long. Also not a great start for Abbott getting hooked at half time. Other than that, a good night that makes me a little more confident our squad outside first 11 may possibly be good enough after all (but still more needed from a few).