HarvSFC

Imagine what we’ll be like when the camp’s healthy!

We'll take that! Should have been a lot more comfortable given the chances missed, but at least it's not another match added to the points lost from winning positions table. McCarthy MotM for me, closely followed by Salisu. McCarthy was faultless throughout the game, collecting crosses, good handling and making a vital save close to 90 minutes. What we've lost in attack from last season, we've seemingly got a solid defence again and hopefully this continues.

Need to get his contract sorted, as I believe he can be the player who can get us back to where we were and following a similar model to Leicester’s. We wasted the VvD money on unsaleable dross after high hopes of who we could bring in. Harry Maguire has since went for more money in £80m and Salisu will probably progress to be better than him.

Yes, but as you said, it wasn’t a success. He only scored one goal, got relegated and is now still without a club almost three months into the new season. Serie A is also a much slower league than the Premier League. He got his money, set himself up for life, but in football terms, he wouldn’t be good enough for us now and his career would have taken a downturn when he went to China.

He retired from this level when he went to China.

He’s been working in the UAE for some time now. Don’t think Koeman had any of the coaching team that he had here at Barca.

Broja out injured. 😔

Koeman sacked from Barca.

No complaints here, you just can't expect Chelsea's first five shooters to miss twice in a shootout. Forster, what an improvement he's made. He's now far from the goalkeeper who used to let in routine shots from outside the box and have any saves he did make ironically cheered. Kept us in the game tonight with some top drawer saves and it's a shame after years of the famous contract, that it's expiring just as he's able to offer us something and that he's reportedly looking to leave at the end of the season. Lyanco. Could we have found another bargain gem? Give him a start against Watford and see how he gets on. Deserves it after tonight. The scouting/recruitment seems a lot more solid now, than the Wilson/Reed era, so I'm positive about this one. Funny that some wrote him off after watching goal highlights against Sheffield United, as there weren't any streams for the live match. Last year, if we had made 9 changes to our eleven from a league game we'd have been playing a load of dummies. Now, tonight's proven that we've finally got squad depth again. They went up against a Chelsea side with no amateurs, containing a £70m Kepa, £40m Kovacic, £40m Ziyech and £70m Havertz. Just four players who together likely cost more than our entire 25 man team. That's the difference in resources, but this squad has got something and from our performances has enough to stay up. Now back onto the league we go and hopefully get a result Saturday.

We've got Lancashire.

The poorest part of his game is his defending. The strongest part, and what made him stand out in his youth days is his attacking and skill set on the ball. Please not a CB. More suited to number 10 if RB isn’t working out for him.

He's doubled down...

Or Solskjaer.

Jol at Tottenham.

It’s an all competitions three match ban, so he won’t be back until Watford next weekend.

Good header Elyounoussi, shame it wasn't on target. Walcott off at half time again please, Adams or A. Armstrong on, need another striker up there.

Poor defending from Livramento, keeping him onside and giving him an unchallenged header there after Bednarek rightly moved to Wood. Suppose we came back from 2-0 down last season, but then Ings and Armstrong got goals from nothing. Going to be a long slog now, unfortunately.

Targett’s not a fan favourite at Villa after this first half.

Remember the footballer "tweet" that we were involved in:

People who talk about how we should have won League One, forget Adkins didn't start the season with us and that Brighton had a six point lead when he was appointed, shortened to three at the end of the season after winning 16 of our last 20 matches and winning us 88 points from 41 games over the whole season. He couldn't do much more, other than perform a miracle. The Championship, nobody expected us to win going into it. It's only now in hindsight and looking at the squad we had that you can think that we had a chance. But, Reading went on a crazy run, beating us to the title by a point after we were top for most of the season. But, no complaints here. Nobody now remembers Reading won the Championship title in 2011-12, or Brighton winning League One in 2010-11. We celebrated promotion in two consecutive seasons, seeing us win most weeks for two years, we got the pitch invasions, the celebrations and we're still in the Premier League. The only thing we missed out on that the other fans got is some silverware.

It would be weird for a manager who blamed their previous struggles at another club on feeling homesick due to being away from the south to then go further north.

If I wasn’t being clear, I was referring to their valuations if they weren’t in the last year of their contracts, which is what Semmens is trying to sort. As, we aren’t doing too badly without a past his peak Bertrand and Vestergaard.

I think we could have made around £5m on Bertrand and Ings would have been valued at around £50m, so that’s a £25m loss, and given we need every penny available to reinvest in the squad, I think that’s what Semmens is referring to. Unsure about Vestergaard, as I believe Leicester only made a move for him because he was cheap and they were in need of a centre-back. With that in mind, I wouldn’t be too upset if Elyounoussi left on a free this summer. We’ve seen the last few seasons that he’s hard to get rid of, if he’s available. He’s definitely improved, but I rank our 10s as Armstrong>Redmond>Djenepo>Elyounoussi>Tella>Walcott and I see it as a position that we 100% need to improve on, barring Armstrong.

The main question marks over Hassenhutl's management are his defensive organisation, which he isn't doing too badly with this season and his tactical inflexibility regarding the 4-2-2-2 formation. With that in mind, we haven't had a genuine relegation scare since Gabbiadini saved us against Swansea, which was pre-Hassenhutl. Now, if you think back to Howe's management of Bournemouth, he couldn't get his defence to work and he was called naive/stubborn plenty of times throughout his Premier League tenure, because his Bournemouth side attacked every week, which left them exposed on numerous occasions and ultimately relegated. So, we'd be replacing a manager with a similar skillset and a relegation on their record. Nothing that I've seen based on performances of the players this season makes me think that we need a managerial change. We've played 8 games with 5 of those coming against the league's current top 8. 6 in the top 10. It's been a difficult start, but we're four points above Burnley in 17th. We experienced far worse under Pellegrino and Hughes, where it was clear throughout that we were being outclassed every week. Additionally, many put yesterday's victory down to playing a depleted Leeds side due to injuries. But, they won't put our defeats at the back end of last season down to missing the likes of Ings, Vestergaard, Romeu and Bertrand for large spells and having a bench consisting of Ramsay, Ferry, Jankewitz, Obafemi and N'Lundulu each week, who all are nowhere near Premier League football in just a matter of months. Howe reportedly turned us down in 2010, and if the stories are true, as he's apparently turning down Newcastle and Celtic as well these days, then I hope that he does it again, as we're a bit too close to blame any failings on homesickness.