TRon

I think we are about 3pts short of where I would like us to be, given I think Villa have been awful, and I think Leeds are one of the sides who will be battling relegation. But against that, losing Wissa has been a massive blow, so I can understand us playing conservatively given the lack of goalscorers available. We just need to pick up points where we can until we have more options up front.

He shouldn't need to though. Let Miley have another 90 mins and keep Bruno fresh for Arsenal. Maybe give him a 20 min run out just to keep his eye in.

If it means keeping the ball in our possession then I would rather have players who can do that than those who will give the ball to the opposition trying stuff they aren't capable of. Willock being a prime example yesterday.

Murphy has a wand of a right foot, not disputing that, you can find videos of wonder strikes by most players. I just don't think he's a natural goal scorer, that's why when he was put through yesterday he went wide instead of arrowing in on the goal. If Woltemade is going to be our main striker, then he needs forwards either side of him who are hunting goals. Murphy's not that, he's a supplier, better suited to the Isak type.

Murphy doesn't have the killer instinct either. He was put through one on one against the keeper and his first instinct was to pull wider and look to cross instead of just going for goal.

It's still a shirt pull, so it's still a penalty.

Yep. I don't care if Wolt made a meal of it, the defender pulled his shirt because he thought he was getting away from him. Otherwise why do it? If you don't want penalties given against you then don't grab shirts in the penalty area.

I think we have to look further out than the Arsenal game, a point would probably be a decent result against them when we aren't at full strength.

Hall was rusty but he got better as the game went on. This is why you spend big money on players, they tend to keep hold of the ball better under pressure. We had a few weak areas today with players being rested, so I guess it shows we don't have the squad some of our rivals do yet.

We just need to stay in touch with the likes of Chelsea and Spurs for the next month, then we can make up the ground once Wissa and Ramsey come back into the reckoning.

Wissa will make a massive difference. When we lost Isak, Wissa was the one I thought would get us through the early part of the season until Wolt had found his feet.

I've spent enough time on this thread defending him, I thought he had a lot of good qualities - and tbh he has. He can be good on the ball, and he has great pace. But if you don't have the common sense to release it in time and end up giving it away too often that just means you lack football intelligence.

Aye, he's been brilliant at the normal goalkeeper stuff, but I was really getting frustrated when he was taking ages after gathering the ball and then the defenders near him were getting closed down by the time he thought of releasing it.

First time I really felt his distribution really affected us negatively this season.Bournemouth's press made it more difficult for him to find players with the short passes and throws.

I thought it was already tbh. Since when was pulling shirts legal?

Should have squared to Foden

He's a much stronger player in general, far more powerful.

He gets slagged off a lot here, but he was one of our best players and that's why he got a big move. Much better than most of the shite we had here at the time.

If someone is tugging a shirt of a striker in the box there's no decision to be made. It's a stonewall penalty. I think this needs to be queried and we need an official apology.

He should start against Bradford. Give Sandro a rest this time.

You can't blame the ref, but then isn't that what VAR is supposed to be there for?

We should be launching an official complaint. There's no excuse for this any more.

I'm concerned at how powder puff we look up front, and by that I don't mean the striker, it's the supporting forwards as much as anything. Defensively we look better than ever.

I just said in another thread that losing Wissa so early in the season is probably going to have a big impact. Top 5 looks difficult but maybe we can make it up once we hit our stride. I was disappointed with our lack of finesse on the ball today though, it makes me wonder just how good some of these players are. Did having a world class striker cover some of our shortcomings?

Looked better than he has in a while, although still not much impact.