TRon

He looked devastated on the bench like, hoping he's been getting pelters from the Spurs fans to demotivate their squad even further.

It's a hard fixture, but if we want CL then those are the ones we will have to win somehow. If we can't then I will resign myself that we were punching all season anyway. The Villa game has really been a wake up call, hope we respond with all guns firing against Spurs this weekend.

This is true like, we do have players with some value in the squad who could bring in money now. Almiron and Murphy would be worth decent money, and there is of course ASM, Targett just to mention a few.

Agree, it seems like clutching at straws to believe the management team would have sent out a bunch of midfielders who were carrying some sort of virus. We just got out-thought tactically on the day. Joelinton can have days when his touch is off, but we couldn't get anywhere near their midfield on the day, which just suggests we got our formation wrong.

I knew I should have bookmarked the post where @The College Dropoutinsisted they weren't going down when I suggested a few months ago they were candidates for the drop.

They were missing when he was on the pitch in the first half against Brentford as well, then we improved dramatically once he was taken off. We've struggled in the last couple of games in midfield, just might be a case of hitting a block after an intense couple of weeks, not necessarily one individual out of the midfield options. There might even be a case for taking Bruno out of the midfield if his ankle is affecting him. Very difficult to press as a team if one player is at 80%.

Also feels like they massively disrespected Emery who is showing himself to be an outstanding coach. I didn't like the way he bottled our deal with him, but I'll hold my hands up and say he's proving his worth. Would be good to see him show the Arsenal fans he was worth more respect.

I think that's a decent observation. The press is great if we can rattle teams with that intensity, but if it's slightly off then it can be picked apart as happened yesterday.

There was something badly wrong with the midfield yesterday, difficult to pin down if it was Bruno being off the pace due to injury, or just our shape was wrong and Emery had our number. It was similar against Brentford, but second half we turned it round, in this game we never came close to it.

Too many of our players showed their limits yesterday, we've been getting great results from the likes of Murphy, Willock and such, but it was a comedown to realise that Villa spent money on some decent players under Gerrard, he was just too thick to get much out of them.

Yeah I'm not sure playing Longstaff would have been the magic pill some seem to think it would have been. We just got found wanting shape-wise, and let's face it, individually we didn't stack up either. They won a lot of battles one to one, and we saw the limitations of some of our squad which Howe inherited.

I said something along the same lines early on about his only weakness being lack of athleticism and got roasted for it, but he does lack a bit of pace, and that's his only fault. Never really seen us get overrun like that before in midfield though, so I think we just got our shape wrong in general, none of the midfielders had a good game.

He couldn't really find an answer to the pace of their front men either. Schar especially was shocking on the day.

I think a few England careers will have suffered from yesterday's defeat mind. Southgate was there, and maybe Pope was the only one who didn't come out badly, although he looked very second best to Martinez on the day, which is no suprise. Same goes for Wilson who didn't really do all that much wrong, but Watkins scoring a hatrick should see him leapfrog above Callum into the squad I reckon. Especially given how hard a time he gave our back four. Which brings me on to Trippier. He's still a class player but he got owned yesterday. And the calls for Dan Burn to be called up should probably be quietly rested now. No harm done.

Spurs must resign from the CL race as a matter of principle after today.

Our result was a kick in the teeth, but losing to Bournemouth is a season ender.

LITERALLY!!!

Just blow the fucking whistle man, it's 5.02 ffs.

I'm as shook up by today's game as anyone else, but Spurs not taking advantage has given me a massive shot of hope again.

Don't really care as much as I thought I would tbh. If and when they do come up, we have a few hidings to dish out so they may be better off staying in the champo.

Spurs are the ones who will realistically challenge us unless we fall off a cliff form-wise. I can't see us being as bad as today again mind, think this was a good wake up call.

He's definitely shown glimpses mind. He looks tenacious and quick, has picked out a few decent passes which should have been converted. I haven't seen much from a shooting perspective though.

Midfield is about more than just the midfielders at this level. If the opposition have more pace and dynamism from the full backs that can also lead to overload. I felt our midfield trio were often left isolated as our own full backs had their hands full just dealing with their pace down the flanks.