TRon

There's not a striker in the world who won't miss chances. Point is, he's still scoring goals, and even despite missing a glorious chance yesterday through trying to be too precise, he was still one of our best performers yesterday. We didn't get humped because of him.

The possession thing is genuinely worrying. It means either we have spent a lot of money on players who are technically limited, or we aren't setting up in a way where there are enough options available.

Both are in Europe with all the demands that brings on a squad. It was used as an excuse for our patchy form last season so we have to give them the same leeway. Even then, Spurs are becoming a bit of a joke and their manager is under real pressure. But my point was that it's not even them I'm worried about now, it's not that clear we are better than teams like Brentford or Fulham and the rest who are currently above us.

Seems like he maybe got all the credit for Bloom's innovations at Brighton. In reality he was just good at organising stuff like U-14 competitions and Xmas parties.

I imagine there will be more bad luck stories about missed chances and shock lapses in defending. But for that we'd have won comfortably etc. The reality is, that is the norm this season, and the good performances are the exception. We rarely put in a good 90 mins.

Kind of galling to watch players like Madueke and Mbuemo come from relative obscurity and look so much better in the last couple of years. Meanwhile he seems to have been around forever and we'd probably have to give him away now.

It's Eddie's squad for better or worse. We've made some great signings under his watch, so not sure why anyone would dispute it. But it's not right to criticise those above him for backing or lack of. We've ended up almost getting points deducted for pushing PSR limits, so to say we haven't backed him is ludicrous.

He was pretty competitive I thought. Looked up for the scrap from the first minute to the last where a lot of our players seemed to wilt after the first half.

Looking at their line up before the game, Mbuemo and Wissa looked like they would cause the most problems. I was surprised that we didn't seem to have any plans to counter Mbuemo in particular. He had a field day against Hall, who got left 1 v 1 too often for my liking. I thought we might have doubled up on Mbuemo considering he was such a key player for them.

" I telt yers all alaang but no won wanted ta listen!"

Howe's not going to get sacked this season, and I have said enough times that shouldn't happen. Even the CL spots are still up for grabs at this stage so in theory it can still all turn around. But in my opinion with every shit team we drop points to, it becomes harder and harder to make Europe. We had a relatively easy start to the season, but we've performed badly. I expected us to be competing with Villa and Spurs for those European places, at this moment it looks like we are competing with Brentford, Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton as well. Then to make matters worse, when we play them we don't look better either.

I'm not sure we are finishing 7th/8th though, that's the problem. A month ago I would have thought that finishing in those positions was a pessimistic take, now I watch us being outplayed by Fulhams and Brentfords and I'm not convinced we are significantly better.

When you say you are concerned, what is the point of that? If you don't like a player, you replace that player. If you don't like a manager, you replace that manager. I suppose if you don't like the leadership then...you guess where this is going. Who would you want instead?

Might also be that we picked up 2 points from the last four games and only Liverpool was against a fancied side.

There's definitely been more bad performances than good ones. The league table tells it's own story.

Howe will see the season out, and that's for the best. There's still enough points to play for to get into Europe with everyone beating everyone, but that's also part of the problem. We don't look any better than two thirds of the sides in the PL. I thought we were nailed on to finish 7/8th at worst, now I'm thinking 10th might be an achievement.

I think the scary think is that I'm not even sure what a midtable side looks like any more. We got outplayed by Brentford today, Howe got outmanaged by Frank. Eddie doesn't look that special in this company, not sure he's any better than the Bournemouth or Fulham manager either.

The miss was terrible, but his close control was a level above everyone else. He's one of the few who looked switched on today, too many others were losing the ball or miscontrolling under a bit of pressure.

Agree. Our substitutions look like panic more than anything else over the last few games. It just ends up in chaos.

Not sure about Bruno but Isak is starting to feel inevitable. Europe is looking a long way off now.

Today was a bit weird but there's been a pattern all season. Previously we used to press the shit out of the oppositon, now they seem to be doing it back, and more effectively. It's almost as if they have cottoned on and adapted to our game plan.

He's been at fault for too many goals, that's for sure.

We got overrun basically. They just hunted us down and finished us.

Said it in the pre-match thread, that if we are going to rest players, he should have been considered first considering he's played every game and has cost us late goals in both previous games. I think rotation is the right way to go, just don't always understand how we are doing it.

It's weird, both him and Murphy provided end product, but they felt fairly useless the rest of the time.