Andy

Thought today highlighted yet again how important Longstaff is to the midfield btw. Joelinton doesn't suit that role at all and doesn't understand the position well enough against quality midfielders, he needs to be out wide interchanging with Willock.

We've lost to a team who have been top of the league ahead of the Best Team In The World for the majority of the season, and have been pretty unlucky in the process. Let's not wet the bed after this lads.

Botman at fault, the cross should never come in.

We're playing right into their hands getting involved in the bickering and handbags. We should know better than this since they're using the same tricks we do.

I would be foaming if that was given against us like, right decision imo.

Thought this was an ideal result for us personally. We have a body between us and 5th and all the pressure is now on Man Utd - that's exactly what you want.

Another "clear and obvious" 5 minute VAR decision. Nice one dickheads.

Absolutely immense today. As someone in the match thread said, it was like watching an adult play against under 11s at times. 3 goals away from a 10 goal season, I reckon he might get there on recent form.

Needs to learn that he isn't a footballer, gets caught in possession time and time again dawdling on the ball, when a simple pass or clearance would've done the job - happened again today in the lead up to the first goal, attempting what from memory I believe was meant to be a very poor man's cruyff turn near the halfway line. His defending has been shite lately too and his height doesn't offer all that much either, so there's little reason to persist with him in the team at the moment.

Has to start on the bench at the moment for me, but when he does play, it has to be from the right based on what I've seen. Pretty much all of his good work for us has come down that side.

Wolves (H) Forest (A) Man Utd (H) West Ham (A) Brentford (A) Villa (A) 15 points from that run of games is fantastic. This result has come at the right time IMO and will fire us up for Spurs, absolutely no doubt in my mind after this that we will win next week.

Sometimes this happens in away games lads. Shades of us vs Arsenal last season, they've done us the way we did them. Doesn't suddenly make us a shit team, or Emery a better manager than Howe.

Sections of our fans would do exactly the same if it was them, Everton, west ham, etc getting relegated at SJP. Revelling in big clubs struggling is part and parcel of the game.

Not for me. The fake rivalry between us and them is weird tbh, the likes of us and Villa disrupting the big six is a great thing for football.

Villa are class btw, they are absolutely in the top 4 race, confidence and momentum are huge things at this stage of the season and they have both in buckets.

Making Watkins look like prime Pele.

I have to admit, I said myself that I didn't see him as an out an out lone striker "number 9" type, but he's proving me wrong. Still think he's better with Wilson alongside him like.

This guy was outstanding in the second half alongside Bruno I thought, in pretty much every regard.

Loved seeing him absolutely raging at the players at 2-0 up, great to have a manager that demands such high standards

Their shit fans deserve that for leaving while they were still in the match, embarrassing stuff from them.

Seen him getting pelters in the match thread, but I thought the goal was just bad luck tbh. Slipping at that moment is obviously just massively unfortunate. If Pope gave him a shout then it's more of an error I guess, as he shouldn't have been swinging at it in the first place. On the other hand, if Pope didn't give him a shout, then that's the actual error that caused the goal, given how much he'd committed himself.

If you expect rational, composed, measured takes during a match, you've come to the wrong place

He isn't a lone striker, which is how we play. He struggles in that role imo.

He isn't a number 9, so I don't think the answer is to drop Wilson for him. I want to see him, Wilson, Max, Joelinton and Bruno all on the pitch together. That would give teams something to think about, I reckon, as we're too predictable at the moment.

Tried to allow my thoughts to digest a bit before posting in this thread post-match. The game pretty much went how I expected tbh - good effort but we ultimately lacked quality and, most importantly, big game experience. Thought Joelinton and Bruno were good, Isak as well when he came on. Max was frustrating but bright in patches. There were certainly positives, just a lack of end product, which is the recurring theme lately. Given where we were 12 months ago, we don't really have any right to be in and amongst it yet, so the fact that we gave a good account of ourselves and lost it to two "moments" is reason to be proud. We're still bringing the likes of Murphy, Ritchie and Anderson off the bench. They're bringing on the likes of Wan-Bissaka, Sancho and Sabitzer. Talents like Garnacho sat in reserve. There's a gulf there that we need to narrow in the summer, but we all knew that coming in. It's easy to forget how far we've come, and the work that still needs to be done. This is just the beginning.