Parsley

Huddersfield don't half get some luck. Stone-waller for Burnley turned away today.

Merino's looked clear as day IMO. Had he gone straight down rather than try to stay on his feet and stumble over, I think the ref would've given it. The contact from Bruno looked pretty clear-cut

Brighton were more progressive than us in the first half and must have had more possesion than us. We got deeper and deeper as the first half went on. Define 'progressive'. They kept the ball nicely but created nothing through open play. As poor as we were going forward, we had the better of the chances in either half.

Absolutely bricking it HTL!

Elliot Yedlin Lascelles Clark Dummett Saivet Merino Ritchie Gayle Atsu Joselu

Gayle should've played in Murphy there.

Never on the way we ‘played’ those first 35 minutes. You could say well the plan worked, but that wasn’t a plan, it was 100% surrender and no team should ever submit like that. Surrendering would surely be the opposite; pressing high, leaving space and getting done before HT, all in the name of 'having a go'.

Beginning to amp up the pressing now...

The plan is to stay in the game, keep it tight and take a rare opportunity. To say we're not trying is absolutely crazy. This. So the best way is let them just encamp in your half creating chance after chance. They could have scored five or six that half. If you give quality teams time and space they will tear you apart we’re not even in their face when they have the ball. Exactly, so why needlessly press, or 'get in their face', and leave even more space in behind for them to move into? Rafa's approach was absolutely the right one - keep it tight, frustrate them, let them over-commit and hope to catch them on the counter. Anyone suggesting otherwise is being overly romantic.

I genuinely don't know what people were expecting to happen? It's not like we've rolled over. We had 13.5 % possession after 25 mins. What are you doing watching this if you expected this then? Supporting the team mate.

Abysmal defending.

Aye, I know it's tough with City pressing as well as they do but the lack of composure on the ball has been frustrating so far to say the least.

That's a bad, bad challenge by Murphy to be fair.

Come on man, Jonas Olsson and Nathan Dyer?

You can be encouraged all you want...the facts are we lost both games without scoring There is absolutely no point in being tight at the back if we cannot score for s***............teams that don't score many goals go down simple Boro had a fabulous defensive record last year but scored the lowest in the division...guess what happened This is nonsense. We have scored the same number of goals (16) as 5th-placed Burnley who, in contrast to our figure of 27, have only conceded 12 goals. That's the joint 2nd-best defensive record in the league and living proof that a solid defence should be paramount for a side with our resources. We have also scored the same number of goals as Huddersfield, who were gifted a 4-goal gubbing yesterday, and more than Palace, Brighton, West Brom and Swansea. Only 1 goal less than Southampton and West Ham. I'm not denying that we lack quality as an attacking outfit, but the number of goals that we've scored is arguably commensurate with where we ought to be aiming for in the league (lower mid-table). The number of individual defensive errors - which has been worrying over the past few weeks - is what is costing us more.

West Ham 1 up.

That was worse today. Still think the Mooy goal he simply bought the dummy rather than poor play. p*ss poor for today's goal. For the Mooy goal, Merino had Clark and Hayden behind him as cover and without a man; I genuinely think he let Mooy go because we had men spare. Yesterday was inexcusable mind - both Lejeune and Clark were pre-occupied and he absolutely had to go with Hazard.

Ritchie is a fucking idiot. He's been beaten by that pass inside all game.

Agreed. He's made a couple of excellent tackles though.

Why is Clark booked for that when Kante got off scot free 2 mins earlier?

What's Mbemba doing there?

Is Ritchie playing left back? Mbemba, Clark and Lejeune look like they're playing in a 3.

Keeping him fresh maybe? Not had a lot of minutes.

Clark nowhere near Robson-Kanu there.

He's predominantly right-footed as well which is a plus among our group of wingers. The only negative is that Ritchie was moved out onto the left yesterday to accommodate, where he was relatively peripheral.