The Prophet

This would be another good point for Arsenal.

Clery did a decent video on Villa. In a nutshell they've brought back shooting from outside the box, which sides barely do these days. It's why until recently their xG was so low.

The good news is that Sunderland now how have to endure these kinds of articles too.

Not so much it's being spoilt and more just a lack of patience mixed with a bit of entitlement. We all know the issues, so does Howe, it might just take a bit of time to rectify them. As it is, we're two points of the top half and five off a Champions League spot. It's far too early to be fretting about where we finish.

Yuuurs, barely kicked a ball for us and the lad is getting pelters. I'll add him to the list.

"It’s always easy to judge recruitment in the past,’ he said, straight-batting down the wicket. ‘I think you’ve always got to judge recruitment with the context of time and what the need was at that specific time. This club has been on an interesting journey, from a relegation battle to a Champions League club, and that requires different things in different moments." That's how you do diplomacy, Paul (from Ross Wilson).

We'll agree to disagree on that one.

The ball shouldn't be getting through to Ramsdale.

Chucking the West Ham and Brentford games into the argument is a bit odd when we were chasing the game in both.

I just don't think they're expecting him to try the overhead kick. I know it's flavour of the month to stick the boot into Gordon and Elanga, but Burn is by far the most culpable on what was a poor piece of collective defending.

Did VAR check the Romero foul before the overhead kick?

There's definitely green shoots there, we've been much improved since the last international break, but we've still got a way to go before we're back to our best. Inconsistency from a side in transition is understandable.

Interesting in the games he's started (Villa, Liverpool, Forest, Barca, USG), he's generally looked much better. Alright he wasn't great v Forest, but in the rest of those he was alright to decent. He seems to really struggle to impact the game from the bench, no idea why that is. Still think it's way too premature to write him off, as many are gagging to do, but it's been a shame that he hasn't hit the ground running.

Talk about tone deaf...

His sides are rancid. Tactical fouls, set pieces and a reliance on wingers. They were an eye sore tonight.

The new Lewis Hall.

Can't really argue with that.

Nothing performance really, seems to be really struggling to impact the game from the bench at the moment.

Always felt this season would require patience. There's definitely some issues to address, but we still look like a side in transition trying to find it's feet. The last four have been encouraging, even though we haven't always come away with three points.

To be fair to Ramsdale it comes through a pack of bodies and he sees it late, but still doesn't cover himself in glory. For me it was just collectively gash defending.

Disgusted is a bit much, no? We comfortably did enough to win the game, but were let down by a couple of defensive lapses.

Just really thick from Romero, not much else to say.

This is just pure unadulterated Frank-ball. Kick the shit out of the opponent and hope one of your tricky wingers works his magic. It's disgusting to watch. That said, we've only really opened them up twice, we miss Bruno with his speed of thought in the final third.