gbandit

Neville always has his tongue up Arsenal’s hoop. Think he’s just desperate for Man City to not win the league so is always over the top in praise of Arsenal

Have no issue with Havertz copping some heat, up there with all the time great heels of the PL by the end of his career I’ll wager

Some dark stuff will come out about him at some point, I’m convinced

Sosa

Some footballers are so incredibly thick. Everyone knows you’re getting a yellow card for kicking the ball away and the time will be added on. Stop doing it

Whether you get the ball or not, you can’t go aggressively pointing at a referee for giving you a yellow after you scythe someone down in the process. Could easily have done the lad’s ankle ligaments there

Got the ball but that was a ridiculous challenge to make, was always going to be dangerous so no issue at all with a yellow

The Wood we know and love

Good post

Pleased to see Howe giving him some love after the game in his comments. Think if he can grow in his confidence and deliver one or two very good performances where he gets assists and keeps things quiet in defence then we’ll see him completely nail down that LB spot and never look back

Villa’s consistency is worrying. They have a very clear identity and all their players have improved under Emery. It’s annoying as fuck how good they are, hopefully we’ll see the brakes come on as Europe stifles them

I couldn’t be more behind Howe but I’m desperate for a performance that gives the following - Control A sense of our footballing identity as a side Fluency when in possession We have had basically none of the first one this season so far and none of the second. We’ve had some very brief spells of the third. If we’re going to have a top six season we need all three of the above to start happening with some consistency. I’m really struggling to understand what’s going on at the moment and while it’s Howe’s responsibility to get it right I can’t figure out what are the barriers to it happening as I’m sure he wants all of the above and he’s coaching the team to those ends

Pretty much, fantastic finish. Didn’t do a lot more than that, had a wide shot but we didn’t have the ball in their final third in good positions until the second half

No idea what's happening here. Wonder if he's going through a hard time off the pitch / his mental health. Howe put an arm round him at half time and Gordon looked a bit gutted. Whole thing is very odd. Hopefully he's back to himself very soon

I think it's a major issue that we're never getting in behind teams. If you watched Chelsea earlier they were in behind West Ham so often but we really struggle to play slide rule passes other than from Bruno. Murphy did a good job releasing Barnes but we don't get the ball to Isak into those positions anywhere near enough. I don't actually know if that's an Isak issue or a midfield issue, or both

Probably one of the worst errors he's made for us but not going to dig him out as he's still a top keeper when it comes to saving. His knee save was remarkable earlier on and stopped a goal so whatever

Why are people talking about it like Mitchell and Eales are watching and running the rule over Howe? Don't CEOs and Sporting Directors normally watch their respective teams?

Apart from that one really wayward pass I thought he did really well when he came on

Glad to see everyone's keeping their heads. Yes, the performances have been poor this season every game apart from brief periods. However, we know how good Howe is. We also didn't strengthen the team for him in the summer. I do think it's concerning how flat we look and I have no idea why that is but I'm absolutely sure Howe is the right man to sort it for us and he will if he's allowed to. We need to find a way of exerting control over games for longer than ten minute spells in a half and that's the biggest issue for us right now, working out the best midfield is going to be key to that

What is this ref doing

What an insane save from Pope

The only way we get back in this is if one of their players get sent off

Gordon needs the bench for his own good here, hard to imagine how he could play worse than this

Gordon has had an awful half

Something feels off here, we just seem so deflated