Dandy Man

We were obviously totally knackered and individual errors cost us badly, but I thought Everton played us relatively well by playing the game on their terms and forcing most our play through the middle of the park and they deserved the win tbf. Nevertheless, if we'd taken some of the chances at 0-0 we would've likely come away with something. It's annoying to capitulate in that manner but we have a crunch Champions League game against AC Milan in the week and you'd have been put in an asylum for thinking such things were possible little over two years ago so I can't be too annoyed either.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2023/1130/1419434-bruce-ireland-job-would-interest-me/ Please god no, can we not just be shite in peace

Imagining Mitro's levels of fitness after a few months living the semi retired life in Saudi and then catapulting him in to Eddie Howe's peak physical condition regimen, maybe I'm a pessimist but not sure it would work out well tbh

Unsurprisingly, a fairly significant proportion of Arsenal fans are doubling/trebling/quadrupling down on this being a disgrace. VAR and refs in general are on a hiding to nothing these days tbf, fans of nearly every club seem to believe there is some coordinated conspiracy against them any time a decision that is not 100% conclusive does not go in their favour, the players of nearly all teams are increasingly proficient in methods for conning refs and/or influencing decisions and then you get endless gaslighting and moaning from the same managers who have actively encouraged their players to deceive referees.

Parroting what most people have said and stating the obvious pretty much, but we simply don't have a deep enough squad to deal with the current level of fatigue in the team and we have had especially bad variance with regard to injuries. It's not really an excuse, it's just the reality of the situation. Considering we started from a base of being odds on to get relegated this time two years ago and are now competing in the Champions League it's not very surprising. This season could end up looking more like the transition season that last year would have been if we hadn't massively overachieved.

Yeah I agree and that's why I said it was much worse than Bruno and he went in with malice, just you never really have any business raising a forearm to another players head whereas strong sliding tackles are generally part of the game so there's more scope for claiming it was unintentional (but not in this instance)

While Havertz is obviously much worse and he definitely went in with some malice, bit easier to plead incompetence with a poorly judged sliding tackle than a forearm to the head

Kind of mad that the review panel found Wolves have been beaten by two incorrect penalty calls in consecutive weeks and it's little more than a footnote in all of this

Definitely think there is an element of 3D chess with this tbh, highly doubt Ashworth would be explicitly and publicly calling out our intentions if we were actually going to persue a sweetheart deal from one of the other PIF owned clubs. If this is the case and such deals were never in our planning then there is an argument to be made that this ruling will more negatively impact some of our direct rivals who are further down the journey of leveraging relationships with other clubs.

It's second guessing other people's motivations, I think it is almost certainly down to us but football fans are conspiratorial creatures and what do I know. It's a sound rule for football as a whole and we can still be successful regardless, that's pretty much all there is to it for me.

I think our situation has definitely been a big motivator, but ultimately these rules apply to everyone not just us and I think they are positive for preserving (some semblance of) integrity in the game. We're still only moving in one direction and these rules are not stopping us imo, so let them do what they want.

I dunno, if I wouldn't want our direct rivals doing it then I don't want us doing it, it's basically cheating the system and it definitely wouldn't be good for the game if these sort of arrangements are taken to their logical conclusion with basically federations of feeder clubs. Likes of Arteta and Klopp going to be whinging at every opportunity regardless because it's all about getting any edge possible. Just think it's important to have some integrity in it all.

It's an objectively sensible rule imo, no problem with it whatsoever. They probably didn't need to force it through in middle of season as a petty reaction to our situation but I wouldn't really want us going down that route anyway.

Thought Miggy moved more central for a bit? Things were fairly chaotic at that stage so hard to say really

Felt similar to the home game against them tbh. They seemed to have a slight edge in most areas when it really mattered, the way they set up seems to be quite effective at occupying our defensive line and creating space for their attacking threats, they are some way off the best in Europe but are no pushovers and have a good mix of dynamism and experience and their manager is clearly no idiot either. That said, we could/should still have come away with something if we'd taken our chances when they were presented to us but we were also a fair way below our best. Just one of those nights, nothing to be ashamed of and some strong individual efforts in defeat.

His running style when he's accelerating from a stand still is fairly unorthodox isn't it? Almost feel like I'm watching a gif when he's pressing defenders at full pelt

Still hard to believe that this happened to be honest, was fairly certain that nights like this were consigned to history not too long ago, as good as it has got in my lifetime and only the 5-0 against Manure really comes close for pure unbridled euphoria. Unquestionably better than the Barca 3-2 given that was ultimately a small positive while Dalglish was busy setting us on a downward trajectory.

Team of legends to a man, colossal performances across the park. All feels a bit surreal, not sure whether to wank or cry

Was a mental decision, but it almost felt like the ref didn't want to piss off the home fans anymore given the aggro after the third goal went in. Also think our players did not make as much of a fuss over it as we would have done if it was more consequential.

I'm generally of the sunshine and rainbows/glass half full mentality - I don't really "expect" us to achieve anything and I'm happy to enjoy the ride come what may but something has looked amiss (to me) in our recent performances, I'm not reading anything into as there's a whole shedload of extenuating circumstances but a lot of the things that made us such a hard team to beat last season have not really been there this season (yet), no point obsessing about it but no point pretending it is not the case either

As others have said. Thought it was a great result and an absolutely incredible achievement to even be involved in this fixture given where we were just 24 months ago. But there is no getting away from the fact that the performance was objectively poor, yes we showed great fighting spirit but feel like it was only down to Milan's wastefulness and some good fortune that we did not concede - I don't think there could be too many complaints had we lost 2-0 or 3-0. Something seems slightly off at the moment, whether it's as simple as just the balance in midfield or something else I don't know but we are nowhere near the levels of cohesion and intensity we saw for most of last season. Again, we just got a draw with AC Milan at the San Siro in the CL and have just come off about the hardest run of fixtures realistically possible, and can be certain that Eddie will be leaving no stone unturned to find the spark again so I am not at all worried (yet), but we are definitely currently some way off the levels we played to last year to my eye

If only there was some additional context to explain this "one purple patch" (like a new manager and new system that plays to his strengths), not like it just randomly happened in a vacuum ffs

Love Miggy but he's got such a lopsided skillset where he's verging on world class in some areas but has huge weaknesses in other areas so it's fairly easy to focus on the stuff he is incapable of doing when results don't go our way. Thought he was absolutely fine yesterday, just have to accept that he is never going to be a perfectly rounded footballer and has some fairly major limitations.