Erikse

Not sure about the decision itself, but he has some very good points. I saw the situation that he's talking about, and it's really similar in my eyes.

If all luck had gone our way, and no bad luck had happened to us at all, we'd be 1st! But if all luck had gone against us we'd be bottom 3.

We were by far the team that overperformed our points tally the most before those games. According to xPTS we should have 9 by now, which on the current table would put us at 13th behind Brentford. So far this season we are high than we should be, thanks to margins (as you call it).

Neto, Felix and Nkunku can't get a start lately. Mudryk not even on the bench.

Seeems like he did cave into the decision of VAR though. I was watching it live and thought maybe the ref had given offside, because the players were arguing so much with him before the VAR decision. Seems like it was the case.

I think the ref made the right call, but I just sat there thinking "are City really going to get a dodgy decision against them??" You almost never see that. Obviously it didn't happen this time either.

Said it when they (City) played against us, can't remember the last time I saw them this tame. They are just a different team without Rodri.

Could you elaborate? I'm a bit confused as to why he did (unless there was a knock), but he must have had a reason for it. I just don't see how benching our best(?) and most efficient player so far this season is the solution to anything. I would almost go as far as benching Gordon over him considering current form. Obviously I'd just play Gordon right instead.

Which is also why I get a bit annoyed about the standard "isn't elite enough" type of comments everytime we are after a player in the £20-30m price range, just because the player wouldn't be a starter for the top teams. Sometimes there's some truth to it, but it feels like there's very high expectations for what type of signings we can do aswell.

Can the recieving defender even be inside the box when the kick is taken? I thought players (apart from taker + gk if he's not taking it) had to be outside the box.

Thanks, I was genuinely asking because I didn't know if I had missed something. Seemed like such a strange decision from the outside without any real context.

I was starting to wonder if he was trying to hard to avoid home bias.. Can't remember the last time I saw this many "small" errors all go one way.

Not sure what to think of our strategy so far. In one way it seems like we should have been more concerned about depth, but at the same time some of the top signings have been a great success for the price. It seems like our (allowed) spending power has gone down way before we were finished building the team that we were trying to build, but you could put that down lack of sales aswell. Feels like PSR is making it tighter and tighter for us in each passing window. If we go for a big money signing in the next 2 windows, and it doesn't hit the mark, it would be a disaster with PSR. I think the biggest worry for me is the aging squad, like we're going to have so many players to replace. We're still struggling to adapt to playing without Trippier alone, and we can't even get a fee for him. Getting a little bit off topic, but here we are.

Talking of injuries. I think I saw some talking about Isak and Gordon not being at perfect fitness today. Getting pretty tired of that stuff, no team has every player in perfect fitness. Interesting how we never look at the injuries and fitness of the team we're facing. They were missing Pedro, Webster, Adringa and Minteh, with March and Enciso having been out for a year. Mitoma was on the bench, presumably because he has travelled from Japan. I suppose Bruno has travelled far aswell, but the point is that we never talk about the problems of the opposition. As if we are allways worse of than everyone else on injuries and fitness. If we had the levels of injuries and fitness to key players as they had today, and we had lost in that condition, many would put the loss down to that factor alone as if we were completely crippled. But noone is saying that Brighton were crippled.

A mate who I'm playing against is not having the best of weeks.

This is the only likely explanation I can think of aswell. The alternative (Murphy in for Barnes) just seems so much worse regardless..

What could possibly be the reason for starting Murphy over Barnes today, considering how well Barnes has done this season? I'm just trying to understand that decision.

I wonder if things had been different if Barnes had started. It's a bit odd that he did so well when given the chance (one of our very best this season), but yet we'd rather play Murphy for this one. Imagine how many points we would have if Murphy played all the minutes that Barnes has played instead.

Not a bad game overall, but he lets his frustration get the better of him in games like this imo. Especially in the crucial moments.

When you see Gordon this frustrated mid game you just know he's not going to score today, and mess up the crucial moments..

Isak just waiting for the defenders. How generous.

Gordon too frustrated at this point. Again..

Lots of things they are being overly strict on to get rid of, but diving still gets rewarded way too much. I can understand that people don't want VAR to get involved even more, but I wouldn't mind them overturning incidents where a player obviously dives, and then book them insetad. Even if it's in the middle of the pitch. Because diving is a much bigger issue than Hall punching the air for half a sec from an awful decision. Diving is too rewarding currently, and with low risk.

Brighton player dives and gets a free kick. Hall gets a yellow from being mildly frustrated by the dive being rewarded.

That's what happens when you can't score I suppose..