Checko

Yeah he does come across to me as someone who lacks a bit in self-belief, which probably makes him a nicer person but a less effective fotbaler. He does have the most pornstar name in the premier league though, and those are the sort of intangibles you can't coach.

Good news is looks like we could maybe hold our own in the Championship

Just thought I'd mention fair play to Gordon for still chasing everything at 4-1 down in the 91st minute.

It's worth remembering the first 2 1/2 seasons Arteta was with Arsenal they finished 8th, 8th and 5th. And he would have started from a much higher point than Eddie. This year has been ridiculous in terms of fixtures and injuries. It's about as hard a season as we could get & the squad still needs significant upgrading. That said, there are some issues that have been coming up over and over again all year: We can't pass out of a press & our strikers are isolated & can't hold up direct balls, so there's not an easy counter to the press. No pressure on the ball and a flat midfield 3 while opponents drift around wherever they want in the space between our midfield and defence has been costing us all year and hasn't been addressed. I like Howe and hopefully he turns things around. Lots of times managers/teams have a bad year and bounce back the next year. We do just need to start actually playing better though. It's not just the lack of crazy pressing due to injuries: the way the team's set up just hasn't performed well for much of the season, and when it hasn't there's been no plan B. That's the biggest concern to me. I still want him as manager next year - we had a good year and a half of perfoming well above expectations. It'll be interesting to see how we do the rest of the season and how he copes with the underperforming. Sometimes things go well, sometimes they don't. It's how you deal with the difficult times that tell you the most.

I'd rather we took off one of longstaff or miley, moved gordon to a no 10 ish role and put barnes on the left. Go more 4231. Or maybe Burn on for one of them and do more of a 3-4-3 with Trips and Tino as Wingbacks. Our striker needs some support. We need some more pace in central midfield. This isn't just a today issue, this is really an all season issue - our 4-3-3 set up's just not working against pressure. With no Big Joe to kick it long to we have no way of moving the ball up the field.

I think last year we were doing better than expected and a lot of teams sat back more and let us be the team on the front foot. This year a lot more teams are challenging us for the intiative and to be honest we haven't coped well when they've done so. That said, we couldn't lay a glove on Arsenal last year either.

This is just dreadful. As with basically every team this year, if we get pressed in our own half we can't pass out of it and our striker won't win anything played direct, and even if he does has no support, so we have no out. Defensively, not really pressuring them, midfield is kind of sitting in a line and 3 or four of their guys are pottering about in the gap in front of our defence waiting for a pass.

Positives: It was an entertaining game at least Came from behind twice Thought Barnes looked good. Good movement, made some nice passes. More of an inside forward so would probably benefit from an overlapping fullback. Miley was physically putting himself about a bit. Good to see a bit more fire in him. Negatives: No real control. We play like an away team (not just today) and rely on being able to play quick transitions behind the opposition. We don't pass out of defence well and we don't have a striker who can hold the ball up if we play more direct. Feels like there's one or two who take too many touches & the Dilly-Dally Quotient(tm) is a bit too large. Defensively look a bit dodgy. We had a number of opportunities that we fluffed by playing a poor final ball or taking the wrong option. Thought we were close to making a lot more chances but kept letting it get away and didn't test their keeper much.

He doesn't count, he's permanently injured

No injuries today at least (as far as I could tell).

"In situations where: ... a player in an offside position is moving towards the ball with the intention of playing the ball and is fouled before playing or attempting to play the ball, or challenging an opponent for the ball, the foul is penalised as it has occurred before the offside offence" FA Law 11

Make players smoke a pack of tabs a day? Far too much athleticism these days.

Don't think there's was a penalty, don't think Longstaff's was a penalty. 0-0 fair result.

I would have preferred Tino today as well for pace vs the counter. It's worth bearing in mind though that when Burn came back in we had been shipping a ton of goals with Tino at LB. I don't think it was Tino's fault, but I can see why Howe would want to go back to the back 4 that conceded the joint fewest goals in the league last year. It hasn't really worked overall to be fair, but Burn has been overall very solid for 2 years here and is one of the team leaders. Even just a few games ago he was having some good games, so you don't necessarily just discard him after a couple of bad games. There are things like squad harmony and dynamics to be considered, which we won't know so much about. Also he's really fucking tall.

Fairly insipid overall, though an away win is not to be sniffed at - we basically had 3 chances and scored 3 - 2 of which came from set pieces and one came from them playing a bad ball on the edge of their box. They got through on goal a couple times. No pace in our back line or CM so to be expected I guess. M-Dubz didn't have many other saves to make to be fair. Burn got rinsed a couple of times 1st half, thought he was much better second half (perhaps because we were sitting in mainly). We did a hipster and put Tripps into a holding midfield 2 on the ball, but we lost all our patterns of play on the right wing and so Almiron did nothing. Bruno was allowed to push further forward, which I'm generally in favour of as he's our best and most creative CM. Miley and Longstaff both quite safe and passive in overall play though so never really got anything going. Overall tempo very low. We did seem to be playing a different system though so perhaps not surprising that things weren't that smooth. Thought Barnes looked bright when he came on. Gordon tried hard and was knackered by the 80th minute and probably should have come off sooner. Tino assured. Wilson lasted 90 minutes! Didn't do much but he lasted. Krafth sighting, which means I got to google how to spell his name! Anyway, points on the board, baby! We haven't had many scrappy, undeserved wins this year and we're due one. Almost forgot, Bruno is class. If he was fast I reckon he'd have a shot at making it at this level.

Ok he should have dealt with that keeper's hoof

He conceded a clean through one-on-one (and saved one earlier), and a massive deflection. I don't really see he's done much wrong today tbh (as of half time).

They're kind of letting us pass it around a bit, not trying particularly hard to get the ball off us. We don't really know how to pass through teams very well so we're not really doing anything with it, other then when Schar crossfields it to Gordon. They're basically just waiting for things to fizzle out then hit us on the counter. With no pace in our back line or central midfield that's working pretty well for them. The overall tempo on the ball is very slow. I can see why you would want to be cautious with the ball, as the counter is their gameplan. But a lot more one, two touch, rather than 3,4,5 touches would help. That basic quick pass and move is not something we're particularly competent in. Draw probably fair so far.

Thought he did well today - I've not been that impressed with some of his all-round play this year but he was up for it and held the ball well I thought.

The main question is, why aren't all of our players wearing these magic moon boots all the time?

We'll have to wait till Bruno's suspended to play him again then. Just to be on the safe side.

Think he's one of those long-legged guys who's a bit faster than he looks. Did some really nice things today. Knackered near the end of the game which is unsurprising - he's young and endurance is something that takes years to build up. If we had any other bloody CMs we could give him a bit of rest. Hope Willock's back soon.

I would say he definitely did some good things, but it's that old problem that at the key moment the odds of him: 1. making the right decision 2. then technically not messing up Are both quite small.

To be fair to Howe, you probably can't build a good team spirit by just benching players after a bad game. All players have bad games & Burn was solid for us last year and was a big part of the tightest defence in the league. He often got rinsed once in the first 10 mins and then fixed the issue. He's had bad games before and tends to come back strong from them. That said, when Tino started I thought he should be starting going forward. I still think that. He's the long-term starter here and just the one defender we have with any pace. Right now all our CMs with proper athleticism are injured/suspended. We're just so slow defensively I just feel we need some pace in the mix.

Disappointing result but certainly not boring! Very exciting game. We have no speed in our back four or central midfield right now so we're struggling to shut things down. Really feel a proper DM sitting in in games like this and allowing Bruno more freedom to be creative Bruno would be quite useful. Overall thought we were most likely to score for much of the game but a draw's probably a fair result as they went for it and had some good chances too. Thought Barkley looked tidy for them. Dan Burn is not as fast as very fast premiership wingers. That is clear to see. He is very tall though at least. Was it just me who thought their penalty was a bit soft? Didn't really look to be any force in the contact.