nee red and white specs here lads... honest opinion, i thought we were still in it at 3-1 and had not looked out of place but that 4th goal basically killed the 'contest' and arsenal saw the game out without breaking sweat and that was where the quality showed. also, up till that point the lads were still fighting and i never saw any heads drop, losing broadhead was a blow especially against an arsenal team whose movement is getting better week upon week, watched them against leeds and they cut them open just as easy as they did us. no shame in losing this one, big well done to the lads for the effort they put in and a bigger one to those fans who never fail to fill me with pride. not going to have a go at any players and it was nice to have a decent ref in the middle for a change, hume maybe could have done better but he was up against a top player but i could add others, they will learn from it...strangely enough, i was pleased for their young lad scoring on his debut, it's what football is about.
Aye - just had a look now. Didn't realise you've spent so little in the past few years, although it probably makes sense considering the financial turmoil you've been in. In any case, for large parts of that game, you put up a better showing than Premier League opposition against us (including Spurs), so your lads should be proud of how they performed on the whole. Our home record this season is joint-best with Man City's, so it was always going to be an uphill battle. 5-1 may look like a spanking, but anyone who watched the game would know it was anything but.
That last half hour was tough to watch but well played lads. Hopefully playing against top opposition builds these players up for the rest of the season despite this scoreline. Watching the last 30 mins with no real chance of winning, now I know what a skunk fan feels like.
We were better going forward than that score suggests but your lads showed us how to finish, disappointed with our defensive performance over the full 90. Only the keeper came out with any credit even though he let 5 in. The gulf is huge but I have hope for the rest of the season cos we will go back to playing league one teams where our defence can cope better.
Well done lads. Proud of you all. Tried hard played well in patches but quality ultimately shone through. Fantastic support and safe journey home to all. Fingers crossed for broadhead.
The lads were brilliant tonight and fully deserve all the credit for their effort and the positivity we showed for a lot of the game. My opinion on Hume,for what it’s worth, is that tonight it was expected that an experienced, multi million pound, premier league player might rip him a new one. The problem for me is that over 3 years, he’s shown that he can’t defend against league one plodders. He offers something going forward but as a defender he is simply awful
He’s just not good enough for our level overall let alone the level Arsenal play. Going forward he’s a headless chicken and often ends up running into trouble but on the 1 in 10 runs where he reaches his final destination the final ball is rarely there either. He’s also injured more than not. Maybe that’s part of the problem.
Johnson confirming hamstring injury for broadhead, his other hamstring, fingers crossed it’s not to bad. Reinforcements needed come January.
Proud of them tonight, yes a gulf in class but it shows where we are. We didn't give up and gave our stunning support something to sing about all game. Did we deserve 5-1 probably not, where there mistakes yes but to be expected against a very good Premier league team. Worst part of tonight is Broadheads injury
Good post, saved me from typing similar! They made a lot of changes but still had a team on the pitch costing roughly a hundred times what ours did. ( Bit of a guess that, but Pepe 70m, White, 50m Odegaard, and a couple of others all cost dosh).
Im in the I thought we did brilliantly camp. Im proud after tonight. We gave our best and the 5-1 flattered Arsenal. I watched on TV in Portugal and the consensus was similar amongst AFC, SAFC, and neutrals. The common view is that we need a defensive/midfield general (Bould, Ball, Schwartz, Cana type of character) or an attacking midfield type eg Don Hutchison. The positive point was that it really exposed our weaknesses - when all of our midfield are not on their game neither are the team. On Saturday Pritchard had a stinker and Dan Neill was anonymous in the first half. Tonight Im afraid Dan was poor, Pritchard excellent, Winchester decent, and Embleton erratic. Our attack was very good Our defence is a head scratcher - Flanners puts in a good shift but is champi9nship at best, Doyle is off the pace at present, Wright is prone to mistakes and our left back is always a problem. We do need dedicated full backs Still proud of the attitude and bearing the lads displayed FTM
He doesn't even know that Nketiah is 23 in May, calling him a youngun with bags of time. He isn't, he needs to play and he needs to move.
.You get the sense that Sky keep him on so as they don't get the blame for him falling cometely off the wagon.
would agree with that, although i am not one that heaps praise on dan neil, he is a young lad and is doing a good job but he still has plenty to learn, thought he did ok against a good team...we did see tonight that our defence is just too easily turned (as i said earlier, i watched arsenal do the same to leeds) flanno has done ok this season thus far but is a league one defender, doyle like neil is learning his trade and i feel he got caught out, wright did quite well i thought, considering the opposition and hume is just not a defender nor is gooch (have said this many a time so not just based on tonight) as others have said, pepe alone cost around ten times more than our entire team and we would have needed a massive shot of luck and them to have a bad day at the office to have won but it was a great experience for the whole team, let's hope they learn from it and take pride in what was, all things considered, a damn fine performance.
