The diamond was quickly squashed after fifteen to twenty minutes. As soon as Arsenal got going they took complete control of midfield and our midfield reverted to a flat five in front of defence with only JRod or Redman chasing shadows up front. The diamond never returned thankfully
As it should be. The biggest mistake Puel has made is Redmond imo. Forget how much I hate the diamond, Redmond as a striker doesn't work.
Davis was barely in the game, absolute waste having him play. We aren't playing badly for a team not using all of its players.
I was listening to the Radio Solent version and while I accept that they are Saints biased, they seem to think we were tactically right to win a point and possibly even could have sneaked a winner on the break. Nobody can be tactically wise to counteract an inept or corrupt official?
We haven't hit the peaks that we have before, but then we didn't hit the peaks all the time in previous seasons either. However, we must remember how small the gap is between success and failure....with only a modicum of luck we could have a few more points, today and against Watford and Sunderland. We haven't been thrashed in any game, so no reason to think we won't win some time soon. (Please let that start against Sparta ). I don't share the view that Puel is on any kind of countdown yet....far too soon.
Nobody can say that we never created goalscoring chances today and bloody good ones too. I was encouraged by some of our possession, especially in the second half and it was very nearly a perfect away performance at a top club. I know it is a results business but a couple of wins changes everything, I do agree, however, that the Redmond/Striker experiment is not working and we would be better served with a natural Forward there.
The squad doesn't need improvements. Well it probably does but Puel will get sacked if he persists with the diamond. The players we have just don't suit the diamond.
Just got home. ****ing fuming does not even cover it. I'm not a fan of the system, but backlash for Puel isn't warranted when we would have got a point until a ****ing abysmal **** of a referee decided a big team needed a win.
Where have you been recently, players that make mistakes get crucified by our Neggie fans. This Referee lost the plot sometime before that decision, he started dishing out cards at players that were complaining about a critical and dodgy decision. Arsenal players had been in his face all of the game yet he didn't get the cards out for dissent. We have the best Football League, the best players and the best fans yet we have to put up with officialdom that is amateur to say the least.
We could have, and arguably should have, gotten a winner on the break; we also could have gotten stomped when Arsenal was turning the screw in the second half. They had an awful lot of the ball in our penalty area without doing all that much with it. Looked quite a bit like us in our home matches, actually, though they were operating a bit closer to goal.
I really want Puel to succeed, I think every one of our fans can get behind that. A win is desperately needed though. Against Sparta I don't know what to expect, it could be argued we should be beating them but just because we are from the Premier League doesn't guarantee that right. If we have no wins by end of say the West Ham game, I will say this season is a car crash waiting to happen.
I don't blame puel; we are much weakened from last season thanks to the summer transfer window disaster. Koeman would have struggled too. Hopefully puel is good enough to overcome the problems in the squad else we will be in trouble Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
