As far as send-offs for Premier League football on Amazon is going, I like to think Jeff Bezos was watching that first half and thinking “is this meant to be entertainment?” A frustratingly one-sided, yet largely uneventful first half. Arsenal - somewhat wary of us on the counter - are more than happy to keep the motor ticking in second gear and ease their way to three points. We’ve not been able to even touch the ball in their penalty area. Our gameplan was working up until Havertz scored. Poor defending from both Woolfenden and Greaves in the middle to not cut out that cross and let Havertz get free. Now, we either need to bring an attacking player on to spice things up or just hope to keep the score at 1-0 and hope for some Arsenal complacency. I highly doubt the latter will happen at the Emirates. Either way, we need to take some risks. This is feeling like late-era McCarthy stuff at the moment.
Only real positive is we’re only 1-0 down and - for all the Arsenal domination - they haven’t looked like scoring a second. We’ve got a chance - a real slim chance - of getting something. Compare to Newcastle on the weekend - a far inferior team - and it was game over by this stage.
We can’t go toe to toe with Arsenal, every 1 of their players is better than ours. I thought this would be the approach - slightly surprised to see Hutchinson starting as he is not going to hold the ball up. Cant afford to get hammered today as don’t want the confidence to go completely
Well, we’ve been better for the first ten minutes of this second half. Look a bit more composed on the ball and we’ve actually been able to string together some passes. I know I gave Woolfenden and Greaves stick for the goal, but I think defensively we’ve given ourselves a good account so far.
Yep, think he’s overthinking this game too much. Trying to do too much and over complicating things, possibly because of the Arsenal history.
Cajuste having another good match in the middle. Just looks a different class on the ball compared to our other players. So much composure. Maybe we’ll actually look abroad for some talent in January?
I’d prefer that to the short hospital passes he does to our central midfielder. Small improvements, I’ll take any!
To be fair to Muric, I think he’s been far from the issue tonight … so far. He’s had a solid game really, a few really good saves. The issue has been an inability to really do anything in the final third. As you mentioned earlier, we really need a few more fresh legs on the pitch.
Yeah, he's had a decent game, but we gift possession back too cheaply. Omari wrong decisions, Muric kicking out under no pressure, Delap's needless fouls, they all add up and put us under more pressure. Davis has just had a couple of chances to make something happen and has lost the ball easily without getting a cross in.
Well at least Harry Clarke gets to say he played against his former side at the Emirates. Other than that, feels like a pointless sub.
