Tomo

Really need to avoid letting Arsenal shithouse us again in the final.

He was stupid for giving away the pen but the rest of the critisism is wildly over the top, as usual.

God even when we get into a final an scapegoat from the academy is needed, Jesus!

Today yes, in general no. They've been saved by their keepers a lot under Arteta.

I wouldn't go that far, he's showing promise but has cost Arsenal a fair few points by being too negative at times. He reminds me a bit like Benitez actually, when he gets his starting tactics correct he can be hard to beat but when he doesn't they almost always get outplayed and have to hope they get the rub of the green.

Merely getting to the final isn't enough for Europe anymore. Villa (2015), Palace (2016) and Watford (last year) didn't get in.

Arsenal will be a really awkward final, they'll sit deep and try and shithouse it. They've shithoused a lot of undeserved results under Emery (last season) and now Arteta, add that to our tendancy to screw up games we dominate and that makes me very nervous. Although you would think/hope they've used up all their luck against us for the next decade after what happened at Stamford Bridge.

Records are their to be broken. The same argument was made 2 years ago regarding Jose's record in finals.

Because we're an inconsistent team, which is hardly an outrage given we have not a single world class player at the peak of his powers and training a new style of football. When you're a talented but inconsistent team then you're capable of competing with even the best sides and losing to some shit in the process. We're at a similar stage of development now as we were in 12/13 and remember how erratic that team was? Beaten at home to QPR and Swansea but also comprehensively outplayed the Champions in their own back yard twice.

Because WBA can't now climb above them!

If you have the BT app tune into "Ziyech:Wizard of AMS". Gives you a great insight into the man aswell as the player. He goes over his personal feelings when Nouri collapsed (he was right next to him when it happened) and how it affected his season, how he reacted to THAT Spurs game and how it took a while to win the love/trust of the Ajax faithful, amoung other things. Really really good watch! EDIT: to make it even easier I've found it on YouTube.

We won't be winning the title next season anyway, atleast one of Liverpool or City will hit 90 plus points and it will be too big an ask for us next season to do the same. We will likely still have holes in the team and even if we somehow fix them all we'd have 6/7 new players in the lineup which will mean they will need time to gel, either scenario will handicap us as far as a title challenge if concerned. So if loading up on attackers is the first port of call them so be it.

Talk about going for the sensational headline. Let's take Pulisic for example, he's only just picked up his first assist since the restart but anyone who's anyone knows he has in the context of play had a lot more. Mount made a brilliant run past the Villa defense on the opening day back and was denied an assist because no one gambled. Watford and Spurs goals (Giroud and Alonso respectively) came about due to Mount's quick thinking to open up avenue's, he didn't technically get the assist but without his input we don't create the chance on either occasion let alone score. Mount also set up a goal for Nugent last season against Millwall but because he dummied it and didn't touch it it didn't go on record as his assist. The other extreme would be whoever made the backwards pass to Charlie Adam before he booted it in at the half way line at our place would technically have an assist on record, it wouldn't really be a proper assist though. Until the term assist gets redefined it's good for fantasy football league's but not much else, unless a player is assisting at an obscene rate like KDB I take next to no notice of it. Key passes and key dribbles are a much bigger sign of creativity. I'm not saying Mount's the most creative player to ever exist, but this "no assist from open play" thing is about as crap and misleading as the no assists by Jorginho last season or Hazard only getting something like 4/5 the season before that (that latter one alone should have triggered a reassesment on what an assist is).

Assist's are subjective, you can play the best through ball in football history yet you're still relying on someone else to do his job for it to be put on the stats.

They're about a year and a bit away from our home record.

Arsenal have shithoused some ridiculous results this season and are still mid table!

Problem is when our XGA rate is up there with Liverpool and the keepers save% is the worst in PL history out of first choice keepers that strongly suggests it's more a keeper issue than defense (not atall saying the latter is blameless). For example yesterday we were nervous late in the game despite the fact Norwich created nothing/we kept them completely at bay because we knew any sort of clean strike could end up as a goal. How many times this season has our opponents only real efforts lead to goals? We need new defenders to catch up with the elite but a new keeper has to be first port of call to make the next step (comfortable top 4, not frittering away points in games we're comfortable in and somewhat more competitive in the CL). We may not be able to sell him this summer but he's still highly thought off in Spain so we'll be able to find a loan home for him, if there's a will there's a way, even United found somewhere for Alexis.

Lets put this another way, we lose 1-0 to Liverpool next week, create absolutely nothing and Kepa/the bar/Liverpool's wastefulness is the only reason it wasn't more, would you be praising us for making it difficult for them? I think we both know the answer to that.

Shows how narrow the small margins are in football, Krul doesn't show up last night and we're raving over a "fantastic response to Sheffield" instead of an "unconvincing win". Like when a team gets a 'battling draw' down to opposition's wastefulness they get praised for their bravery and commitment, few weeks later they put a similar type of performance in only this time the opposition have their shooting boots on they're being slated for being cowardly and gutless even though the two performances in terms of their output were pretty much the same.

It is use if he recieves the ball from a player under pressure and in turn finds a player who isn't. Sideways and backwards is a much preferable alternative to losing possession which gets lost with this team at times.

He dropped between the two CB's today whenever they found they're passing options cut off which is one of the reasons i'm pro regista and anti "sitting DM". It may seem simple but without him doing that the CB boots it to nowhere or worse overcomplicates things and gives a dangerous turnover and we miss that sort of straight forward recycling of possession with Kante playing there.

For United do what Conte did against Spurs in 2017 when he put Hazard and Costa on the bench and unleashed them late on. Replace Hazard and Costa for Pulisic and Willian.

Today shown exactly why we're buying a lot of attackers before we "fix our defense". I wouldn't have blamed the defense if this ended 1-1 even if one of them made an absolute howler, it would have been all on the attack. Unless a bonafide WC safe bet CB option comes along then it can wait. Get a proper LB, competent keeper, play Zouma and Rudiger together and stick with them and i don't think things will look half as bad as they are currently, and that's before we mention Ziyech, Werner and (hopefully) Havertz will kill games like tonight and Arsenal at home off before the defense have a chance to self combust.

Why aren't we shifting Callum to the right hand side with Reece on?

Not been vintage but speaking purely for tonight we've created more than enough and controlled most of the game, reason it's come to this is because of the lack of quality in crucial moments.