Will Pep get stick for suggesting City were down to 13 players, not too many actually injured for them today. Arteta took loads of crap despite barely uttering a word about injuries

City are 1-0 down. I still expect them to come back and win, and whilst its easy to say City always start slow and power home when they can sniff the line I still don't think they are as good as last year - perhaps we're not either! I'm not certain it will need over 90 points for the title this year

Liverpool 0-1 Brighton

There are so many teams in the league who can absolutely give the very best teams a helluva game - particularly at home. Obviously the big 6, but Villa, newcastle, Brighton, Forest, Bournemouth, brentford - they're all dangerous. The thing that will push the best to the top is the consistency. Those teams are capable of taking points off Arsenal, City, Liverpool - but they are equally able to draw with a bottom 3 team - where the big teams are usually much more ruthless

Very disappointing. We owed them one after last year. We don't look close to being champions, and I had such high hopes for this season.

Thing is, when Saka doesn't do something special we have few others who can so something spectacular individually.

When the team isn't clicking as a unit you need players who can grab the game by the scruff of the neck with some individual brilliance.

Which is what City and Liverpool have had over the last 6-7 years. In some ways it’s a wonder we’ve pushed City so hard the last two years without those decisive moment difference makers

The stats confirm what we watched

Brighton dominating Liverpool, should be leading by more than 1-0.
Liverpool have played just 4 good sides in the league this season, Arsenal, Chelsea, Forest and now Brighton and they struggled to dominate the game against any of them.
They have big moment difference makers but I just don’t see them as a 85+ points team this season. Are we?

Second half passing with the Ødegaard circle of influence added by me!

Fascinating league right now.
Bournemouth 2-0 Man City
Liverpool 0-1 Brighton

Look at next weeks fixtures as well
Chelsea v Arsenal
Brighton v City
Liverpool v Villa

The top of the table could get really bunched up

Don't want to jinx it ... but City now 2-0 and haven't managed a shot on target yet.

Bournemouth not having much of the ball, but when they get a chance to break, they do it with real commitment and verve.

Fingers crossed!

I think there is something worth bearing in mind on the fixtures
From next week we’ll have played, City, Chelsea, Newcastle, Spurs and Villa all away from home. That’s 5 of the 6 hardest in the league

City have had away at Chelsea and Newcastle only
Liverpool have only had Arsenal away

Keep the faith

Man City when losing have now had 24 mins of added time. In four games. It’s 7 mins above the PL average.

How do people come up with these stats so quickly!

I know it’s Inter Milan next and I could easily see us losing that with a passive approach but for Chelsea we have to shake off the funk and attack them high and let it be a game of transitions if need be, be brave enough to be potentially exposed at the back to go on the attack and pinch it high. Chelsea’s weakness by a long way is their defence and a stubborn refusal to move away from playing it out from the back - which they aren’t good at.

Hopefully we can get White back in defence and Partey back in midfield. Partey/Rice/Nwaneri midfield

Pep citing an inability to handle Bournemouth’s intensity as the main reason they lost. I have t watched the game but it’s 100% the reason why big teams often lose away from home to smaller teams. I’ve certainly seen us lose that way and today could have been an example of that.

I’m yet to see a team in the Premier League who play worse when they ramp up the intensity in their play

I saw some analysis of Man City’s slow starts to games, something like 5 first goals conceded in the opening 15 minutes this season. Some speculation that the older age of City’s squad and players is contributing, I’m not sure that’s the reason but there is definitely something there with the age of their squad and some very difficult to replace players, 12 of their 22 man first team squad is 29 or older

After our next two games in the league we’ll have played the entire top half of the league after just 12 games, but only 3 of the bottom 10.

Not excusing some of the performances but adding some context

I agree. We are hoping that Ødegaard can spark the team back into life again but I wonder if there’s an understandable drop in belief after putting in an incredible effort last season yet still being runners up. At the very least I was hoping that Arteta’s summer transfers while not very attacking or exciting would at least have consolidated the strong defensively excellent team he’s built. Hopefully this is just a wobble and the team will find its mojo again as the season unfolds. It does put a lot of expectation on Ødegaard though…

Some stability in team selection will help. The defence has been quite chop and change.
Having only Ødegaard as a genuine technical creative player in the centre of the pitch is a mistake….and for my money selling Emile Smith Rowe and Vieira doesn’t really impact that much.
The lack of creativity in central areas exacerbates the lack of creativity from full back.
But, plenty of time to go and a run of 8-10 wins on the bounce which were more than capable of will have us back top I think

We haven't played Chelsea yet, so we can't include it. You have omitted Man Utd from the above list, and while it is great fun to laugh at Man Utd at the moment, I'd much rather go to Villa Park than Old Trafford, given our record there. Liverpool have won 8 out of 10 games. We have won 5. That's not title challenging form in any season. Man City losing today is a great break because I couldn't see us pulling back 8 points on them.

With the right setup / frame of mind we shouldn't need someone to do something spectacular ..... if we sped up the delivery Joe Average would score .

The Newcastle goal wasn't spectacular they won the ball and went at us with PACE ; Gordon had our back four back pedalling ; Charge of the Light Brigade in reverse ; put in a nice cross and BINGO they score .

Take time out to picture what we would have done in similar circumstances

We would have won the ball . Gabriel who would have passed it to Saliba , who would have passed it back to Gabriel .
out to Partey , back to Saliba ; bring Raya in

I expected ; our astute manager would have seen EXACTLY what we all saw in the first half [ did we have a shot on target ?]

So half time ... after curry / cayenne pepper enemas all round we'd come out and really have a go .

But No , no , no exactly the same simpering drippy dick approach as served up in the first half .

Even the substitutions ? .. why not go for gold ... ATTACK ? These goddamn each way bets Nwaneri and ZINCHENKO Jesus and WHITE .

Saka didn't even try to beat his man on the outside for much of the time we were behind, after it looked like he had his number early on. He just kept playing that safe ball inside. This was pointless because we had no penetration through the middle or right side (only Rice made any penetrative runs on that side).

When Saka did try going on the outside near the end, they struggled to cope with it and one of his crosses almost led to Rice scoring. What was going on? Did this coincide with White coming on, or did we just decide we ought to get our finger out?

Fair points, but it does feel like we aren't quite out of it yet, with City a bit out of sorts, Liverpool a bit of an unknown, and (hopefully) our injured players coming back. However, we can't afford too many more pallid performances like yesterdays', for sure.

Newcastle did a genuine double or triple mark on Saka.
What we needed more of was something like Liverpool’s winning goal, watch that goal, Liverpool win the ball near their own box and Jones immediately drives forward and takes 3 Brighton defenders out of the play by simply moving forward quickly with the ball, 2 quick forward passes and Salah is in a proper 1v1 and not by the touchline, the shot and goal was inevitable after the build up, and Liverpool didn’t overwhelm Brighton with numbers it was just 3-4 attackers they just played it vertically and quickly and had someone willing to drive forward with the ball to commit defenders and either pull them out of shape or not allow them to set in a defensive shape

I included Chelsea because the point stands from next week as neither City or Liverpool have a big 8 away game next week.
Man U will be tougher now because of the new manager but they aren’t as good as Villa the last 18 months shows that.
We need to pull our finger out for sure but we have to acknowledge the tough fixture list.
Both Liverpool and City can afford to have or carry quite a few poor performances from players as they have players who pull the rabbit out of the hat for them, we still don’t have that. If we win it’s usually because the entire team has played well.

I am a little confused by the Merino signing. He looks like a duplicate of Xhaka, technically very good but not quick around the pitch and gets exposed for his lack of pace, particularly in transitions.

We had exactly the same issues with Xhaka and Arteta ended up moving him to left 8 where his lack of pace was less impactful and his technical excellence could still be a useful tool.

But this does beg the question, i.e. that we were reluctant to run at them. When Saka did try to go outside, he was effective, dragging his markers out wide and making holes and when Rice did drive forwards, the alarm bell were jangling. But we hardly ever tried this. Most of the attacking impetus was coming from Trossard, who was at least trying the right sort of thing but his passing radar was just completely out of order, and Martinelli, who was just about completely nullified by Livramento.

I also think, unusually, that Kiwi has a point. Playing around with it at the back, far from drawing them in, was giving them time to get themselves set defensively.

I think we were all a little fearful at our lack of attacking options at the start of the season.

Relying on Saka for individual moments of brilliance is a dangerous tactic. Once again yesterday he was our only real threat and despite being doubled up on he still created moments of magic but we need others to provide some threat and end product.

Liverpool rely on Salah but he is a world class finisher who nets 30 goals a season and doesn't need 5 big chances to score 1 like our forwards.

The current version of Martinelli is not PL winning standard although I do have some sympathy because he whips in some dangerous crosses with no one getting in the box and probably deserves a better assists record.

Clearly, Arteta is not overly enthused with Sterling because even when desperately needing a goal he didn't put him on.

Jesus is a wonderfully gifted footballer but where is the end product.

Kai Havertz has done really well since joining but I still don't think he's the no.9 profile we need.

I look at Gyokeres in Portugal and he's a right menace who can score all sorts of goals and provide all sorts of assists and whose ball striking is incredible. I am not saying he would be a surefire success in England because most teams in the Portuguse league are probably Championship standard but that profile of player would elevate us to another level I think.

We don't have a striker who you can play the ball over the top to or down the sides of the CBs to and that limits our attacking options.

Gabriel does my head in at times. He gets the ball and instead of opening up his body and playing a quick ball out to the LB or LW he turns back inside and gives the ball to Saliba.

If I was Arteta I would be working on that with the CBs in training. Open your body up and play the ball more quickly. Deny the opposition time to reset.

I don’t think it takes 90 points to win the league this season but if we want to hit 90 points we can only drop another 12 points this season

Yeah still hacked off 24 hours on.

As I’ve been saying recently Arteta needs to take the domestic cups very seriously. At the end of the season the “where’s your trophy” crowd will be Out in force. He’s going to start coming under pressure.

For me the squad is top heavy. Feels like it’s a bunch of defenders and 6s. Jorginho, merino, partey, rice. I’d have played kiwior left back, Timber right and kept Partey in midfield. Kiwior has done very well recently when called upon.

Merino I don’t really get yet, he seems a very bog standard midfielder for the premier league like Ward Prowse or someone. It’s like we had to sign a player who resembled Granit Xhaka the most so opted for him. I feel a midfielder with a different profile should have been pursued.

The side yesterday reminded me a bit of some of the George Graham teams. Strong defence and try and nick a set piece.

Yeah, it’s a top 4 finish and hopefully a couple of trips to Wembley best case

Surely he’s a better option wide left than playing Jesus there like we did yesterday when he came on. Right now it looks an odd bit of business if you can’t trust him in the premier league.

The only positive from these fixtures. No undefeated season for any team this season.

That makes me wonder what has happened to American Gooner. He'd be very pleased with this. I hope he is ok.

https://x.com/everypremier/status/18530 ... -j6VVZXEoA

I don’t have the video but these stills show enough, how can a professional ref not yellow card this kind of tackle…? But prioritise time wasting and delaying the restart.

I just remembered Jorginho leaving one on Guimaraes as soon as he came on, bit of retribution for the ridiculous assaults he put in on Jorginho last year

I don't think we are out if it either because City unexpectedly lost. We have a tiny margin for error now.

But we haven't played Chelsea yet. It only benefits us if we beat them. If not we could be 10 points behind Liverpool and 8 behind City.

I also don't agree that Liverpool can cope better with under par performances due to having more match winners. They have Salah. We have Saka. Are Gakpo, Nunez and Jota more likely to produce moments of brilliance than Martinelli, Jesus or Trossard? Overall, I think we have better players.

Something has changed in our approach this season. The balance has shifted more towards defensive security over attacking. We could definitely play with more verve and freedom when attacking and I hope we get it right soon.