He's not the only one, we've lacked anyone shooting accurately from long range for years. All our lads seem to go for maximum power and they more then often balloon way over the bar. With last nights conditions long range shots should have been aimed to bounce about 3-4 yards in front of the gk - obviously don't aim at him, but make it difficult and look to profit from any mistake - a good striker will nearly always be following those shots in quicker than a central defender.

Interesting to hear Potter say that was about as good as he's had Brighton play. On that sort of performance I think only Chelsea, City and Liverpool would beat them.

Of course there is the danger of over egging how good the opposition were to make ourselves feel better about our own performance but I do think it will be seen as a good point with more time.

I find the two early international breaks so infuriating at the start of each season. 3 games then a break, 3 more and another break. We don't play now for 15 days.

I undertand qualifiers for international cups. The friendlies are what is annoying.

Palace taking a point off Leicester. Happy for Vieira. I assume the fans are happy about him so far. May have to go see one of their forums and gauge the prevailing sentiment.

Brentford is a problem.

Let's go City. Even if I have to sing Blue Moon, beat 'pool.

High quality Liverpool v City game. Attacking wise the two best teams in the league. And probably only Chelsea come close defensively.
Pep is going to be absolutely fuming because the ref totally bottled sending off Milner for a clear as you like 2nd yellow card. Then Salah put Liverpool 2-1 up moments later.
We have to have refs brave enough to make the right decisions even in high stakes games against top teams at home.

Quote from a Telegraph article today -
It's maybe the first time I've seen media acknowledgement that transfers weren't controlled by the manager from late Wenger onwards.

https://twitter.com/distancecovered/sta ... 99520?s=21

Interesting to hear Klopp talking about what City want to do, why Liverpool didn’t stop them well enough and the reasons for that. ‘The message was play the extra pass’

The first question relates to the reliability of the report. Sure, I associate the traditional broadsheets including the Telegraph, Times, Guardian and Independent as generally more reliable than what has been called the gutter press like the Sun, Mirror or Star. But that isn’t the same as saying everything it writes is completely accurate.

The main executives around in Wenger’s time were Dein, a close friend that got him the job who I’m sure would have discussed things like transfers deeply. But I certainly believe Wenger had the final say in what players were signed. Edelman followed Dein and I don’t think he would have been able to take control of Arsenal’s transfer policy from Wenger. Then Gazidis, who I came across numerous times. Ivan is the perfect representation of ‘all words no action’. He could talk the hind legs of a donkey without actually saying anything. I think Gazidis was working to get rid of Wenger. Not always, but certainly for a time, and he eventually succeeded. Ironic as that’s the thing he didn’t talk about.

However, Wenger was a textbook megalomaniac. A control freak. Power mad. I am totally convinced that the day he stopped having overall control of which players were signed, within Kroenke’s financial restrictions at the time, was the day following his departure. Sanllehi joined shortly before Wenger’s leaving, but he was Gazidis’ appointment and was brought in because Ivan knew he was finally winning the battle to get rid of Wenger.

I honestly don’t think we bought a single player during Wenger’s tenure that he didn’t want signed. Aubameyang was the last player bought during Wenger’s tenure and I reckon Wenger approved of his recruitment. Sure, ideally he would have preferred Messi to Nasri. But I genuinely believe Wenger had the final approval as to who was brought in between realistic targets. A situation similar to Emery wanting Zaha but Sanllehi signing Pépé wouldn’t have happened under Wenger. I’m convinced of that.

I’m with Bernard on this one.

Still don't understand how, with a week to prepare for a game, you can play with the level of intensity we did on Saturday.

The players should be right at it from minute one, busting a gut to put in a performance.

The other issue we have is that without europa league football we have no outlet for the fringe players to get playing time and develop their game. Martinelli, love him or hate him, is unlikely to develop his game further sat on the bench not even getting a sniff of first team action. He might as well be on loan. Ditto for Nketiah and Balogun. No point giving them five minutes at the end of a game either.

It's obviously not easy for Arteta with just one game a week and the urge to pick the same starting eleven week-in week-out but at some point he has to involve some of the younger fringe players or else we are left with disillusioned players whose game has regressed.

The league cup is ideally a cup we can play fringe players but that would also depend on the level of opposition. Putting them out against the Wimbledons of the compeition is fairly safe but not against a good, EPL side.

I was wondering the same thing. It's Brighton. They are good but we aspire to be a top team and this where every player should have rearing to go. I can fathom why so many players were lackadaisical.

Interesting that Buendia hasn't started the last 4 for Villa. It's only 7 games in but he's not yet what you'd expect for £35m.

I think we dodged a bullet with both Buendia, and for that matter Maddison who you didn’t mention. The latter was twice the price. I think the trouble with many fancy Dan creative midfielders is that too many games drift by them. A bit like it did with Ødegaard yesterday, although he was hardly alone there (including non-creative players). Smith Rowe being the obvious exception, who is creative. But I’d still rather have Ødegaard than Buendia and Maddison any day of the week.

Doesn’t apply with everyone. Grealish over the last couple or so seasons for example. But that’s why he cost City £100m.

Agreed on Maddison and the general point about games sometimes drifting past creative mids. The very best influence all the time. Conversations like this have me reminiscing about Cazorla in deep midfield. I also thought someone like Bernardo Silva is very good at this. plays centrally and is always highly involved

One thing that struck me yesterday in the Liverpool v City game was the amount of times the attacking player received the ball on the half turn and immediately carried the ball forward with purpose. They might not have often beaten a defender on the dribble but they move defences and commit defenders. Of course we're talking about the two best attacking teams in the country but it is evident how effective this is compared to players who a) don't turn as quickly when they receive the ball, b) first thought appears to be to get the ball out of their feet and pass it on and c) don't have as great an appreciation of space.

I don't know if its part of his prepatory process but part of his job if not his and the team captain is to let new players know what may be expected against an opponent. It's especially important in the EPL when you have foreign players coming into this club. 'This club kicks and fouls a lot', 'This club hoofs it up the pitch', etc. Brighton's position in the table and why they are there didn't seem to be communicated. They should have been told if they weren't that they'd need to come out strong (which should be all games) against them.

I didn't see much if any evidence of that.

Just shows Chelsea don’t get everything right when selling younger players. Chelsea sold De Bruyne to Wolfsburg for £18m and Salah to Roma for £15m. Just think what they’re worth now.

Salah is a bit of a strange one. He was good in Italy but not the spectacular player he has turned into. He was 25 when Liverpool signed him and almost immediately transformed into one of the best attackers in world football. He is only a year younger than Hazard.

And they sold Lukaku around the same time before eventually buying him back this summer for 3 times what they sold him for. I think I’m right in saying Mourinho was the manager who sold all 3!

It hasn’t all gone bad for them as Conte won the title, Sarri won the Europa and now Tuchel has won the Champions League. Chelsea’s managerial impatience has never stopped them consistently winning things when conventional wisdom says it should

https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles ... os-4388381

I've said this before, but who the *%^@ negotiated this deal and what were they thinking?

3m euros for a 23 year old greek international with a decent record in Bundesliga football.

You couldn't buy an English League Two player for that.

The kid is looking decent again this year for Stuttgart. They must be wondering what we were smoking when we agreed this deal.

Agreed, 3m is such a pointless amount that you need to weigh up the risk of not including the obligation and him flopping and potentially leaving for zero - so we lose £3m, or him playing well and more teams wanting him after having a season of fans back in stadiums to fill the coffers and potentially getting £10m+ for him. For £3m it is worth the risk to not include the clause.

Yes we should have kept Mavropanos and stuck him in the reserves for another year whilst paying his salary. This would have helped his value.

Obviously because he’s managed to score againest Hoffenheim it points to a massive mistake right

You should probably read the posts again.

Top Gun here using Ash’s computer. Nah, read em the first time thanks I’m right and everyone else is is a *%^@. What do people want?? The club held up to reasonable scrutiny?? Muppets.

On here it was said multiple times, I won’t show you where - find the posts, there all their - that Arteta should be launched out of a cannon unless we score 5 every game, Aubanmeyang should be hung drawn and quartered and if we don’t win the league the stadium should be set alight on bonfire night. Our fans are *%^@.

Pretty much spot on.

apart from the Aubameyang bit

Just hung and drawn?

Maybe Aubameyang 'is' hung?

Obviously Cleese, Connolly and others are revered as the greatest and better, but for me, Benny Hill is the greatest ever.

I'm going to do my version of visiting Jim Morrison's grave for his grave site.

I think us Americans appreciated him a bit more than you lot.

Found it all a bit rapey personally. Not sure you could get away with that these days and rightly so.

I’ll certainly take Cleese and absolutely Connolly instead thanks

Linked with Ollie Watkins and Calvert-Lewin for our new striker. Didn’t realise Watkins is a boyhood Arsenal fan, he’s quoted in 2020 as saying ‘the dream is to play for Arsenal’

Yeah it came out that Watkins was an Arsenal fan last season. Did he score against us? If so it might have been after that game.

Mrs. Slocombe did alright.

https://youtu.be/JL9KqigbdJw

I like Calvert-Lewin. Seen Watkins. I watch Everton more than I do Villa. That said, unlike most fans I actually like Lacazette. I thought he was a bit too small to play in the EPL but I like his work rate and he can score different types of goals. A shame it doesn't seem to be working out. He and Aubameyang are good friends, but never really seen how both could play together. k

Saliba may return next season.

https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles ... an-4388582

He scored hole and away against us I think. I like him as a player. Decent pace and makes those classic unselfish and selfish striker runs. Calvert-Lewin is a more traditional target man. I’d be undecided right now which one id prefer if they were the same price (which would be very expensive)

Liverpool asked watford if they minded pushing their next game to an evening kick off rather than the early kick off so Liverpool can have their Brazilian trio of Alison, Fabinho and Firminho available after international duty……unsurprisingly Watford declined! I suppose if you don’t ask you don’t get but why on earth would Watford consider that request?