Think we saw in Arsenal’s first goal why we’re struggling in this league! Downes under little pressure and with a ball over their right back on decides on tippy tappy with an attempted pass to our left back which is cut out. 3 seconds later the ball is in our net. Whilst I like Downes because he’s been coached to death in keep ball he doesn’t attempt the more adventurous pass which has less risk attached from a defensive perspective.
It must be very difficult for a player who has had keep ball drilled into them to allow their creative side to come to the fore?!

9

Perfect away performance until that Downes pass. When we scored I thought that as long as we didn't hand them a quick equalizer we might be in for an incredible point (that game was never going to have Arsenal 0 at the start of the result) but instead...

The Russell curse is that this keeps happening and will keep happening. You don't sensational shock wins at places like Arsenal with tippy-tappy. If the owners are considering sacking him they should grasp the nettle and do it now. We'll be done by November if not.

Russ said at the end that our season will not be defined by how we do at Arsenal. Great quote from the football manager's book of cliches and truisms but results against which opponents does he think our season WILL be defined by - Forest, Brentford, Ipswich, Bournemouth, or maybe Leicester????

5

This performance gives us just a glimmer of hope for the rest of the season
Tall Paul looked keen so who knows but just playing him gives the opposition something to worry about and if he should score a couple his price tag goes up
The ref was a definite homer Three yellows for nothing,pulls us back when we take a quick free kick so where is the consistency.

4

Under RH we were the pioneers of the high pressing game. The only trouble is we could only ever keep it up for about 70 minutes so more often than not we gave goals away at the end.

Now others teams have perfected the pressing game and we have moved onto this possession game and playing out from the back to a ridiculous extent.

We take an age to get the ball forward whereas teams like Brentford get the ball forward as quick as possible and regularly score in the first few minutes of the match.

The really worrying thing is that RM has no awareness of the issue, instead blaming defeats on lack of attitude or celebrating 3-1 defeats because the attitude was better.

I really love his positiveness and he seems like a good man but unfortunately I don't think we can make any progress while he is in charge.

10

Second Arsenal Goal WAS offside. 23 was incorrectly judged to have not interfered with play , Bournemouth goal was chalked off in the same situation. We need consistency, saints need a but of luck.

1