saintwbu

His simple work for the first goal was such an important difference from what we often see from PEH. It was an almost identical situation to what PEH found himself in before the first Arsenal goal the other day. Both came in and received the ball with back to opposition goal and space behind them. One had no idea what was behind him and bounced it back towards his own goal immediately, one turned onto the front foot and played forward. One ended with us 1-0 down and one ended with us 1-0 up! I thought Smallbone was great against Villa at home, and good today, really like the look of him.

I don't think we'll miss him at all, personally. JWP does all the majority of the combative work in this team, and he does it bloody well. I like a kid coming through the ranks anyway, but I really like the look of Smallbone from what i've seen - calm, composed, always looking forward and lovely passer of the ball. At home, I think we'd be far better with one ball winner, one player (JWP/Smallbone combo). If away from home we're still keen to go with two ball winners then JWP/Romeu as a combo is just fine imo.

Smallbone for that goal is almost identical to Hojbjerg before Arsenal’s first goal the other day. The difference? Smallbone was aware of what’s behind him, and his instinct was to turn into attack. Hojbjerg had no clue what was around him, bounced it right back first time, forcing us to go backwards and eventual cock up and concede.

Hojbjerg quality of pass wasn’t the issue for the first goal - his decision to pass it immediately back towards our goal (twice) was. How can we play with a CM who has absolutely no awareness of what’s around him whatsoever, and does not possess the ability to turn on the ball. Twice he was given the ball and with no shoulder check he bounced it straight back to our goal - the first one was unforgivable, he had all the time in the world and a turn would’ve put us on the front foot and acres of space. Absolutely pathetic, drags our team down and is hugely culpable for our poor home form - he does not suit a possession game one bit. Good riddance.

Fuck Hojbjerg off as soon as possible, useless

Why did Hojbjerg try to play those two backward passes without ever looking behind him? he’d have realised he had tonnes of space to turn and go forwards

Hojbjerg away from home (like Friday night) is fairly effective. That’s because we don’t have the ball often, his job is win it high up the pitch and get it to one of our players who can use the ball. Any time on the ball or responsibility and he is absolutely hopeless, hence why he’s dreadful at home, because teams put the onus on us to play and you expect your CM’s to be the main source of creativity but he can’t do it. Great example against Norwich of him having a simple curved pass around the CB’s to Ings and we’d have been in, somehow he went from facing goal to turning to directly face the dugouts, before playing a simple pass down the line. I also really don’t buy the ‘he gives it everything when he’s on the pitch’. He covers a decent amount of ground, but there’s been tonnes of times i’ve watched him let players run past him, and not tracked runners who have gone onto score. His fist pumps into the air appease a section of the crowd, and people love his interviews, but he’s an extremely average footballer and I must say I find his gesticulating to the crowd quite irritating when i’ve just watched him pass to the opposition for the fifth time in 10 minutes.

Still not seen a performance in the flesh worse than Hojbjerg at home to Inter a couple of season back, it was astonishing. People think he’s competent so he wins it for me!

Hojbjerg is comical

Smallbone looking quite tidy, would be interesting to have him in the middle alongside JWP. Armstrong still looks a bit rattled by that early challenge, doesn’t look quite right.

Gonna be really tough today, gonna have to remain patient and not lose our heads... Not the game, Tony Gayle is on co-comms.

To contribute to an utterly pointless debate; Pope, Mee, Tarkowski, McNeil, Cork, Barnes, Wood, J-Rod all get in our match day squad and most would start. IMO.

I’m not sure fitness was as big an issue as some are suggesting. I think them equalising so soon just knocked the stuffing out of us. We were the better team by a mile until the second we scored to go ahead. Then we stepped back and they scored and our heads were gone then imo, we knew we weren’t going to win from that point. I also think it’s annoying that Romeu is the only player we have who knows how to take one for the team to break an attack, meaning he couldn’t do it again as Gedson broke to set up the penalty and no one else ever does it. But, god did we play some great football last night, never enjoyed losing a game so much, we were ****ing superb and that second goal was as good as i’ve ever seen live it was exceptional. I love this bloody team.

Yeah was a great experience, I particularly enjoyed seeing people still entering the ground on 35 minutes because of their ‘no bag’ policy and the single bag drop off point, which then resulted in a queue of hundreds of people an hour after the final whistle. Also was a big fan of the random metal barriers dotted across the exit walkway from the away end which is great for 5900 people to get pushed up against and have to climb under as they leave. Aesthetically amazing, logistically work to be done.

Anyone know why that bloke in the bottom tier was dragged out? Was all getting very messy, lots of people filming.

Hoping JWP is a bad flesh wound, rumours of players shouting you could see bone...

Shame all these links (Cedric, Vestegaard, Hoj) are not popping up in the summer as they’d be great business for the club, but in this window it’d not be ideal to lose all 3.

I think he’s talking about Valery, and I presume you are talking about Cédric?

It’s a good thing that playing a lot for his country means he’s been good for us, thank god for that! If you think he’s been good in the last 4 seasons then i think we need to send help. I’m grateful for his service, but he’s been nothing more than mediocre at best.

He’s been ****e let’s be honest, Ralph clearly doesn’t rate him particularly highly considering how often he’s been dropped or shifted to LB. Even Koeman dropped him for Cuco plenty of times. His crossing is the worst i’ve ever seen in a top level full back. He’s been good the last few games, let’s not let it cloud our judgement.

Are expecting anymore tickets to be released? i’m eligible at .3pm but hardly anything left...

I find it hard to believe anyone would doubt his skill and ability, he's got bags of it. He's pocketed Pogba every time he's faced him, and only one of them looked like a £90mil midfielder and he wasn't wearing a United shirt. He's had some absolutely superb games where he's looked a class above us. But clearly, mentality and desire is a big issue and as a result it doesn't look like we'll ever get anything more out of him. Real shame, but don't think we could've done much more.

No he didn’t, he was fouled it was an absolutely blatant foul from that cheating **** Dele Alli, ignored like all Spurs fouls are.

Sorry? The ref’s in this country are dreadful, an experienced ‘top’ referee was in the VAR box and didn’t intervene a complete blatant foul or complete blatant foul. Don’t blame VAR. The refs in this country are the reason VAR is here at all. It didn’t work for us today but thank god it is otherwise we’d be heading down.

Playing RB is a hell of a different game to playing CB, just ask Yoshida. Danso isn’t going to stay here after his loan I think it’s safe to say, but he’s been given absolutely no chance imo. He must be awful in training, and got to trust Ralph, but I do feel for him.