McCreadie

New GK. New RB. New CB. New CM. New AM. New ST. We need SIX first 11 players. That's about £400m in today's money. And we are going to find it impossible to attract any sort of quality to play in this team.

Kepa finished. Confidence in tatters. Loan him out.

****ing terrible. Evey bit as bad as the countless defeats this season. The beginning middle of the end. Sorry Frank, you need to do a lot better than this.

That is a total disgrace. Hang your heads in shame. If you cannot hang on for 4 minutes against 10 men, there is no hope. Pathetic.

Not how I remember it at all. He was in and out a lot, but out because we were losing with him, and in because we were losing without him. Limited as a defender, but 100% committed and a leader because of that. Occasionally calamitious. Very Big. Beard.

No it doesnt, but, to be fair, that is gerrymandering the figures to some degree. And yes, ideally he would be getting 25PL starts, but for Sarri to have trusted him enough to put him on the pitch 40 times is clear progress imo. That's not *once or twice, see what he can do and then bench him*. It's more *this is a player who can help us*. Has done well for England too.

We have 5 very good midfield players: Kante, Kova, Jorginho, Mount, RLC (lets agree to differ for now), with Jorginho having his defined role in front of the defence and the other 4 competing for 2 places. I'm still thinking that, of those 4, RLC is the more likely to weigh in with the most goals, which is one thing we have desperately missed since. Looking at the stats, he has exactly the same goal return per game for us as Mount (one in 6). As a comparison, Barkley has one in 9, Kante has one in 14, Kova has one in 40... Yes I thought I was agreeing too, but actually I think he is a more complete player than CHO right now. And so he should be. Injury, trophy-focussed managers (not complaining btw), poor loan strategy by the club, late developer. All of these have played a part. His age doesnt really matter, it's only whether he actually gets there or not. I think he has struggled with confidence in the past, but that seemed much better last year and that is very different to attitude. I saw enough progress in his game last year to believe he can still be an important part of this team. Hopefully Frank and Jody can be as good for him as they have been with Mount. He made 40 appearances last season. 25 for Palace the season before. 17 in Conte's first season. 4 in JM's last. Not really sure what that proves, but it certainly appears that he is getting better as he is playing more, albeit slowly.

That doesn't really have anything to do with his attitude though, does it? I see someone who actually has a good attitude, who struggled, but has now succeeded, to make the transition to men's football due to lack of playing time, confusion over his best role and injury. Hindsight is easy - we should have sent him out on loan a lot earlier, but my opinion is that the club wanted to get one through the system without really doing that. His performances and confidence before the injury were of a high level and he was still improving in his understanding of the game and how he fits into it. Yes, he is behind the curve age-wise, but that is of very little consequence in real terms. He is very good technically and physically strong and just needs a run of 20 games to be a real asset. From the interview last week, Frank obviously thinks he should have played more and recognises his qualities.

When you put it like that, it does look like a major shift in the right direction. Let's hope it continues that way. Less players, more quality and potential.

Please no more old strikers.

We sure do. Feels like every other game at the moment.

Bad timing for this game. I fully expect Arsenal to miraculously grow a backbone and a pair of testicles overnight.

Let’s just agree to disagree

No. He was overrated by some last year, but that has no bearing on my opinion of his performances this season, which have been poor. Southampton are barely Europa level.

Sorry to say it, but that feels like the beginning of the end. Never looked anywhere near scoring. The players are not getting the message about effort and commitment against bottom half teams and that rests with Frank. Rubbish.