Jay007

A bit out of the blue this to say the least. I didn't expect to see us doing any business, even with Eriksen's injury, but I think we do need another midfielder now that he's out. Despite his (decent) pedigree I can't really say I've really noticed him much, so no idea what he'll bring. It'll be interesting to see how the move works out.

Not much to say really. We should obviously be beating Reading and we did. We did deserve to, but it was quite a lacklustre performance and we did let Reading play better in the second half. I am a bit concerned about Ten Hag's lack of rotation. For all we know it may be that he doesn't much faith in some of the other players (with good reason in some cases), but we already have played a lot of games and have a lot of games in quick succession for the next month at least. I do wonder if it'll affect us.

He's been a good signing for us all things considered, but he shouldn't be playing in the big away games. Certainly not in a deeper role anyway, and especially if Casemiro is out. In both the City and Arsenal games away he's really struggled with the pace of the game and was completely overrun. He's never been a monster physically of course, but with his obvious injury/health issue he now really doesn't have the energy or legs to be be able to compete. He doesn't have the defensive intelligence to make up for it either. If he played in a 3 with another two players who can cover for h

Not really a surprise. It's a poisoned chalice and he did do quite well to keep them up last season when they looked down and out, but he hasn't overly impressed as a manager in his career so far so I don't know how good he actually is. I'm not sure who they go for now tbh, Duncan Ferguson as caretaker again sounds as good a bet as any but he may not have as big an impact now that he doesn't work for the club as he did when he stepped up the last time. Bielsa's favourite but I'm not sure he'd actually be able to get them adapting to his style of play in such a short period of time.

The biggest shock in Scottish Cup history took place last night. Part-timers Darvel FC from the 6th tier of Scottish football, from the town of Darvel who have a population of 4000, beat Aberdeen 1-0 to dump them out the cup. It wasn't even a usual 'lucky goal then backs to the wall' performance. Their GK did make 3 good saves in the second half, but overall they were as good as Aberdeen and deserved to win. Obviously Aberdeen were absolutely dreadful otherwise they'd have had no chance, but they still had to step up and perform, and they did that. What a result!

We got what we deserved. I thought we were decent in the first half. Arsenal did edge it, but we were competitive, picked our moments well on the counter and were well in the game. But Arsenal really took control in the second half, which ended up with us getting deeper and deeper and we just couldn't get a hold of possession. I thought we showed good character to get level again after going behind, but we were fortunate to still be in with a chance of a point. The subs were quite defensive, which was understandable considering we were being overrun, but it did result in us not

I thought he was too far to his right too, but the attempt to save it also looked a bit odd to me. He just seemed to jump up in the air with a weak arm out - surely if he actually dive with two hands he'd have got to it?

I don't actually blame him for getting annoyed with Anthony tbf. However, I thought he was poor in the lead up to Casemiro's booking and he ended up putting him under the pressure he was under to make the challenge which resulted in the booking. I couldn't make up my mind whether he was asleep and just didn't know where the player was, or if he didn't fancy the challenge, but he lost the ball far too easily considering he was the favourite for it.

@hdcantonamaybe just move this thread to the Players' forum? I do think we made a mistake taking him off, unless it was a lack of fitness. A few nice touches and flicks aside he didn't do an awful lot, but like Martial at the weekend I think he was at least occupying defenders and was creating space for others. That didn't happen once he went off.

It's not really clicking with him so far. He's scored a few good goals, but he has a lot of growing up to do and a lot to do to adapt to the Premier League. He seems to struggle without the same time and space it looked like he was getting in the Eredivisie. He's looking like a wannabe show pony at the moment.

It'll be good to get him back. He's obviously been underwhelming but has shown his talent in flashes, and our lack of depth in the squad is a problem so having someone else to call upon would be good. Hopefully Ten Hag can get him into a good place and we start seeing the best of him more often/

I don't think we can have many complaints. Not sure whether it was complacency, looking towards the weekend's game too much, fatigue, or just a comedown from a big win at the weekend but we never really got going. We played ok in the first half, but the second half was poor and overall it was a pretty flat performance (albeit we possibly should have had a penalty in the second half) Yes we weren't troubled too much throughout, but De Gea had to make two saves so there was a danger there. On the face of it it's not a huge blow considering our recent form, particularly as the chances o

I think anyone who can afford to buy us will have some sort of skeleton in the closet so to speak, so I think Ratcliffe would be the best of a bad bunch tbh. I've never understood the desire for wanting an owner who will just splash the cash, on players anyway. For all of the Glazers' failings, we've still spent huge amounts of money over the years to no avail. I just want someone who knows how to run a club effectively, or at least who knows someone who does. Whether that's Ratcliffe I have no idea - I'd think a lot of people who are spending the amount it'll cost to buy us will wan

Pretty much exactly what I said in the matchday thread. At the start of the second half we really couldn't keep hold of the ball once he'd gone off, as he's always good at taking the ball in and players were making runs off the back of that. He's always been a frustrating player because the talent has clearly always been there, but we've rarely seen it consistently. His form in the few games earlier in the season when he came back from his first injury made it look like we could be optimistic, but he hasn't replicated that after his recent comeback. Hopefully he's just still not ful

Even before today I didn't think we should be looking to get rid of him in a hurry. He's been underwhelming overall in his time here, but I think he's done quite well since coming back this season so I'd give him a chance under Ten Hag. The only other RB we have is Dalot, so we'd have to sign someone else as well.