Nkunku could have came on earlier.  Felix could have come on instead of Mudryck and we could have switched Palmer wide and played Felix down the middle.  We know what Misha offers and it is not much - other than pace.  Neto had a very good game and scored a cracking goal. Neto did a lot of good defensive work all game as well.  I thought all our players did alright. Our CB's are young and inexperienced but they both have pace and ability.  Our GK gets a lot of stick, but his reflexes are really good. His inexperience is often the issue. We have a very young team.  A very young team, the youngest team, with a new manager and we are 3rd.

Just now, axman2526 said:

Looking at the table we are a point above being joint 9th.

Your glass isn't even half empty ... it's smashed to bits on the concrete floor LOL

11 rounds gone and we are 3rd after having played City, Liverpool, Arsenal, United, Newcastle, plus Brighton & Forest who are 5th & 6th.

It's not even mid November and we now have to worry about only one difficult match in the coming months - away at Spurs. Other than that it's a pretty good run of fixtures up until very late of January when we go away at City. 

We've put ourselves in a good position before the festive period which, if I am being honest, it's probably the easiest we've had in so many years.

Arsenal? Well, if that's how a title contender looks in their manager's 5th season at the club, then I am really happy with our progress so far.

4 minutes ago, mojo said:

Two excellent goals from Caicedo and now Neto after going behind. Why is it always reactive though? Why can't we produce this at 0-0?

Thank God Trossard robbed Havertz off the winner. He really robs me the wrong way now , such a w**ker 

2 minutes ago, petre ispirescu said:

 

It's not even mid November and we now have to worry about only one difficult match in the coming months - away at Spurs. Other than that it's a pretty good run of fixtures up until very late of January when we go away at City. 

 

True, but I think the Villa game is crucial.  We have to win that one.

1 minute ago, petre ispirescu said:

11 rounds gone and we are 3rd after having played City, Liverpool, Arsenal, United, Newcastle, plus Brighton & Forest who are 5th & 6th.

It's not even mid November and we now have to worry about only one difficult match in the coming months - away at Spurs. Other than that it's a pretty good run of fixtures up until very late of January when we go away at City. 

We've put ourselves in a good position before the festive period which, if I am being honest, it's probably the easiest we've had in so many years.

Arsenal? Well, if that's how a title contender looks in their manager's 5th season at the club, then I am really happy with our progress so far.

We dropped silly points at home to Palace and Forest. People will say the Forest game wasn't too bad because they are having a good season, but they were down to 10 men and we wasted two easy chances to win the game late on. I wouldn't count on those so called easier run of fixtures going our way.

2 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Two excellent goals from Caicedo and now Neto after going behind. Why is it always reactive though? Why can't we produce this at 0-0?

We are a very young team and we need to build the confidence of some players. Players like Neto.  He has it. 'it' being what is needed. He needs a little more confidence.

1 minute ago, The Don Antonio said:

Thank God Trossard robbed Havertz off the winner. He really robs me the wrong way now , such a w**ker 

Saliba was offside and it would not have counted anyway. 

Arteta saying Arsenal dominated the game.

f**king idiot.

2 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

We dropped silly points at home to Palace and Forest. People will say the Forest game wasn't too bad because they are having a good season, but they were down to 10 men and we wasted two easy chances to win the game late on. I wouldn't count on those so called easier run of fixtures going our way.

I know, but starting the next matchdays being top four and coming after positive results against the likes of United and Arsenal gives this very young squad a different feeling. It's still early in the season and we were not in the position of having to win these derby games at any costs and Maresca knows this and his primary target was not to lose these matches and bring more confidence to his whole squad. I think we will look better and more solid against the lesser sides now that we got all these difficult fixtures out of our way.

32 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Palmer on the right, Neto on the left, Nkunku behind Jackson for me (but at this point, I would rather see Guiu play than Jackson)

If all the Jackson has to offer is pace in behind we might as well play Mudryk up top. Palmer right, Neto left and Nkunku in the 10. But all could rotate throughout the game in all four positions.. Just having Neto, Mudryk and Nkunku in forward positions at the same time would scare the sh*t out of most defences if we had the bollox to play vertically 

21 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Your glass isn't even half empty ... it's smashed to bits on the concrete floor LOL

Tight game that always looked like 1 goal might settle it so in the end, am glad with the point, as Arsenal always looked more threatening - especially from set-pieces.

Disappointing that we again didn't really turn up against a top 6 side. We did okay, but at some point we need to be more than okay. Too many players out of form at the moment and with our defence, we are never likely to keep a clean sheet.

At the moment, it looks like the dippers could run away with it, but still a long way to go.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

Sanchez can take part of the blame, and so can Lavia and the defence for the leaving the back post free.......again. 

The one who should take the most blame is Maresca. These mistakes are part of his ass tactics.

This.

How many times now has the whole defence bunched up together, presumably to try an draw an offside. It's a sh*t tactic and costs us constantly.  Somebody should be held to account for this sh*te

1 hour ago, JM7 said:

Nkunku has 3 mins 

Yet some will judge. Total bollox

Good game and probably a good result. We know that we are sh*t defending at times and we’d give them one or two occasions, but we came back without anyone expecting it. I still think that Sanchez should have saved that goal, f**king he’ll, first post and he lets that in. Not unexpected, though, we need a better goalie (and our defenders to learn how to defend). But it’s not entirely his fault, defensively we always look all over the place.

In any case, it was the best atmosphere at the Bridge this season (and probably for more than a year). And a draw was probably a fair result. And it is a good result for us, we’re going in the right direction. After all, they’ve been chasing the league for a couple of seasons (unsuccessfully), while we’re just a team of youngsters learning how to become a team.

1 hour ago, petre ispirescu said:

11 rounds gone and we are 3rd after having played City, Liverpool, Arsenal, United, Newcastle, plus Brighton & Forest who are 5th & 6th.

It's not even mid November and we now have to worry about only one difficult match in the coming months - away at Spurs. Other than that it's a pretty good run of fixtures up until very late of January when we go away at City. 

We've put ourselves in a good position before the festive period which, if I am being honest, it's probably the easiest we've had in so many years.

Arsenal? Well, if that's how a title contender looks in their manager's 5th season at the club, then I am really happy with our progress so far.

Some perspective is needed. If we didn’t score that 86 min winner vs Bournemouth, we would be 9th.

2 hours ago, carrickblue said:

Palmer looks exhausted. I thought saving him from the Conference League was supposed to be genius

 

2 hours ago, Gordon Bennett said:

Palmers been sh*t

Given his injury he would have been better coming off the bench rather than the full 90, especially in a game where the opposition is likely run you ragged for most of the game.  

A draw was about right IMO.

Didn't do enough to win and TBH I expected a bit more after we equalized as momentum was with us.

We seem to be happy with just competing with the top teams at present rather than actually believing we can beat them.

Doing OK considering certain players have been poor recently.

Sancho on the left and Neto on the right for me.

Top 4 is the very best we can hope for with these players, it's gonna go down to the wire I reckon.

Decent result and a fair draw. We kept Arsenal to 1, which is a very good effort. They had a couple of close ones, but nobody would claim they carved us up. Great individual effort from Neto, think he got that spot nailed down. The midfield combination is starting to pay dividends, I think we'd be 2 or 3 down if Enzo started. We played 4 big teams so far ( let's include United for argument sake), got 2 draws out of it. We will need to beat the Spurs and Villa if we want to be the standout candidate for the 4th spot. 

This was always a learning and rebuilding year. 

Have to take it in stride.

Double posted

Edited November 10, 20241 yr by Deino
Double posted

2 hours ago, SFL82 said:

The moaning is crazy, we are rough but we are heading in the right direction, general defending was much better it’s the brain farts that cost us but as a team much better smothering the ball. 
 

We are the youngest team in the league coming through that fixture list in 3rd, we look organised our recycling is good, if we can and we will work on being clinical and the concentration lapses we are a title challenging team next season. 
 

We are beating the teams we should and competing well with the big teams being gloomy after the past 3 years we have had is madness 

I think some people are just remembering too much of the old days.

Our team isn't ready for winning the EPL. 

I’m not as disappointed as some with a draw. We’ve gone toe to toe with a team that has challenged right at the top for the last two seasons and not been outshone. Arsenal finished the stronger after Lavia went off. Forfana probably had his best game for us, Caceido and Lavia look a good balanced midfield, Neto again looked like the player we hoped for when we bought him. Another four yellows, these are starting to stack up and will comeback to haunt us later in the season, disappointed especially in the Madueke one for f**king about with the ball. Thought Nkunku should have been on at 70 and possibly Felix for the ineffective Jackson and Palmer if we were to push on for a winner as we didn’t really look like scoring again after the equaliser. Overall we have to be happy with a third at this stage of the season, it’ll be tight to get into the top four at the end of the season, main thing is we are now challenging.