I am not sure if we made City look poor

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

or if city were holding back waiting to pick us off and it never came. And maybe it never came due to the way we played. or we both played for a draw. We were nervous first 20 mins but then settled.

WD Arteta imo. and well done Tomiyasu. Not sure what he was doing up front but good for him.

Also Eddie offers nothing. he always has his head down and even takes the ball of his team mates when he is a mile offside.

Rice, the nominal inside-left, was playing deeper with TP5, so Tommy, having glanced behind him, saw that Dec was in MF and able cover LB so he could do a Zinny libero.

I think MA has decided to use Tommy as he would a fit Timber and it's worked perfectly there.

Eddie did really well to control the ball for his chance, used the overlap to cut inside and if he'd got a bit more curl, it would have been a great goal. It was more than any of his teammates did until Gabby M came on.

Is putting it a bit wide really that much worse than Gabby's great shot that unfortunately went straight to the 'keeper? Or Ødin blasting over?

Basically, young Tedward came a lot closer to scoring than their goblin-faced Norgie did. Give him a chance.

I will say that while I'm still a little unconvinced about Kai at inside left, he does give us the tall no.9 plan B we've lacked. Great back to goal work for the assist.

Fabio's looked good at inside left and ESR should deffo be playing more minutes there - look how many shots he's had on target in the few minutes he's played. Kai does win a lot of duels GX style which people ignore.

Dec looks a bargain, Timber looks like he could be world class, Kai hasn't looked better than GX and could just be a very expensive tall, plan B striker and I still feel happier with Rambo than Raya.

Oh, and remember when we all said MA was mad to drop big Gabby at the start of the season? Yesterday showed why the Saliba-Gabby partnership is the best since the days of GG {him, not me} trained CHs. TA, Stevie B, MK, Sol. Saliba's like TA6 with O'Leary's ball-playing ability and Gabby's like MK for aggression. We've looked so much better since we've had the back 4 back.

[Peter]

I think Ramsdale just has this unshakeable confidence in himself, even if he makes an error he gets over it straight away. I don't think Raya has that.

Exactly that. Ramsdale is cocky and full of it. You need that in a keeper. Raya looked terrified.

I accept that Raya will get better as he gets more used to the players around him but I just don't think he is really any better than Ramsdale with the ball. Difference is marginal at best.

[Chief Arrowhead]

Stillman's column in Arseblog last week helped me to understand what the plan is. With the ball Raya assumes the left center half position, Gabriel shifts to LB and Ziggy inverts to create an extra outlet in midfield. Sounds good in theory, but if Raya still misplaces the outlet pass we're in big trouble!