OTF

Santon could defend when he wanted to, problem was for a long time here he couldn't be bothered. New manager coming in would have foreseeably been the kick start he needed.

Cabella would work well in the system we played, so could see a fair bit of time on the pitch at home. An established left back would be good, though Haidara did improve as the match went on to his credit. A long, long way to go defensively but at that age with his limited premier league experience there could foreseeably be a solid amount of improvement in him. Anita turned over possession cheaply on a few occasions on the weekend with no pressure on him which was a worry. His contribution was effective otherwise but against a better opposition he could get lost. Tiote, Coloccini and de Jong are all well off full match fitness (Tiote and de Jong in particular) and will struggle for a while as a result.

CT has company for the game.... Haidara improved as the game progressed though defensively he's still got a long way to go.

Well said deaders.

I could watch that Widjnaldum goal all day.

Some very good signs there and a couple of very familiar worrying ones. Always disappointing to not win when you're ahead in the second half, but the biggest thing to take away from this is a new way of playing that sets a platform that our attacking players can work from.

Glad Mbemba was there, made him change his shape for the shot resulting in him pushing it wide.

Take a bow Colback, great defense. Tiote and de Jong are not match fit.

That's how you win a defensive header.

The real fault was giving them so much time to cross, though yes, Janmaat was too flat footed.

How many seconds to get a yellow on debut?

That hard tackling, speedy winger we've brought in in the off-season is looking good.

Insightful.

That and the ball was shit. If you've got a guy with pace to burn make him use it to get to the ball in a good position.

I wasn't putting it down to Williamson, though I was saying he is incapable of playing it out from the back.

Yeah, there's something differ about it. The intent to play it out is the antithesis of Williamson and most of last season. Refreshing.

Get those lottery tickets, Cisse just made a successful tackle and insightful pass in quick succession (we'll forget what he did immediately before).

Mbemba has some toe about him, it will be nice to finally have a central defender with pace. Can't decide whether Colback is doing nothing out there or if he's helping to keep our shape and give our forward men space to work in. Kind of the same with Anita.

There is no substitute for pace. Obertan really did extremely well there, Widjnaldum's run, timing and header were all top notch. I'm liking the cut of our jib spare for our defense.

Fucking brilliant! Great ball. Amazing run and header!

Brilliant Krul.

Obertan was in good form when he was injured last season. He's in there for his pace alone I would say and will likely be subbed at some point for Aarons or Perez.

It's good that they're actually talking about it, even if they don't implement it properly. It needs to be punished consistently and to the extreme because that's the only way to get it removed from the game. The saddest part is that it's so ingrained that it will take a full generation to eradicate fully, and that's being optimistic.

Tapatalk image embedding is shit.

Disappointing that that's the deserved feeling one day into a new season.