Davvo

Then people are daft mate. His one weakness for me is his reaction time off the ball sometimes, usually shortly after a lung busting run, so maybe he needs to be a little more reserved in bursting forward, I don't know. For 60 minutes he was great, 33 he was good but tiring, and last minute he almost cost us a point. Ran himself into the ground like, and only one of the hardest working 4 positions not to be subbed or moved to a role with less energy required. (Ignoring the fullbacks who are too young to be tired ).

Selection, tactics, shape, absolutely spot on from BR, perfect set up for an away at Arsenal. Compact, energetic, solid, kept the ball well, real threat going forward. Tired quickly in the last half hour I thought, not surprisingly, and it exposed a pretty weak bench, but we deserved a point minimum tonight. That first hour, with Lucas sat deep, Benteke up top, and 4 good footballers in between, was a delight to watch.

Bobbie looks good, but yes second half Bobbie was f***ed.

Can was virtually faultless til the last minute failure to close that lad down. His ability on the ball, and awareness, are top drawer.

He was terrific, such a good reader of the game. He also, at one point, put a half decent cross in with his left, so he can use it, just needs someone at Melwood encouraging him to trust it more. Really classy defender.

Bit of a vague, compact Christmas tree possibly. Phil and Firmino busy and tucked behind Benteke.

Aye, our squad is enormous. We could already pick a half decent (and/or very well paid) team of senior players who've not even been on the bench in the league this season, before you even start with the kids and one's we've got loaned out. No complaints obviously, if there are more starter quality players coming in. A 1st choice left back would be useful too mind, given Moreno seems out of favour.

HaHa, classic Cobs. Clyne pushed up, Gomez rarely crossed the halfway line. Therefore the 3 across the pitch behind Benteke were naturally left biased. Try again, and put Ibe, Lallana, and Coutinho in order form left to right. Lallana was central of the 3. Of course there was fluidity, but nominally it was 4-2-3-1 .

You're taking the piss surely ? Watch it again if you need to, but he played centre of the 3 mostly, Phil right, Ibe left.

you need to watch it again then, was doing my head in. Maybe they switched a lot I don't know, but certainly he spent more time centrally than right. Good to see I'm not going mad, not much wide right in that.

Lallana spent the vast majority of Monday's game centrally, with Coutinho to the right. The two strikers comment I agree with, but then any creative player, including Phil, will always look better behind two strikers rather than 1, and Coutinho's clearly better suited than Lallana, who should effectively be his cover, rather than a starter.

He looks a good player, but are people really not seeing the fact he can only play the ball with one foot, and it's the wrong one for the position he's being played in ? Wenger will be spending the next week talking about that in training, quality players will expose him out there. He's composed, quick, and picks a nice pass, but we can't keep playing him LB and get away with it. As soon as someone smart enough starts blocking his options with his right instead of instinctively closing down the LB's left foot, he's going to come under pressure.

I can't quite understand why there's a fight though to be honest. Gomez is more one footed than JAR, and playing on the wrong side, got away with it against average opposition so far. I'd have Sakho at LB ahead of Gomez, who, no left foot aside, looks a player.

Aye, it was soft, and people do get away with that kind of thing a lot, but when the ref has such a clear view he's got to give that.

Aye, that would be my move.

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Not sure I follow that, but the pending arrival of his child could most certainly be a reason to send him to Swindon for fitness, rather than Helsinki. Would love to see him start Sunday.

The trickiest part of the season, will be the careful re-integration of Sturridge, to a side that's won 7 straight, scoring 23 goals in the process. Get that right and we're laughing.

The last sentence is the key, I think that's the short term goal. In the medium and long term, if they're playing that game, then they are just trying to be much more careful to purchase players with future value. Incredibly difficult, but if you buy half a dozen reasonably young, and not yet in the viewfinders of the world's richest clubs, you've half a chance of picking up one future £50m player, and hoping the rest will do no worse than depreciate in line with book value. I don't think it's a great strategy for building a side that can compete at the very top regularly, for reasons stated. It could be seen as a smart strategy to keep us at least in the vicinity, and with an outside chance if everything clicks, whilst paying for the stand.

Coutinho and Sturridge are next on the block. In 3 years time Firmino's value on our books will be substantially lower than the fee we paid, and then there's the clear profit available on any sale of Ibe or Ojo. Not to mention any other signings we make in the near future, kids coming through, or unexpected rises in stock of the likes of Markovic, Origi, Ings etc. There is a clear attempt to purchase players that we think can at least hold, but preferably increase in value over the medium term. Rather than previous regimes who've looked to go more for the finished article, or at least more established, and a little older, with little or no sell on value. Think of the dozens of players we've ended up having sat around on huge salaries, who end up leaving for nothing, and often we can't even shift out on loan. What we are doing makes sense financially, but possibly creates more of a challenge to compete, with players still very much in the development stage, and now a 2nd year in a row with a huge turnover of players.

Profit of approx £51M on transfer activity, in the 12 months to May 2015. We'll find out how this window has gone in about 7 month's time, but we certainly wont have eaten much into that £51M, if at all. They are smart with the transfer activity, and the extension of contracts. Study the last set of accounts, and particularly note how they managed to spend more than they received in 2014/15, yet still turn a huge profit on transfer activity. The sale of a low value player, for a huge fee, makes a lot of money, with all the profit going through the books in that same year's accounts, whereas tha mojority of the purchase costs are deferred. It's short term accounting, as it will eventually catch up with you, if you continue to spend big, and especially if you fail to shift a profitable asset in any one given year. If you just want to generate income in the short term, whilst still putting out a decent side, it works great as a strategy. When the stadium's paid for, hopefully it'll change.