Cizzler

We had to play 3-5-2 because it's the only formation we are familiar with and our two left back's are injured. Everyone saw how shite Baker was there against Everton. Lambert didn't want Downing to have that opportunity. So 3-5-2. As for Vlaar in defensive midfield? What a bizarre and pointless suggestion. What difference would it have made?! He was our best defender and depressingly started most of our attacks from deep cos he was the only defender calm enough on the ball to attempt to pass it out on occasion. I'm not saying play him there, please read. I'm saying that our manager should have some nous and see that we didn't need 3 CB's and push him on a little bit. As you said, he was our only player today with a bit of presence on the ball. We needed more presence going forward. As much as I have defended Lambert, he doesn't seem to know how to change a game. We didn't need to play 3-5-2 today. You say we couldn't play Baker at LB and that's the reason we played 3-5-2, yet we still played Bacuna at LWB. Kinda invalidates your argument a tad doesn't it? We should have been more positive. Guzan, Lowton, Clark, Vlaar, Bacuna, Sylla, Westy, KEA, Tonev, Benteke, Weimann. The 4-3-3 has been proven to work away from home. Why change it to respect a frankly terrible, negative West Ham side? I'm not completely sure of Bacuna's natural position but it's certainly not left back. Sticking him there in the 4-3-3 formation would have been suicidal. Luna is consistently exposed in that formation and it's he's been playing there all his career. Tonev would have offered no protection and Downing would have ripped Bacuna to shreds. Whereas in the 3-5-2, when he was beaten, which he frequently was, Baker was often there to protect him and block the cross. I still don't really see your point of pushing Vlaar in front of our centre backs. Westwood was playing there. If the idea is to pressure them further up the pitch, then I agree with the intent. I'm really not sure your more positive formation would have yielded a better result. Personally, I just don't think we have the players to break teams down and win games. I think we are resoundingly shit. We rely on individual moments from Benteke or Gabby or defensive errors. The optimism I felt after the first two fixtures has well and truly vanished.

We had to play 3-5-2 because our two left backs are injured and it's the only formation without LB's we are familiar with. Everyone saw how shite Baker was there against Everton. Lambert didn't want Downing to have that opportunity. So 3-5-2. As for Vlaar in defensive midfield? What a bizarre and pointless suggestion. What difference would it have made?! He was our best defender and depressingly started most of our attacks from deep cos he was the only defender calm enough on the ball to attempt to pass it out on occasion.

Guzan 7 - Clean sheet, with a few good stops and a good command of his area. Lowton 6 - Torn apart by Jarvis but was depressingly our only quality going forward. Put in a good cross when Benteke rattled the bar. Vlaar 8 MOTM - Our best defender. Comfortable on the ball. He looks quicker and stronger this season. A massive factor as to why the 3-5-2 is notably less disastrous this season. Baker 6 - Meh. He's good in the air but terrible in possession. Clark 7 - Seems to have cut out his habit of infuriating mistakes. I prefer him to Baker. Bacuna 6 - Did as well as could be expected against Downing considering he was in a completely new position. KEA 3 - A three may be harsh, but I can't stand him. He's weak, slow, can't control a ball, shoot or pass. He's shite. Westwood 5 - Probably the pick of our midfielders, depressingly. He put in a good ball to Weimann's one-on-one but he's also weak and painfully unimaginative. Sylla 4 - Gets a better mark than KEA cos he's actually quick and strong. He's shite in possession. That shot into the upper-tier almost made me sick. Benteke 6 - Unfortunately he deserves to be at a better club. Played like he knew it and hardly ran all game but I doubt he's fully fit and his two chances were almost the difference. Weimann 4 - God awful. He's crap. i can't recall if he was crap last season but scoring and blighting my judgement. But he's just complete crap this season. He can't keep missing one-on-ones and staying in the team. Also pathetic in a tussle with Morrison - hardly Hulk bloody Hogan. Kozak 5 - At least he gave the West Ham defence something different to think about and gave Benteke some space. We played crap. Our players are crap. I don't really blame Lambert. Luna and Bennett were injured which didn't leave him much choice. I agree with him that Bacuna at LWB is preferable to Baker out at LB. Baker can barely play football. Ultimately, we missed Delph and Gabby. Our midfield without Delph is turgid, weak and technically abysmal. How Lambert has managed to create a midfield that can't retain the ball is a talent - but it's not like he's pissed money away. He has his hands tied behind his back by Lerner. I said in the match threat his job is impossible. We are miles away from Everton and Southampton. Let alone Man City and Chelsea. I'd like to see this formation with Delph, Gabby and Luna back. Let's see Benteke and Gabby up front. Delph, Westwood and Bacuna in the middle. Okore instead of Baker and that's a far better side. Anyway, At least our defence is better this season.

Absolutely diabolical. 39% possession against West Ham? It's **** embarrassing. The players aren't good enough. Weimann and KEA have been appalling. They aren't Premiership standard. Westwood, Sylla and Baker just aren't good enough. Vlaar has played well. I almost feel sorry for Benteke. He's got nothing to work with at all. I don't blame Lambert, I blame Lerner. Lambert has an impossible job. With this budget all you can possibly do is barely compete. That's all we are doing and it's boring and infuriating to watch. We can't pass a **** ball.

Then who is up front with Benteke? I think we'll be 3-5-2. Not optimistic. Sylla has to contain Morrison if we're going to win.

Vlaar, Delph, Bacuna and Guzan have looked really good. Westwood - mehhh and Baker has looked sturdy mostly. There was one seriously poor pass from him though. Gabby has been anonymous. Benteke has been terrible. Guilty of poor touches, missing a penalty and greedily not squaring it to Bacuna. Weimann has been even worse. Thoroughly fed up with him this season. He can't even finish anymore. Can't quite understand the clamour to hate Tonev in this thread. Must be a fad. He played a nice through ball into Benteke for a one-on-one and is working hard. His inclusion is one of the reasons we have an exciting game and not the dull, cagey affair a midfield trio of Delph, Westy and KEA brings.

Pretty sure Graham Burke and Enda Stevens are back with us.

I can't have understood right. You staked £1200 on Celtic to do the double over Ajax for a maximum £200 winnings?!

yes but that defence wasn't a CB pairing of jones and smalling like that line up suggests.... hopefully walker has finally pushed out Johnson, id be happy with cole or baines and cahill / jagielka whilst not inspiring are probably as good as we'll get and both decent enough, same for hart which again questions the journos in this country, why when we've had a good defence in qualifying would a journo suggest pairing 2 bit part players who both play RB every other week at utd at the WC? I often criticise the mentality of roy for naming them in the squad, but journos are obviously suggesting they deserve to play, which is ludicrous Which centre backs would you pick ahead of Smalling and Jones in the squad? I don't agree with the article that Cahill and Jagielka should be dropped. I don't think either are top class internationally (especially Jagielka) but they've formed a relatively successful partnership and obviously shouldn't be dropped favour of two inexperienced players who are not even first choice for their club. However, I can't think of any other centre backs I'd rather have in the squad than Smalling and Jones. These two look like the future pairing for England and integrating them into the squad seems like a good idea. They are both versatile players also. There isn't an embarrassment of riches. After these four, it's the likes of Shawcross, Dawson, Caulker and Curtis Davies.

wow. That is pretty insane actually. The date of the article in the top right is 12/13 October 2013. Not that insane, really.

Yes, the very same Slovakia. If England lost to them at Wembley the inevitable national outcry would be justified. Do you agree that "a full strength Bosnia is as good as England" then?

Oh come off it. Didn't they just lose 1-0 at home to Slovakia?

I'm also new to the sport! I went to the Redskins v Eagles game at the start of the season as a neutral. Ended up disliking both teams rather than finding one to support Ended up loosely following the Vikings for a mixture of reasons... AP definitely helped! I also went to a Notre Dame game whilst I was out in the States and honestly enjoyed that a lot more. Although perhaps I'm not strictly differentiating the game from the tailgating/ college girls....

We live in an era which is almost defined by globalisation... but your views are still outdated by thousands of years. You can not define nationality on name alone. How English is the Queen? If her surname was still Saxe-Coburg how would you feel?

I enjoyed his extract from his book. "I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life the night I went to watch Chelsea win the 2012 Champions League final. You all know what happened. Chelsea were outplayed by Bayern Munich — as they had been by Barcelona and by Napoli in previous rounds — but they won the trophy. It meant Spurs hadn’t qualified for the following season’s Champions League, despite finishing fourth — two points above Chelsea in the Premier League. They took our place as holders. I was distraught. I felt like crying. Jamie invited me over — he said Sky had a box at the game and I should go as his guest. Ruud Gullit was there and was carrying on right in front of me like a lunatic. He had nothing riding on the game — Chelsea had sacked him, for heaven’s sake — but he didn’t care. Ruud was jumping around, cheering, singing, banging on the windows to draw the attention of the Chelsea players — and, when they looked up, in the background was me, feeling probably at my lowest as a football manager."

Mignolet went for £9 million, so I'd imagine a comparable price to that. I am not at all convinced by Szczesny but it is still highly unlikely we will sell him to Arsenal. Brad seems to like it here.

I imagine his feed is too full of people with extreme opinions on his own nationality and a more passionate desire than me to air their thoughts.

Then KP should read what Jack Wilshere actually said. He doesn't attempt to redefine the contested concept of nationality at all. He merely says that 'only people that are English should play for England'. I highly doubt Januzaj perceives himself as English after living here for about two years, so I believe that is a more than fair retort to the question.

I know its difficult as official transfer figures aren't usually divulged, but as well as Ozil, a few other answers threw me.

He didn't say that though. This is verbatim. Jack Wilshere: "No, for me if you are English you are English and you play for England. The only people who should play for England are English people. If you live in England for five years it doesn’t make you English. You shouldn’t play ... it doesn’t mean you can play for a country. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I am not going to play for Spain." Defining nationality is obviously difficult as ultimately it will always come down to how the individual culturally aligns himself. However, Wilshere did not say anything suggesting that people who aren't born in England aren't English/ or shouldn't play for England. His words are being twisted. He is merely against the 'nationalisation' of players who are clearly foreign and are either just not good enough to play for their own respective countries, such as Arteta or Cudicini, or choose 'nationalisation' to play for a 'better' country as our media embarrassingly assume Januzaj will do. Wilshere isn't especially eloquent but I agree with his point in principle. He does need to shut up, stop smoking and concentrate on playing football though.

It won't be any more difficult for him when they come back, really. Arteta replaced Song as their deepest lying midfielder and is now competing with Flamini for a starting place. Cazorla will play on the left and Walcott will play on the right. It took Ramsey and Delph an age to get over their injury problems. Wilshere is obviously not playing well at the minute but he was before his injuries. If he recovers his form he'll be a very good player. It's just fashionable to dislike a player that the media have hyped so much - people choose to whinge at his deflected goal, and not mention how good his through-ball was to play Giroud in for a one-on-one. Although I admit he will struggle to get into the first choice Arsenal midfield this season, as Ramsey is playing so well in his position.

Well his brothers back on twitter. Seems like Matty has just been dropped due to poor form... Bit surprised he didn't even make the bench at the weekend though. You'd have thought he'd be ahead of Herd.

Not even in the squad yesterday. Bennett, Baker and Herd on the bench ahead of him? KEA's very deliberate efforts to celebrate with him after scoring against City... His brother hasn't posted on twitter for a month either - which is definitely out of character. It's strange because he played really well in pre-season, and of course last season. I don't think it's an attitude problem after a new contract, or even a bust-up with Lambert - as he was selected v Spurs, but something has happened.

I went. My Chicken Balti pie was good. Weimann was terrible. Clark has improved. Delph played well. It was dull.

Anyone think it was a bit strange that El Ahmadi ran straight to Lowton and hugged him after equalising? I don't want to wildly speculate but I do think its an unusual first thought to have after scoring such an important goal.